Manpower Planning Research Articles

Influence of Manpower Cost Saving Strategy on Organizational Performance of Tea Manufacturing Firms in Kenya

The purpose of the study was to assess the influence of manpower cost saving Strategy on organizational performance of tea manufacturing firms in Kenya. The study was based on the cost containment theory, chain value analysis model and theory of manpower planning. The study used interpretive research philosophy. This is the study of phenomena in which an environment takes main point to the acknowledgement of scientist understudy. The study adopted descriptive research design. The study targeted 1928 employees from all the factories in the selected regions of KTDA.A sample size of 432 was used comprising of top management, directors, extension officers, supervisors and junior staff. The study used stratified random sampling and simple random sampling techniques to determine the sample size. Data was collected using questionnaire. The validity of the research instruments was verified by researchers’ supervisors while reliability of the instruments was tested by piloting test through crobach’s Alpha coefficient. The collected data was analyzed by SPSS version 22 to generate both descriptive and inferential statistics. Data was presented by use of tables and figures. Inferential statistics was used to give relationship between the variables. The findings indicate that there is a significant relationship between manpower cost saving strategy and tea manufacturing firm’s organizational performance, where manpower cost saving strategy explained9.4% in the firms organizational performance. The study concludes that manpower management strategy has a statistically significant effect on tea manufacturing firms in Kenya. The study recommends that tea firms should minimize do proper staffing and training to achieve cost effectiveness that will spur organizational performance.

FUTURE TRENDS IN EMPLOYEE REQUIREMENT IN HOTEL AND RESTAURANT SECTOR IN SRI LANKA

This paper aims to forecast future employee requirements in the hotel and restaurant sector in Sri Lanka and identify the correlation between different labour categories with tourist arrivals. The literature illustrates the fact that there is a significant shortage of forecasted data on labour in the hotel and restaurant sector, particularly in Sri Lanka. Therefore, this research fulfilled the empirical gap forecasting the future employee requirements in the hotel and restaurant sector in Sri Lanka. Secondary data were used and analyzed using quantitative techniques. Annual data were obtained from annual statistical reports from 2000 to 2018 published by Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority in Sri Lanka. The linear regression model was used to forecast different employee categories in the hotel and restaurant sector and Karl Pearson’s correlation was used to test the correlation between labour categories (independent variables) and tourist arrivals (dependent variable). Findings indicate that there is a positive and very strong relationship between tourist arrivals and different labour categories since the coefficient of correlation is more than 0.8 in all relationships. The study forecasts that 2.4. million foreign tourists will arrive in Sri Lanka in 2024 and 146105 employees in different categories in the hotel and restaurant sector in Sri Lanka is required. As compared to the required labour force with the existing employees, hotel and restaurant sector in Sri Lanka is required 24898 employees in 2024. Thus, the study provides better insight into future trends of employability requirements of the hotel and restaurant sector which leads to preventing the risk and uncertainties in future manpower planning in the industry.

Family Physicians Working at Hospitals: A 20-Year Nationwide Trend Analysis in Taiwan

Family physicians play an essential role as gatekeepers in primary health care. However, most studies in the past focused on the geographic maldistribution of family physicians, and few studies focused on the distribution of family physicians between private practices and hospitals. This study aims to analyze the trends in practice locations of family physicians in Taiwan between 1999 and 2018, using the databases of the Taiwan Association of Family Medicine and Taiwan Medical Association. Although the annual number of physicians registered as family physicians had steadily increased from 1876 in 1999 to 3655 in 2018, the ratio of family physicians practicing in hospitals to total family physicians remained stable around 40% in the study period. Even after eliminating the trainees who were entirely registered at hospitals, the proportion of hospital-based family physicians still accounted for about one-third of the total in each year. In conclusion, family physicians had been continuously demanded by hospitals in Taiwan. If the supply of primary care-oriented family physicians is insufficient outside hospitals, health manpower planning would require urgent adjustments.

Discrete Time Hybrid Semi-Markov Models in Manpower Planning

Discrete time Markov models are used in a wide variety of social sciences. However, these models possess the memoryless property, which makes them less suitable for certain applications. Semi-Markov models allow for more flexible sojourn time distributions, which can accommodate for duration of stay effects. An overview of differences and possible obstacles regarding the use of Markov and semi-Markov models in manpower planning was first given by Valliant and Milkovich (1977). We further elaborate on their insights and introduce hybrid semi-Markov models for open systems with transition-dependent sojourn time distributions. Hybrid semi-Markov models aim to reduce model complexity in terms of the number of parameters to be estimated by only taking into account duration of stay effects for those transitions for which it is useful. Prediction equations for the stock vector are derived and discussed. Furthermore, the insights are illustrated and discussed based on a real world personnel dataset. The hybrid semi-Markov model is compared with the Markov and the semi-Markov models by diverse model selection criteria.

