Human resource planning (HRP)

Human resource planning (HRP) Abstract Today, chief executive officers (CEOs) refer to their workforce (or human capital) as their organizations’ chief asset. This statement underpins the importance of the concept of human resource in organizations.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Human resource planning (HRP) specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Human resource planning (HRP) enables an organization to better realize its goals by ensuring that it makes efficient and effective use of its human capital. Todays workforce is characteristically ambitious and hence, volatile. Rosenberg (n.d.) reiterates that employees switch careers an approximated three times in their working life. Even with this change in the nature of the workforce employer, employee and customer demands and expectations remain the same. In addition to these, organizations are competing immensely for high quality talent and are at the same time investing heavily in acquiring and retaining it as these is crucial in meeting business objectives and goals. Thus, HR managers have an additional task, which is HRP that is instrumental in dealing with the element of uncertainty as it pertains to an employees future. From an organizations point of view a translation of HRP is making good use of an employee while he/she is in the organization’s hands. Yan et al (2009) reiterates that an organizations workforce (or human capital) is a valuable asset. A robust human capital is a critical success factor in ensuring that the expectations of customers are met, which is the key to positive financial performance. Realizing such a robust human capital requires a sound and strategic HR policy, which ensures that an organization recruits the best expertise available and makes the best use of it for as long as it can. Forecasting an organizations current and future financial needs and HRP are core units of such an HR policy.Advertising Looking for essay on busine ss economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More HRP is according to Dessler (2001, p. 24) the process of â€Å"anticipating future demand for staff, allocating different kinds of staff within organisations, and developing systems for calculating human resource requirements based on accurate records and forecasting techniques†. What HRP does is that it facilitates the effective use of an organizations human capital. It does this by ensuring that the right personnel are working at the right place and at the right moment. Forecasting an organization’s current and future HR needs involves using either a quantitative approach or a qualitative one. The quantitative approach to forecasting an organization HR needs involves numerical quantification of employees by use of statistical and mathematical procedures. By grouping the resultant numerical entities into applicable groups it is possible to determine HR excesses, d eficits and inconsistencies. Examples of applicable groups include age, pay, gender, qualifications and performance rating. HR managers co-work with statistical and mathematical experts to ensure that there is accurate quantitative forecasting. The qualitative approach to forecasting an organizations HR needs involves consultations with experts. The opinions of the expert drawn from the consultations enlighten the organization on what its HR needs are, specifically, staffing requirements and career development paths to pursue. The expert bases his/her opinions on evaluations on employee performance and potential for promotion. A comparison of the quantitative and qualitative forecasting approaches reveals that the latter is more popular as it is cost and time saving. There are a number of factors that HR managers should consider when undertaking HRP. According to Stone (2008) one these factors is women in the workforce. Todays workforce contains an increasing number of women. An inc entive that is greatly contributing to this increase is the use of mother-friendly alternative working arrangements in organizations.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Human resource planning (HRP) specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More For instance, employers are providing mothers with flexible work arrangements, special parental leaves, job sharing arrangements, childcare facilities within the organizations premises, telecommuting work arrangements etc. From 1982 to 2005 Australia has seen a rise of 18.7% in the number of females in employment who are between the ages of 18 and 64 years (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010). In addition to this, from 1989 to 2004 Australia has also seen a rise of 6% in the number of working mothers (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010). HR managers when doing HRP should be aware of the fact that the number of women in the workforce is on a rise and should therefore put in place mechan isms that attract and retain them. To illustrate the above point lets take the example of Diane Gibney. Diane returns to work at her former employers veterinary clinic after giving birth to her first child. Due to post antenatal commitments she asks her former employer for an alternative working arrangement, namely, flextime which would allow her to work at given times of the day. The employer refuses to offer her such a working arrangement. Following the employers refusal Diane quits her job and with another partner opens their own veterinary clinic. The 14 staff members in Dianes new clinic are all female. She is sensitive to antenatal commitments and accords her employees flexible working arrangements so that they are able to attend to them. This example underpins the appreciation that employers should give to mother-friendly HR policies. Another example is that of Caroline Coops. Carolines has a strong commitment and a high motivation to work for her current employer. The reason for this is that the employer accommodates flexible working arrangements that particularly enable and empower mothers to attend to their antenatal commitments. Though Caroline is not a mother yet, this provision by her employer has had a profound effect on her. It gives her piece of mind knowing that when such commitments arise she is able to adjust a working schedule so that she can better attend to her family needs. This example shows that family-friendly HR policies attract women into employment and are instrumental in retaining them in the organizations workforce. Employee retention is critical in meeting business objectives as the direct and indirect costs employers incur to employee turnover are phenomenal. Direct costs are those that an employer incurs when replacing the individual who has made the turn over. Indirect costs are those that the employer incurs because of reduced productivity. Attracting high quality talent to an organization is also critical in meeting busines s objectives.