International Journal of Manpower

Emerald Article: Reconceptualising human resource planning in response to institutional change Abdul Rahman bin Idris, Derek Eldridge

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To cite this document: Abdul Rahman bin Idris, Derek Eldridge, (1998),"Reconceptualising human resource planning in response to institutional change", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 19 Iss: 5 pp. 343 - 357 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01437729810222011 Downloaded on: 30-04-2012 References: This document contains references to 51 other documents Citations: This document has been cited by 1 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 12480 times.

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Reconceptualising human resource planning in response to institutional change

Abdul Rahman bin Idris
Public Service Department, Government of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and

HRP in response to institutional change 343

Derek Eldridge
Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, UK
Introduction Since the 1980s an unprecedented rate of change facing both public and private organisations has produced a major reorientation of structures, systems and management methods. Human resource planning has not been exempt from this and the methods established in the 1970s and 1980s have increasingly been criticised as being prescriptive, over centralised and lacking a flexibility in planning for people under turbulent conditions. What then is the revised role for human resource planning when the skills of people are even more paramount in institutional success, lead times for internal skills development remain lengthy and the labour market is still not as responsive as it should be in terms of available competencies? This new role must also fit the situation in which formalised planning groups and structures as currently operated may be incompatible with the devolvement of planning and the empowerment of line managers in people matters. This paper intends to overview the development of the human resource planning discipline and to suggest a reorientation of its conceptual basis to meet current institutional demands, particularly in the public sector. In doing this it provides new emphasis and scope to the notion that planning is about institutional learning and that the prime beneficiaries of this learning should be the managers themselves (Geus, 1988). To release this potential a systems approach is adopted that takes human resource planning well beyond the organising scope that the original founders of the discipline had envisaged, but it is to them that we must turn in order to provide the building blocks for the new concept. The origins and conceptual progress of human resource planning Modern personnel planning dates from the 1940s when it was used to allocate staff and to develop career structures in conditions of acute shortage of skills. However, as a discipline with a strong conceptual base it did not fully arrive until the work of Bartholomew (1967) at the University of Kent, Morgan at

International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 19 No. 5, 1998, pp. 343-357, MCB University Press, 0143-7720

International Journal of Manpower 19,5 344

Cambridge and Smith (1970, 1971) at the UKs Civil Service Department. Much of Bartholomews thinking was adopted by the Institute of Employment Studies, UK, in the development of conceptual approaches to assist public and private sector organisations in the 1970s (Bartholomew and Morris, 1971). Also, substantive progress was made during the same period to develop analytical techniques within the UKs Civil Service for the more effective utilisation and development of skills (Smith, 1976). Much of the work in both institutions was concerned with the analysis of complex personnel structures using newly available software (Bartholomew and Forbes, 1979). This stage of conceptual development was consolidated by the emergence of the corporate view of human resource planning in the mid 1970s which continued through the 1980s, particularly as advocated by Bell (1974), Bowey (1974), McBeath (1978) and Lynch (1982). The thrust of this view is that human resource planning follows from and is complementary to organisational strategy. The initial interpretation of this approach was that human resource planning was subservient to corporate planning, but this was criticised by Edwards et al. (1983) who advocated that a human resource analysis should influence corporate strategy development. The various authors of the last 30 years have defined human resource planning according to their own disciplines, philosophies, orientations and contextual frameworks. To facilitate the discussion, these contributions are grouped as strategy oriented definitions and process oriented definitions. Strategy oriented definitions The most frequently-quoted strategy oriented definition is that of the Department of Employment, UK, which in 1970 defined human resource planning as A strategy for the acquisition, utilisation, improvement, and retention of an enterprises human resources. This definition was criticised by Stainer (1971) as being too detached from the objectives of the whole organisation. He states that Human resource planning aims to maintain and improve the ability of the organisation to achieve corporate objectives, through the development of strategies to enhance the contribution of personnel at all times in the foreseeable future. Lynch (1982) identifies two aims of corporate human resource planning, namely to ensure the optimum use of the personnel currently employed, and to provide for the future staffing needs of the enterprise in terms of skills, numbers and ages. He focuses on the development of personnel strategies to get the right number of employees, with the right level of talent and skills, to achieve the right objectives, to fulfil the corporate purpose. McBeath (1978) on the other hand stresses human resource planning as the basis of establishment control; the planner as a policeman who checks whether staffing levels are optimum. A more recent view of human resource planning seeks to link policy and practice together in day-to-day decision making, stressing the interrelationship of various aspects such as training, development and recruitment. Bramham