Role of Rawalpindi Medical University Students in Perspective of Public Health

Role of Rawalpindi Medical University Students in Perspective of Public Health

Optimization of Employee Workload to Achieve Effectiveness of Man Power Planning at PT. SPINDO Depo Samarinda

Intense competition in today's industrial world requires companies to keep abreast of developments. The more years, higher the need for labor costs. To reduce high production costs, one step is to cut existing labor. By cutting the number of workers, the workload that will be borne by workers will also increase. PT. SPINDO, is a manufacturing company engaged in the production of the steel pipe industry. To expand market reach, a breakthrough was made to open a new depot located in the city of Samarinda. At the beginning of the opening along with the Covid-19 outbreak, market demand was minimal. The impact on the work load in the depot is also low. The Full Time Equivalent method is a calculation process that uses working time as a reference in determining workload. In this research, the workload value most of the employees at PT. SPINDO Depo Samarinda is included in the underload category. So that man power planning is needed by cutting the number of existing employees to balance work load and the number of manpower. After the manpower planning was carried out, the work load that was previously unbalanced was balanced because the workload had been distributed to the employees.

Optimal manpower recruitment and promotion policies for the finitely graded systems using dynamic programming

BackgroundAt the heart in the development of any organization or nation is human resource. Over the years the world over, a sharp increase in too many numbers of qualified persons is being experienced yearly. This has impacted on recruitment and promotion costs to increase immensely, thereby affecting negatively manpower system costs. Dynamic Programming (DP) approach to optimal manpower recruitment and promotion policies for the two grade system has been proposed. MethodsConsidering the fact that contemporary manpower systems are not limited to just two grades - a kind of “switch-approach” to manpower systems, we first establish the link between a manpower planning problem and a dynamic decision-making process. This linkage resulted to a multistage real-life decision-making problem whose solution demands that decisions be made sequentially at different levels and at different points in time and space. Dynamic Programming is a mathematical technique well appropriate for the optimization of multistage decision problems. This allows us to give a generalization to manpower systems by modifying the model to finite grades which came out to be more robust and actionable, a constrained deterministic Dynamic Programming (CDDP) found to function computationally as the very well-known Wagner-Whitin Model in inventory/production management. Five cost variables associated with manpower planning were identified and used as inputs to the modified deterministic DP model. Results/RelevanceThe data shows yearly recruitments and promotions totaling 507 and 266 staff respectively for a ten-period (year) planning horizon. Total manpower system cost (in ooo's of Nigerian Naira) occasioned by yearly recruitments and promotions exercises for the period is 11334 (7092 for recruiting, 4100 for promoting, and 142 for overstaffing). Our DP model minimizes the manpower system cost to 9462 making a significant reduction of 1872. The optimal policy for the planning period calls for recruiting and promoting respectively 79 and 41 in period 1 only, 86 and 24 in period 2 for periods 2 and 3, 86 and 46 in period 4 for periods 4 and 5, 89 and 29 in period 6 only, 85 and 70 in period 7 for periods 7 and 8, and 82 and 56 in period 9 for periods 9 and 10.The study will contribute to the growing literature on applications of OR models to problems in manpower planning. The model outcomes would provide the basis for evaluating decision policies aimed at conducting recruitment promptly and to eliminate over-stagnated promotions. Conclusion/Further researchWe formulate decisions making in a finitely-graded manpower system as a multistage decision-making optimization problem which are best handled by dynamic programming. Five cost variables associated with manpower planning were identified and used as inputs to the modified deterministic DP model. Our model is resolute for minimizing manpower system costs occasioned by recruitments and promotions exercises in a wide range of multi-graded manpower systems instead of just two grades. The study's limitations and scope for future research work are presented in the end.

Using data envelopment analysis in markovian decision making

This paper introduces a modelling framework which combines Data Envelopment Analysis and Markov Chains into an integrated decision aid. Markov Chains are typically used in contexts where a system (e.g. staff profile in a large organisation) is at the start of the planning horizon in a given state, and the aim is to transform the system to a new state by the end of the horizon. The planning horizon can involve several steps and the system transits to a new state after each step. The transition probabilities from one step to the next are influenced by both organisational and external (non-organisational) factors. We develop our generic methodology using as a vehicle the homogeneous Markov manpower planning system. The paper recognizes a gap in existing Markovian manpower planning methods to handle stochasticity and optimization in a more tractable manner and puts forward an approach to harness the power of DEA to fill this gap. In this context, the Decision Maker (DM) can specify potential anticipated future outcomes (e.g. personnel flows) and then use DEA to identify additional feasible courses of action through convexity. These feasible strategies can be evaluated according to the DM's judgement over potential future states of nature and then employed to guide the organisation in making interventions that would affect transition probabilities to improve the probability of attaining the ultimate state desired for the system. The paper includes a numerical illustration of the suggested approach, including data from a manpower planning model previously addressed using classical Markov modelling.