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Flexible working arrangements that are family-friendly enable organizations to attract and retain such talent as shown from the two examples above. In other words, such working arrangements enable employers to combat employee turnover and at the same time attract high quality talent to the organization. They are a critical business success factors with todays workforce that contains an increasing number of women and particularly mothers. According to Stone (2008) another factor for HR managers to consider when doing HRP is globalization. Dessler (2001) describes globalization simply as the venturing of businesses into new international markets. Advances in information technology have been and continue to be instrumental in globalization. Soon the world will be a global village with ecological and socio-political systems that are dependent on each other. An advantage of globalization is that employers have a bigger market in which they can shop for individuals with the right levels o f skill, experience and knowledge. An outright disadvantage of globalization is that it supports or encourages brain drain. Organizations that are global employers via globalization should manage their multiracial and culturally diverse workforce in such a way that conflicts between employees are at a minimal. To illustrate that globalization is a factor that HR managers should consider when undertaking HRP we take the example of an American firm which invested in England. The firm bought a textile machinery company near Birmingham. To boost productivity the American manager of the textile machinery company set about on cutting the time lost on tea breaks, which amounted to thirty minutes in a day per employee. Culturally, having tea in such a manner is not a big issue to Americans but it is to the English. So, by the direction and instruction of the American manager a tea-maker machine was installed in the company. An infuriated workforce went on a riot demanding the removal of the tea-maker machine. The American manager had to comply with the demands of his English workforce. According to Stone (2008) another factor that HR managers should consider when undertaking HRP is ageing population. The current situation in most economies of the world is a workforce with, first, less people entering it and second, an ageing and near retirement population. This is an impending crisis for employers. Soon, there will be a lack of both skilled and experienced labour. At the moment, individuals nearing retirement are the ones fuelling a huge portion of workforce growth. This means that when this ageing population retires workforce growth will almost stagnate causing a huge problem to employers. Additionally, mature age workers tend to be more loyal and productive in comparison to their younger counterparts. It is therefore imperative that HR managers start figuring out how they can retain their organizations mature workers. To illustrate that ageing population is a factor that HR managers should consider when undertaking HRP we consider the case of Peter Jordan. Peter Jordan is a business consultant. He is of the opinion that HR managers should redirect their employee retention efforts towards keeping mature workers (Porter, 2008). Jordan cites this as being crucial in averting or mitigating the effects of an imminent staff and knowledge shortfall that is about to hit in the very near future (Porter, 2008). Jordan additionally points out that there is more justification for this strategy when you consider employee loyalty between the mature and young age workforce (Porter, 2008). Jordan opines that there is more employee loyalty in mature age workforce than in the young age workforce (Porter, 2008). Craig Perret feels the same way as Jordans pointing out that, HR managers should develop policies that encourage the mature age workforce to remain at work (Porter, 2008). Other factors on top of these three that HR managers should consider when undertak ing HRP are employment, organizational structure and culture, outsourcing and technological changes in society. HR managers should take a keen interest on the rate of employment in their countries. Organizational structure and culture are instrumental in lifting employee morale and commitment to an organization. Technological changes in society can eliminate the need for certain employees in an organization thus bringing in cost cutting benefits. Outsourcing is a means for increasing capacity in organizations so that customer demand is met. References Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2010b). Women’s income. Web. Dessler, G. (2001). Human Resource Management (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc. Porter, L. (2008). Boomers can keep sea change at bay. The Age, p. 23. Web. Rosenberg McKay, D. (n.d.). How often to people change careers? About.com: Career Planning. Web. Stone, R. J. (2008). Human Resource Management (6th ed.). Milton, Qld, Australia: Wiley. Yan, A., Rao, Y., Liao, C. Gao, C. (2009). Competency identification of sales staff in the agricultural seed industry: Evidence of seed firms in China. doi:10.2224/sbp.2009.37.4.513