(1988) summarises this view and suggests that human resource planning is HRP in response essentially concerned with the effective use of human resources, which also to institutional embraces the future impact of employment decisions made today. change Process oriented definitions The process oriented definitions view human resource planning as a continuous process. Walker (1980) defines it as a management process of analysing an organisations human resource needs under changing conditions and developing the activities necessary to satisfy these needs. Similarly, Vetter (1967), Burack and Mathys (1980), and Burack (1985) define it as a process aimed at assisting management to determine how the organisation should move from its current staffing position to its desired position. Bennison and Casson (1984) also emphasise the importance of the process of planning, as distinct from the product. The former, which they refer to as the manpower map, takes account of the various scenarios apparent to planners and their fellow managers and is subject to continuous revision as circumstances change. On what human resource planning should be, Smith (1970; 1976) suggests that rather than producing a detailed blueprint, it should be regarded as a process in which the likely consequences of the continuation of current policies or the introduction of new policies can be assessed; action can be expected to forestall undesirable consequences. The key to his definition is the provision of a frequently updated framework of information for decision making. Such information is crucial towards a reduction of the risk of either surplus or shortage of particular kinds of skill. He suggests that the human resource planning process involves three major steps to do this, namely demand forecasting, supply analysis, and designing the interaction between demand and supply so that skills are utilised to the best advantage. The process oriented definitions on the whole emphasise the creation of the best possible framework of information within which decisions about the utilisation of resources to achieve organisational objectives can be made, particularly the human resource. Such information acts as an indispensable instrument for management to assess the feasibility of future alternative routes in meeting institutional demands. Organisational effectiveness: the key to reconceptualising the discipline Despite the difference in emphasis, both strategy and process oriented definitions share a common destination, that is the attainment of organisational or corporate objectives through the effective utilisation of human resources. As a result of the experiences of the last 20 years most of the writers agree that human resource planning has the potential to contribute in this way. They observe that planning practices have undergone transition towards greater attention to and tighter linkages with organisational strategies (Dyer, 1984; Schuler, 1987; Tichy et al., 1982). Research and practice have indicated that

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matching manager characteristics (Gupta and Govindarajan, 1984), reward systems (Kerr, 1985; Lawler, 1984), and development programmes (Tichy et al., 1982) with such strategies increases the probability that they will be effective. This transition has heightened the awareness of strategic human resource planning as a distinct research and application discipline within organisations. Ulrich (1987), in support of this view, analyses a three-phase evolution of human resource planning from its initial orientation to the present state of the art, namely strategic orientation. Phase one of the evolution witnessed the traditional framework within which human resource planning emphasised regulatory roles. In phase two, the emphasis was on human resource management utilising planning as a control mechanism to direct individuals to behave in ways consistent with organisational strategies. In phase three, human resource planning strived to create a competitive advantage through a strategic orientation. Taking this theme further at the strategic level, Nkomo (1986) emphasises a medium to long term human resource planning horizon of three to five years within which planning is defined as the process designed to prepare the organisation for the future and to ensure that decisions regarding the use of people contribute to the achievement of organisational objectives. The distinguishing feature of strategic human resource planning in achieving organisational effectiveness is thus the direct linking of human resource planning to the overall planning of the organisation and various models to integrate the two types of activity have been proposed (Buller, 1988; Burack, 1985; Gatewood and Rochmore, 1986; Jackson and Schuler, 1990; Nkomo, 1986, 1988; Ulrich, 1987; Walker, 1980, 1990). Alpander and Botter (1981) further suggest two aspects of such linkage, namely vertical and horizontal integration. Vertical integration indicates reciprocal relations between the strategic planning and human resource planning processes. Horizontal integration means the coordination of the strategic human resource planning and the acquisition, utilisation, development and retention elements in the management of human resources. From the definitions of human resource planning proposed by the various researchers and practitioners, it is possible to attempt to define what human resource planning is in todays circumstances. It is in our terms a management process designed to translate strategic objectives into targeted quantitative and qualitative skill requirements, to identify the human resource strategies and objectives necessary to fulfil those requirements over both the shorter and longer terms, and to provide necessary feedback mechanisms to assess progress. Overall the purpose of the planning is to invoke an institutional learning process and to generate information which can be utilised to support management decision making in all staffing areas. Human resource planning in todays conditions: the strategic systems approach A conceptual framework can be developed to meet todays circumstances through a deductive method of theory building, drawing its strengths from the