Employees Performance Prediction

Employee is an important element of the organization. The success or failure of an organization depends on the employee performance. Human resource plays an important role for the success of the organization. Human Resource Management, HRM is a set of functions to maintain and develop a proficient human resource. A performance prediction procedure helps the human resource management in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of an employee. The performance evaluation of employee is depended on several different parameters based on work domain and objectives of an organization. This process of employee performance evaluation has a vital role in making strong and strategic decisions of manpower planning instead of salary reviews. The main objective of this prediction model constructed in this paper is to assist HR personnel in decision making by predicting the performance of an employee.

Predatory journals in science publishing: Strategies for preventing a national crisis and promoting Vision 2030

In response to the Manpower Planning and Development Amendment Act of 2020 and the Centre for Education, Innovation Research and Development Bill of 2020 to promote science, technology, and innovation, the Zimbabwe Young Academy of Sciences convened the Research Excellence Initiative to develop policy recommendations that can guide in ensuring the research output from Zimbabwean researchers contribute to policy and innovation. This document offers strategies to educate Zimbabwean researchers against publishing in predatory journals.

PERSEPSI PEGAWAI TERHADAP IMPLEMENTASI MANAJEMEN TALENTA DI ORGANISASI PEMERINTAHAN

This study aims to analyze employee perceptions of the implementation of talent management in the Ministry of Finance, as well as to analyze the relationship between the profile of respondents and the four stages of talent management. The population in this study was 80,996 employees within the Ministry of Finance and the sample size was 408 employees who were determined by using stratified random sampling technique. Data analysis using a quantitative approach includes validity and reliability tests, averaging, two boxes, cross tabulation, and different tests. The results showed that employees' perceptions of the implementation of talent management at the Ministry of Finance were good, but improvements were needed in 7 indicators: (1) understanding of the 9 boxes for mapping employees, (2) searching for talented people by organizations, (3) information criteria to become talent, (4) information about employees who are determined to be talents, (5) motivation of leaders to develop employee careers, (6) objective assessment of career development, and (7) facilities for employee competency development programs. There is a relationship between respondents and these 7 indicators. Meanwhile, there are differences in respondents' perceptions with these 7 indicators. The managerial implications that can be applied are the socialization of talent management to all employees, employee development programs to improve competence and careers, and paying attention to the profile of respondents in developing talent management. Keywords: career development, competency, manpower planning, Ministry of Finance, talent mapping

Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The COVID19 pandemic has devastated the entire globe with an astounding death toll and various forms of human suffering worldwide. In its wake, it has uncovered serious flaws and shortcomings in healthcare systems and beyond. Objective: The objective of this perspective is to highlight the lessons learned from the catastrophic pandemic and propose recommendations for optimal future preparedness. Methods: Current literature was reviewed to identify common and serious challenges faced during and in the process of instituting solutions for addressing the COVID19 pandemic. Results: The uncovered challenges appear to be similar in various countries across the globe, clearly demonstrating universal patterns in lack of preparedness. This spanned critical shortage in healthcare facilities, equipment, consumables and staffing along with technological gaps needs to keep up with the emerging needs. There are also major obstacles impeding the rapid development and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics, and in addition, public awareness and international collaborations are immature to effectively handle the crisis. Conclusion: Fortunately many of these shortfalls lend themselves to intervention, however country- specific strategies must be preplanned with proactive readiness for rapid implementation during crisis situations. These go beyond readiness with physical space, essential equipment and consumables, and further involve proper capacity and manpower planning as well as local and global coordinated communication and cooperative collaborations. Moreover, self-sufficiency and sustainability are key to ensure the continuous provision of essential supplies and other needs. COVID19 has taught us that the world could never be too ready or prepared for such unexpected future events.

Analysis of Manpower Planning Based on Digital Economy in Cianjur Regency

There are three main characteristics of labor problems in Indonesia: First, the high growth rate of the workforce due to the rapid flow of population growth entering the working age. Second, the number of the labor force is large, but the average has low education, and third, the labor force participation rate is high, but the average income of workers is low. This research uses qualitative methods with a descriptive analysis approach. The study was conducted in the Cianjur Regency area. Analysis of current and future employment conditions through quantitative descriptive analysis methods assisted by statistical tools. For this reason, the data used in the framework of this study are Susenas data. This research shows that the low quality of the population is a barrier to economic development. This is mainly due to the low level of education and knowledge of the workforce. The economy of Cianjur Regency in 2020 grew by 7.35%, and employment growth by 4.84%, with an elasticity of 0.6585. So that the number of job opportunities in 2015 was 354,201 people. Meanwhile, the economic forecast for Cianjur Regency in 2020 will grow by 7.72% and employment growth by 4.14%, with an employment elasticity of 0.5363. It is estimated that GRDP at the constant price of Cianjur Regency is Rp. 10,012.91 billion, and job opportunities created as many as 438,490 people.