Chile 1973 essays

Chile 1973 essays What is past is not dead; it is not even past.(Christa Wolf) Discuss the influences the past has on peoples ideas and behaviour. Use examples from your study of literature and/or Topic Options. Every thing we do has a consequence; a smile, a huge, an heroic act, the things we say, etc. Every single and tiny thing provokes a reaction from the person envolved, thing or element. For example: K+ reacts with water causing a kind of explosion, and an heroic act can save somebodys life, this normaly generates an emotional respons; gratitude. The one that has been saved feels greatfull to the person that risked (for example) his physical integrity for him(or her). We can see that every event that has ocurred in our life lives a mark, perhaps a scar, that we carry for the rest of our lifes if it has ment something for us. This facts, events, scars and consequences may be positive or negative and sometimes both. If you hit somebody, probably you wont have a positive respons, though the misundertanding can be solved and then have a possitive consequence.This are all examples of every day life that we usually dont pay attention to, even though they are somehow very important for human beings. What is past is not dead; it is not even past.This is absolutely true and we can see it clearly in the chilean society. Probably the best example is to talk about the events that ocurred in Chile in 1973. Salvador Allende was supported by the socialist and communist and then elected to power with 36.2% of the vote in 1970. During these years the world was in the middle of an ideological war between Comunism (URRS) and Capitalism (EEUU), called the Cold War. Because of this the fact that Allende got to the presidence represented the triumph of a battle and the capitalist orbit was shocked and worried about the posibility that the comunism in Chile could spread to neighbour countries such as Bolivia, Arg...

The Battle Of Gettysburg essays

The Battle Of Gettysburg essays Driving through Gettysburg people see statues and marking at different sites, if youre do not know much history you would still know that these markings are a symbols of fallen soldiers. These soldiers never really needed to die but the North and South could not work out their differences peacefully which caused a great war in U.S. history, The Civil War. One of the biggest battles fought during the Civil war took place in the small city of Gettysburg. The battle of Gettysburg was the biggest and bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Gettysburg is also known as the turning point in the war. Taking away the statues and most of the new development in the city we can see what Gettysburg looked liked to the soldiers that fought there. Stepping back through time, Gettysburg was a calm city never expecting a great battle to be fought there. Gettysburg was not even supposed to happen; it happened by mistake. An infantry of officer under General Richard Ewells command led a few soldiers into Gettysburg to retrieve shoes for the war beaten Confederate soldiers. The Confederate advance guard ran headlong into General John Bulfords Union Cavalry. While both sides sent couriers pounding off for reinforcements, Bulford tried desperately to hold his ground (Ward, 216). By now, both sides were converging in Gettysburg. The Confederates were coming from the north and the Union was coming from the south. The Confederates were the closet and assemble faster. Union forces were slowly in gathering. The rebels pushed them back through the town until General Winfield Scott Hancock rallied the retreating troops into defensives positions on Culps Hill and Cemetery Hill (Ward, 216). General Robert E. Lee, head of the Conferdate army, was unsure of where excatly the Union was. He had heard through the grape vine that there was some Union cavalry heading into Gettysburg but he was not sure (Sh...

Using Perl Chr() and Ord() Functions

Using Perl Chr() and Ord() Functions The Perl programming languages  chr() and ord() functions are used to convert characters into their ASCII or Unicode values and vice versa. Chr() takes an ASCII or Unicode value and returns the equivalent character, and ord() performs the reverse operation by converting a character to its numeric  value.   Perl Chr() Function The chr() function returns the character represented by the number specified. For example: #!/usr/bin/perl print chr (33) print /n; print chr (36) print /n; print chr (46) print /n; When this code is executed, it produces this result: ! $ Note: The characters from 128 to 255  are by default not encoded as UTF-8 for backward compatibility reasons. Perls Ord() Function The ord() function does the opposite. It takes a character and converts it into its ASCII or Unicode numeric value. #!/usr/bin/perl print ord (A); print /n; print ord  (a); print /n; print ord  (B); print /n; When executed, this returns: 65 97 66 You can confirm the results are accurate  by checking an ASCII Code Lookup Table online. About Perl Perl was created in the mid-80s, so it was a mature programming language long before websites exploded in popularity. Perl  was originally designed for text processing, and it is compatible with HTML and other markup languages, so it quickly became popular with website developers. Perls strength lies in its ability to interact with its environment and its cross-platform compatibility. It can easily open and manipulate many files within the same program.