experience of practitioners and researchers, and is shown on Figure 1. The HRP in response theoretical basis for the managerial perspective of the framework is derived to institutional from the relevant organisational theories, particularly the systems approach change and contingency theories of the organisation. The relevant strategic aspect of the contingency approach incorporated by the framework is the relationship between an organisation and its environment. The framework is thus termed 347 the strategic systems approach to human resource planning. Its principal rationale centres on its strength in integrating the various facets involved in undertaking human resource planning. It allows a better consideration of the major forces and operational variables, both in the external environment and in the organisation, that have a crucial effect on how and why planning acts as it does. Thereby, human resource planning is conceived as an open system which operates and interacts with its environment. The framework is grounded in an energic input-transformation-output model of the open systems theory as introduced by von Bertalanffy (1968). An open system[1] imports some form of energy from the external environment, which is then transformed into outputs. The input of energies and the conversion of output into further energic input is based on transactions between the organisation and its environment. As such, the strategic systems approach to human resource planning represents an improvement over existing models which only provide a partial understanding of organisational decisions in a non-dynamic fashion, thus rendering a constraint on their application. A model

ENVIRONMENTAL OPPORTUNITIES OR THREATS SOURCES INTERMEDIATE MICRO

SOURCES External Sources Internal Sources

INPUTS 1. Corporate Objectives 2. Budget 3. Personnel data 4. Human resource planners expertise 5. Technical Support

TRANSFORMATION Tasks 1. Analyses of environmental factors, corporate objectives, and internal human resources 2. Forecasting Supply 3. Forecasting Demand 4. Matching Supply with Demand 5. Generation of Human Resource Objectives and Strategies Structure/Responsibility 1. Location of the Function 2. Roles and Responsibilities of Human Resource Planner Integrating Mechanism 1. Planning Cycle 2. Integration of HRP with Strategic Planning

USERS External Organisations Internal Decision-makers

OUTPUTS 1. Human Resource Functional Programmes 2. Operational Human Resource Plans 3. Implementation Programmes

