Open Collections

The development of a manpower planning model

University of British Columbia

In recent years a number of personnel planning techniques and manpower models have been developed to improve long range planning in the personnel field. A review of the literature on manpower planning revealed that models had been developed to consider quite specific problems and that the quantitative techniques had considered only a very simple manpower structure. The simplicity of the existing models, together with the widely varying assumptions upon which the models were based, indicated that the factors to be included in a general manpower planning model required investigation. The investigation demonstrated that one of the major weaknesses of the existing models was their failure to include provision for promoting employees through a hierarchical structure. The decision was made to construct a forecasting model which included this feature together with the other factors required to forecast labour requirements for production workers and non-professional staff positions. A model was constructed to reflect these factors and a computer programme written for the model. Initial investigations with the model indicated that promotions increased exponentially as turnover increased, and that the timing of hiring decisions depended upon the training times in the organizational structure. The conclusion of this investigation was that the hierarchical structure would be required in a general model. The existing models may be underestimating the time lags and training costs by falling to consider promotions. The study concluded with an analysis of the problems that would be encountered in constructing a more complex model and in adding cost-optimizing features to it.

Text

2011-04-08

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/33435

Business Administration

University of British Columbia

Graduate