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt in Criminal Trials

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt in Criminal Trials In the United States court system, the fair and impartial delivery of justice is based on two fundamental tenets: That all persons accused of crimes are considered to be innocent until proven guilty, and that their guilt must be proven â€Å"beyond a reasonable doubt.† While the requirement that guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt is meant to protect the rights of Americans charged with crimes, it often leaves juries with the momentous task of answering the often subjective question - how much doubt is â€Å"reasonable doubt?† Constitutional Basis for Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, persons accused of crimes are protected from â€Å"conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.† The U.S. Supreme Court first acknowledged the concept in its decision on the 1880 case of Miles v. United States: â€Å"The evidence upon which a jury is justified in returning a verdict of guilty must be sufficient to produce a conviction of guilt, to the exclusion of all reasonable doubt.† While judges are required to instruct juries to apply the reasonable doubt standard, legal experts disagree on whether the jury should also be given a quantifiable definition of â€Å"reasonable doubt.† In the 1994 case of Victor v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court ruled that the reasonable doubt instructions given to juries must be clear, but declined to specify a standard set of such instructions. As a result of Victor v. Nebraska ruling, the various courts have created their own reasonable doubt instructions. For example, judges of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instruct juries that, â€Å"A reasonable doubt is a doubt based upon reason and common sense and is not based purely on speculation. It may arise from a careful and impartial consideration of all the evidence, or from lack of evidence.† Considering the Quality of Evidence As part of their â€Å"careful and impartial consideration† of evidence presented during the trial, jurors must also evaluate the quality of that evidence. While first-hand evidence such as eyewitness testimony, surveillance tapes, and DNA matching help eliminate doubts of guilt, jurors assume - and are typically reminded by defense attorneys - that witness may lie, photographic evidence can be faked, and DNA samples can become tainted or mishandled. Short of voluntary or legally-obtained confessions, most evidence is open to being challenged as invalid or circumstantial, thus helping to establish â€Å"reasonable doubt† in the minds of the jurors. Reasonable Does Not Mean All As in most other criminal courts, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court also instructs jurors that proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a doubt that leaves them â€Å"firmly convinced† that the defendant is guilty. Perhaps most importantly, jurors in all courts are instructed that beyond a â€Å"reasonable† doubt does not mean beyond â€Å"all† doubt. As Ninth Circuit judges state it, â€Å"It is not required that the government (the prosecution) proves guilt beyond all possible doubt.† Finally, judges instruct jurors that after their â€Å"careful and impartial† consideration of the evidence they have seen, they are not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant actually committed the crime as charged, it is their duty as jurors to find the defendant not guilty. Can Reasonable Be Quantified? Is it even possible to assign a definite numeric value to such a subjective, opinion-driven concept as reasonable doubt? Over the years, legal authorities have generally agreed that proof â€Å"beyond a reasonable doubt† requires jurors to be at least 98% to 99% certain that the evidence proves the defendant to be guilty. This is in contrast to civil trials on lawsuits, in which a lower standard of proof, known as a â€Å"preponderance of the evidence† is required. In civil trials, a party might prevail with little as 51% probability that events involved actually occurred as claimed. This rather wide discrepancy in the standard of proof required can be best explained by the fact that persons found guilty in criminal trials face far more severe potential punishment - from jail time to death - compared to the monetary penalties typically involved in civil trials. In general, defendants in criminal trials are afforded more constitutionally-ensured protections than defendants in civil trials.   The Reasonable Person Element In criminal trials, jurors are often instructed to decide whether the defendant is guilty or not by applying an objective test in which the defendant’s actions are compared to those of a â€Å"reasonable person† acting under similar circumstances. Basically, would any other reasonable person have done the same things the defendant did? This â€Å"reasonable person† test is often applied in trials involving so-called â€Å"stand your ground† or â€Å"castle doctrine† laws that justify the use of deadly force in acts of self-defense. For example, would a reasonable person have also chosen to shoot his or her attacker under the same circumstances or not? Of course, such a â€Å"reasonable† person is little more than a fictional ideal based on the individual juror’s opinion of how a â€Å"typical† person, possessing ordinary knowledge and prudence, would act in certain circumstances. According to this standard, most jurors naturally tend to consider themselves to be reasonable people and thus judge the defendant’s conduct from a viewpoint of, â€Å"What would I have done?† Since the test of whether a person has acted as a reasonable person is an objective one, it does not take into account the particular abilities of the defendant. As a result, defendants who have shown a low level of intelligence or have habitually acted carelessly are held to the same standards of conduct as more intelligent or careful persons, or as the ancient legal principle holds, â€Å"Ignorance of the law excuses no one.† Why the Guilty Sometimes Go Free If all persons accused of crimes must be considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that even the slightest degree of doubt can sway even a reasonable person’s opinion of a defendant’s guilt, doesn’t the American criminal justice system occasionally allow guilty people to go free? Indeed it does, but this is entirely by design. In crafting the various provisions of the Constitution protecting rights of the accused, the Framers felt it essential that America apply the same standard of justice expressed by renowned English jurist William Blackstone in his often-cited 1760s work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, â€Å"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.†