FEEDBACK/EVALUATION

Figure 1. A systems approach for strategic human resource planning

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developed by Nkomo (1986) provides a useful reference in conceptualising this systems approach. The strategic focus of the framework signifies the unique place of human resource planning, recognising that the nature of human beings and their innate flexibility means that they cannot be planned and managed in a fashion similar to that for other resources. Furthermore, planning for the human resource involves creating a relationship between the organisation as a whole and the environment, which gives some continuing and satisfactory balance of benefits and risks for the organisation. It is pertinent also that a longer term perspective (at least three years and extending perhaps to five years for some types of occupation) is adopted within the model since this length of period is required to produce new skills, to upgrade existing ones and to engage in organisational transformation (Skinner, 1981). The adoption of such a perspective is necessary to manage uncertainties and risks created by major changes in environmental factors in the medium to long term. The framework, however, does not preclude outputs for decision making reflecting shorter time horizons which thereby are based on a strategic rather than a purely tactical perspective. The relationships that human resource planners and human resource planning processes create among groups within the organisation serve as the thrust of the strategic view of the framework. Such relationships give rise to the form of planning adopted and implementation responsibilities for those involved. Equally important is the determination of planning inputs, sources of inputs, users of the outputs, and the types of outputs required. In essence, the strategic view argues for a joint responsibility for planning between managers and planners and emphasises that the transformation stage of the system underpins their relationship. Finally, the framework incorporates key organisational and management variables considered important for the organisation to comprehend and articulate in its pursuit of change. The crucial role of transformation in the strategic systems model The strategic systems approach to human resource planning, as presented in Figure 1, provides a conceptual basis for undertaking planning within a managerial environment and for emphasising the role of planning as a stimulator of institutional learning. The key component in these respects is transformation which goes beyond the integrated four phase process of Bramham (1988), namely investigation, forecasting, planning and utilising, and the purely forecasting and control mechanisms of Timperley (1974) and Walker (1980). Transformation is the process of converting the systems inputs into outputs through a series of patterned and interrelated activities. The utility of the inputs is enhanced through interdependent activities performed in sequence. Sequences may be complex, as divergent activities through one input are converted into a variety of outputs, or convergent activities through multifarious inputs are converted into one type of output. Activities may thus operate in parallel or successively, their performance changing the form, shape,

or condition; or the arrangement and assortment; or the place, of inputs. The HRP in response process of transformation involves four major components, namely the to institutional analytical contribution, locating planning responsibility, the integrating change mechanism and feedback for learning. The analytical contribution Environmental scanning. Environmental analysis is the starting point for human resource planning (Nkomo, 1988). It entails the systematic identification and analysis of key trends and forces in the external environment having a potential impact on the management of the human resource, and requires the development of consistent patterns in streams of organisational decisions (Mintzberg, 1983). Changes taking place in the technological, economic, sociocultural, legal/regulatory, education and labour market environments are monitored for their impact on human resource strategies and programmes. Significant environmental changes with human resource implications underpin the selection of strategic alternatives to achieve compatibility between the human resource management system and the external forces. Interpretation of strategic objectives. Changes in the future direction of the organisation may involve substantial shifts in the types of employees required and the work to be performed, although the choices available to an organisation in this respect are constrained by the quality and quantity of its current human resource or that available in the external labour market. The current extent, nature and potential of an organisations human resource are thereby determinants of the organisations adaptive ability. The role of the analysis is to define the capabilities required to implement the organisations strategy, primarily focused on the capacity to act and change in pursuit of sustainable success. Audit of the internal human resource. The analysis of the internal human resource is an inventory exercise. At the micro level the analysis is made of the current number of employees, their job-related skills, demographic make-up, performance levels (productivity), potential performance, management competences and work attitudes. Such an analysis helps to identify current human resource strengths and weaknesses. The data forms a baseline of human resource capabilities, which could be available for future organisational requirements. The macro level analysis involves diagnosis of organisational philosophy, culture, climate, performance orientation, organisation structure, quality of worklife, trends in wastage and absenteeism, and current status and effectiveness of the personnel systems. The demand forecast. Forecasting human resource demand enables the organisation to gain knowledge about future requirements in response to its objectives. There is invariably some difference between the data assembled from top managements assumptions and forecasts built up from the judgements of unit heads and managers. The immediate view of this gap or conflict about figures results in top management squeezing standards,

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commonly resulting in an underestimation of the demand, while line managers in trying to provide themselves with extra cover, or in ignorance of the potential to improve productivity, overestimate the demand. To resolve the conflict, information exchange and negotiation are necessary, human resource planners having a mediating role between the parties. The critical consideration in the negotiation is the affordability criterion establishing what size workforce the organisation can afford. Effective planning processes necessarily expose a relevant combination of these conflicting aspects and reflect a healthy dynamic for problem resolution arising from different perspectives and needs. Conventional forecasting has traditionally relied on quantitative methods which can generate staffing requirements in some detail. Although these figures are indispensable, the qualitative aspects of forecasting are equally crucial. The latter is based on managerial perspectives involving the ability of the managers and planners to comprehend the future. It is an output of mental modelling and its sharing (Geus, 1988). Through such a process managers and planners make certain assumptions about the future and share their meanings with each other in order to minimise surprise and uncertainty. Such type of thinking is currently an essential part of every managers day to day decision making and it is a natural step to include it in the development of planning scenarios. Formulation of human resource objectives and strategies. Following on from forecasting is the balancing process for supply and demand which results in specific human resource strategies being identified. The aim is to define the organisations desired human resource position and the programmes necessary to move in that direction. The resultant strategy involves modifying the internal configuration of an organisations human resource to ensure successful alignment with both the organisations strategy and the external environment. Examples of short-term strategies are attracting, assessing and assigning employees to jobs. The intermediate-term strategies include readjusting employees skills, attitudes, and behaviours to fit major changes in the needs of the organisation. Locating planning responsibility How analyses and forecasts are performed is moulded to a significant extent by the structure and philosophy of the organisation, particularly the location of the planning responsibility, and the roles defined for human resource planners and other stakeholders. In a strategic approach planners assume new roles as process managers by playing a more proactive role in ensuring that planning activities include key decision makers throughout the organisation. In this approach planners encourage discussion and the resolution of priority issues; manage an iterative process of revising the human resource strategies to meet emergent organisational needs; and generally build among the stakeholders an increased understanding of how the human resource can create a successful organisation.

The integrating mechanism HRP in response For all organisations two aspects for integrating human resource planning with to institutional strategic planning need consideration. Vertical integration emphasises the change creation of a reciprocity or two-way communication between strategic planners and human resource planners in organisations (Milkovich et al., 1983). Such reciprocity results in meaningful human resource information being fed into the 351 strategic planning process, particularly as input into resource allocation mechanisms, and strategic planning being used to develop human resource planning inputs right from the start. Horizontal integration involves the coordination of human resource planning and the personal functions such as recruitment, training, and career management. Planning activities are usually undertaken within a planning cycle[2], which defines the planning horizons and stages and specifies various decision points for managers and planners. For public sector organisations such a cycle may incorporate planning for macro, sectoral and organisational human resources. The decision needs at the three levels have to be considered in an iterative and complementary manner even though their time frames may be different. By encouraging planning parallelism[3] in this way as part of their thinking organisational human resource planners become aware of their roles and contributions in sectoral and macro planning in the economy, particularly for designing public service delivery systems. Such a planning cycle builds critical linkages and strengthens the interrelationship of plans, and exemplifies the nature of human resource planning set within an open systems approach. This is in sharp contrast with a hierarchical view of planning for the public sector, which isolates planning according to levels and may result in a command structure with decisions only communicated from the upper levels to the lower ones. Feedback for learning The outputs of the model are the basis for feedback in the system so that changes may be made in inputs and the subsequent transformation process to produce amended outputs. At the strategic level, top management requires regular feedback to evaluate the impact of the human resource planning system on the overall organisational performance. At the operational level, feedback gives the basis of evaluation of strategies and plans and on-going responses to variations. This latter review includes for instance actual versus planned staffing requirements, productivity levels versus established goals, actual personnel flows versus desired rates, functional personnel programmes such as recruitment, promotion, and career management versus planned programmes, labour and programme costs versus budgeted amounts, and ratios of programme results (benefits) to programme costs. The evaluation of the extent to which human resource planning information supports decision-making processes entails some form of qualitative assessment. Examples of such an assessment are the extent of the integration of the various human resource functions, the quality of the teamwork between