Statistical Analysis of Microtitre Lab Data Assignment

Statistical Analysis of Microtitre Lab Data - Assignment Example In order to answer them you must have conducted the analysis and understood how to interpret the data and the statistical analysis. You may therefore refer to the proforma during the test. Graphs should be constructed in Excel and sized to fit the allotted space. The aim of this assignment is for you to demonstrate the ability to conduct a statistical analysis on a set of data and report the findings in a scientific manner. You should use SPSS for the ANOVA. 1. Construct a calibration curve using all of the data provided (i.e. all replicates for each concentration NOT the mean absorbance values). You must conduct Linear Regression Analysis using Excel and provide the R2 value and the equation of the line of best fit (y=mx +c, where y represents absorbance, x is the concentration of protein, m is the slope of the line of best fit and c is the intercept of the line on the y-axis). 2. Refer to the quality control data set on the Excel spreadsheet, below the calibration curve data. Using the values of the equation of the line of best fit from the calibration curve, take each absorbance value for the quality control data and calculate the concentration of protein for each replicate. You should then calculate the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation (see notes from Statistics Lecture 1) for each concentration and insert them into Table 1: As the absorbance values of the data are beyond the range of the calibration curve, you will only conduct your analysis on the absorbance values to determine whether each of the detergents has an effect upon the absorbance produced for a set concentration of protein (0.5mg/cm3)). From the above table (ANOVA table), we observe p-value=0.000

The Critical Reading Response 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Critical Reading Response 2 - Essay Example In other words, global warming today is largely due to mans activities in which harmful gases were emitted into the atmosphere at unprecedented volumes, which trap the suns heat instead of reflecting it back to the outer reaches of space. Stronger typhoons, intense droughts and severe floodings in previously dry areas are clear manifestations of this altered weather pattern. Water supplies are drying up in some wet areas while existing water resources have become unusable due to pollution. In many low-lying areas, the rise in the earths surface temperatures have melted the ice caps and a serious consequence is that these low areas are now being inundated with seawater due to a rise in sea levels. Environmental experts are sounding an alarm about these changes and the culprit is Big Business which exploit and harm the environment with their activities. A rise in human populations also contributed to this degradation of the environment as people scramble to find new sources for food an d raw materials to be used in production. This paper re-examines the debate on what responsibilities should Big Business have today. The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is relatively new, because it was only in the last few years that it has gained prominence in business thought. Previously, most people think of CSR or giving back to the community as an added expense or an unnecessary cost that reduces profits and affects adversely the bottom line. Shareholders years ago did not give much thought to how their business activities affected the environment. Their only concern was how to maximize profits in pursuit of capitalist goals as an offshoot of the Industrial Revolution. The attitude before was to exploit the natural resources available to the maximum but today, a new reality has set in. People now realize that resources are finite; many kinds of resources are non-renewable and other resources are nearing