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human resource planners and line managers, the utilisation of the plans recommendations by line managers, and the extent of managements expectations met by the plan. The systems framework as a prerequisite for effective planning The strategic systems approach to human resource planning is intended to be applicable in a wide range of circumstances and is underpinned by major assumptions concerning the potential effectiveness of human resource planning as reflected in current literature. It raises the status of human resource planning within the wider scope of change initiatives in organisations so that in effect it becomes an arm of institutional development[4]. However, a question is how well will it in practice address the weaknesses of more traditional approaches to planning? One of the disadvantages of human resource planning as traditionally enacted has been its remoteness from decision makers because of rigid formality and inflexible detail. Practice has been for formal plans, embodied in agreed documents, to be communicated widely to key decision makers. Such plans have historically enshrined comprehensive career structures and job security aspects (Russ, 1982), approaches coming under criticism in the 1980s as contributing to inflexible market responses in major Western Companies (Dyer and Hayer, 1984; Mills, 1985; Peters and Waterman, 1982). In contrast, informal planning has greater flexibility of response and is relatively easier to enact, and may be preferable in a small organisation. The drawback of informal planning is that it may exist only in the mind of the chief executive, and hence its outputs may not be meaningful to all key decision makers. There is no simple answer to this issue of the degree of formality in terms of detailed documentation and degree of flexibility for adjustments. Much depends on the conditions facing the organisation including the rate at which technology and markets are changing, and certainly large integrated organisations face conditions somewhat different from those confronting medium-sized decentralised or diversified organisations (Rothwell and Kazanas, 1989). However, the key issue is that the systems approach and particularly its transformation component, build the capability of managers to respond to changing conditions as a result of the organisational learning generated in the planning. An effective strategic human resource planning process raises critical issues in preference to seeking immediate answers and certainly will explore alternative scenarios in respect of human resource issues. Such planning forces continuous discussion on the assumptions surrounding uncertainty and thereby may lead to more informed human resource decisions. Emphasis on throwing light on questions stimulates a flexibility in the minds of managers necessary for building a competitive advantage in market orientated organisations. The type of human resource information required to support decision making varies with the users of the plans. The line managers and operational

heads require information on the human resource implications of strategic HRP in response programmes/projects to be implemented. Such information is crucial in to institutional determining whether to proceed, postpone or modify the programmes, in view change of the human resource implications. The personnel manager on the other hand requires specific schedules for implementing the various personnel functions. High quality information is certainly a prerequisite for reshaping the workforce 353 within the new ethos of managerialism in public sector organisations. On the whole it is argued that the content of strategic human resource plans should vary significantly from those that have traditionally been prepared. Strategic human resource plans include more than staffing or replacement plans, they prioritise key issues, link them directly to strategic plans, communicate in business language where necessary, and raise further rounds of questions to be addressed by managers. Learning as the key aspect of planning in the 1990s The critical success factor for transformation is team learning (Geus, 1988). Within an organisation human resource planners and line managers work jointly to develop the plans (Jackson and Schuler, 1990). Human resource planners assume new roles as process managers and strategic partners when designing strategic human resource plans (Ulrich, 1986). Users of human resource plans are also members of the team. They take on new roles in developing strategic human resource plans by becoming active participants in conceiving, formulating, drafting, and implementing these plans. Early involvement in the planning process ensures that users understand why and how human resource practices directly influence an organisations success. Thus the plan is the result of shared responsibility and learning, as portrayed in Figure 2 based on Kolb (1984). On the other hand the failure to gain the support and involvement of managers in the planning process, insufficient managerial autonomy for their contribution, and lack of integration in decision making are examples of conditions which reduce the efficiency of the transformation process of the systems model[5]. The support and participation of the users ensure their acceptance of the plan and the commitment to implement it. To achieve this, according to Bennison and Casson (1984), requires three conditions, namely getting the right orientation to human resource planning; ensuring the right tools are available; and creating the right climate for planning. In addition, an organisation can stimulate a strategic view in its use of people by incorporating categories[6] and conceptual systems that are readily understood by stakeholders, but should be prepared to amend these with changing circumstances (Pearson, 1991). A balanced emphasis on the quantitative and qualitative aspects of planning is an essential feature of the transformation process. The quantitative results of the analyses and forecasts have to be described and explained qualitatively. By making data talk the findings of these analyses become influential, as they are clearly understood, first by the planner who is required to provide an explanation, and then by those who need to take strategic decisions. Through

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PLAN FORMULATION INCLUDING INTEGRATION WITH STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

RECOGNITION OF DAY TO DAY EXPERIENCES RELEVANT TO PLANNING Learning amongst stakeholders through direct experience of work programmes/ projects and environmental components

Joint activity amongst stakeholders to select appropriate strategies/plans in the human resource area

Focused reflection on work and performance issues amongst stakeholders

DESIGN OF EFFECTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Figure 2. Planning activities in support of institutional learning

Conceptual understanding/ explanation achieved by stakeholders on how people can improve their contribution in the workplace

SELECTION OF APPROPRIATE H.R. THEORIES AND PLANNING METHODOLOGY

discussion of assumptions underlying forecasts and the subsequent generation of ideas for change, human resource planning is conceived as a facilitator for learning beyond the prescriptive approaches as encapsulated in traditional planning. The process of explanation, facilitation and involvement of the managers is at the heart of the transformation and the organisational climate needs to be conducive to this. Usefully this suggests a process of planning that builds from humble beginnings towards the level of sophistication that managers desire as their experience accrues. Conclusion Transformation at the centre of Figure 1 represents a multi-faceted approach to learning in which stakeholders in the human resource area are actively engaged in establishing shared meanings and in designing actions to enable the organisation to influence its environment in the way it desires. It implies the types of learning shown in Figure 2 which involve teams and the organisation as a whole and which enable in successive cycles: a common language of planning to be developed among stakeholders; a methodology and process in planning to be refined;

human resource themes to be increasingly integrated with strategic HRP in response needs; and to institutional managers to experience an enlarged source of relevant information for change decision making. Fundamentally, through transformation an internal capability is developed to face the opportunities and threats posed by the external environment. 355 Successive cycles of planning work build internal robustness in decision making by increasingly directing attention to areas of human resource weakness and opportunity. The ability to respond more effectively over time in this way represents a learning to learn capability jointly acquired by stakeholders which builds as cycles of Figure 2 are completed in successive rounds of planning activity. The system model then incorporates human resource planning as a spiralling learning process (Argyris, 1977; Reid and Barrington, 1994) geared naturally towards facing environmental changes. To initiate and manage the desired approach involves the ability to create a new synthesis of people, resources, ideas, opportunities and demands. Shared vision is essential and team creativity paramount (Senge, 1992). Learning towards change is produced by exploring dilemmas or contradictions, based on personal experience and experimentation, within a climate that encourages risk-taking. It may require the expression of deeply held beliefs, which potentially involve conflict, but which can be helped by creating an organisational climate that recognises the value of people at all level and their ideas in looking to the future. The dynamic nature and proactive orientation of the systems model extends opportunities for learning through human resource planning activities and is thus a tool for institutional development.
Notes 1. The word system has been used by Newton (1970) and Bennison and Casson (1984) to mean human resource system. The term denotes any group of individuals employed for some common purpose, within a particular place of employment. It is different from the systems approach as applied in organisation theory, as represented in this line of argument. 2. A planning cycle may be formal or informal and include an interface with other decision making needs, e.g. the annual budget. 3. There is no conflict between planning parallelism and vertical integration. Planning parallelism represents the way the planning is conceived, while vertical integration focuses on the method of linking human resource planning with strategic planning. 4. According to Israel (1987), the term institutional development refers to the process of improving an institutions ability to make effective use of the human and financial resources available. This process can be internally generated by the managers or externally induced. It is typically concerned with management systems, which include human resource planning. 5. Efficiency of the transformation process measures the relationship between resource use and the results; input/output ratio; generally the value of the results from planning should be greater than the value of the resources expended in conducting it. 6. Categorisation is merely the arrangement of people or objects in groups; similarity in one particular respect is all that is required.

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