On the use of Cauchy integral formula for the embedding problem of discrete-time Markov chains

In manpower planning there is an interesting, practically important and open challenging issue arising from the instances where a transition matrix over a certain short time interval is required but only a transition matrix over a longer time interval may be available. For example, the problem of finding a meaningful th root of an observable stochastic matrix within the context of Markov chains. The more general problem is divided into three phases, viz. embeddability, inverse, and identification problems. By exploiting the Cauchy’s integral formula with the integrand defined on the Runnenberg’s heart-shaped region, a new representation for a stochastic matrix that is embeddable is derived. New conditions for embeddability and regularization of stochastic matrices are provided. Examples are presented to illustrate the utility of the Cauchy’s representation formula and its consequences.

Forecasting time-varying arrivals: Impact of direct response advertising on call center performance

This study investigates manpower planning and the performance of a national call center for scheduling car repairs and responding to road interventions. We model the impact of advertising on the required capacity and develop a forecasting model for incoming calls, where the impact of direct-response advertising is considered. With the estimation results, we forecast the number of incoming calls to the call center. Next, the forecasts are input into the capacity planning simulation module to directly simulate a service process at the highly disaggregated level. This simulation mimics the service level requirements and queue behavior and shows that the call center is operating at a high level of efficiency and performance. We illustrate that advertising may cause a temporary overload of the system and increase the number of abandoned calls, which is suboptimal for call center performance.

John Haigh 1941–2021

John Haigh 1941–2021

Heat Stress and Goat Welfare: Adaptation and Production Considerations.

Simple SummaryThis review attempts to provide information on the various impacts of heat stress on the production and welfare variables of goats. Goats are predominantly distributed in tropical regions, and hence they are considered a species readily able to survive and produce in these demanding environments. However, the production of goats can be compromised to a degree to survive in harsh environments. Hence, having an in-depth understanding of the various impacts of heat stress on goat production and adaptation may yield important biomarkers to assess welfare in goats. Such efforts may help in the future to breed goats, which could survive and produce optimally under harsh conditions.This review attempted to collate and synthesize information on goat welfare and production constraints during heat stress exposure. Among the farm animals, goats arguably are considered the best-suited animals to survive in tropical climates. Heat stress was found to negatively influence growth, milk and meat production and compromised the immune response, thereby significantly reducing goats’ welfare under extensive conditions and transportation. Although considered extremely adapted to tropical climates, their production can be compromised to cope with heat stress. Therefore, information on goat adaptation and production performance during heat exposure could help assess their welfare. Such information would be valuable as the farming communities are often struggling in their efforts to assess animal welfare, especially in tropical regions. Broadly three aspects must be considered to ensure appropriate welfare in goats, and these include (i) housing and environment; (ii) breeding and genetics and (iii) handling and transport. Apart from these, there are a few other negative welfare factors in goat rearing, which differ across the production system being followed. Such negative practices are predominant in extensive systems and include nutritional stress, limited supply of good quality water, climatic extremes, parasitic infestation and lameness, culminating in low production, reproduction and high mortality rates. Broadly two types of methodologies are available to assess welfare in goats in these systems: (i) animal-based measures include behavioral measurements, health and production records and disease symptoms; (ii) resources based and management-based measures include stocking density, manpower, housing conditions and health plans. Goat welfare could be assessed based on several indicators covering behavioral, physical, physiological and productive responses. The important indicators of goat welfare include agonistic behavior, vocalization, skin temperature, body condition score (BCS), hair coat conditions, rectal temperature, respiration rate, heart rate, sweating, reduced growth, reduced milk production and reduced reproductive efficiency. There are also different approaches available by which the welfare of goats could be assessed, such as naturalistic, functional and subjective approaches. Thus, assessing welfare in goats at every production stage is a prerequisite for ensuring appropriate production in this all-important species to guarantee optimum returns to the marginal and subsistence farmers.

Food Safety and Halal Risk Mitigation in Fish Crackers Supply Chain with FMECA and AHP

With the development of the times, people are increasingly aware that food is safe for consumption. Throughout the food supply chain process, there are many risks of food safety from being safe to being unsafe. This study aims to analyze food safety and halal risk mitigation in the supply chain, which consists of identifying food safety risks throughout the supply chain process, measuring food safety risks in the supply chain, determining the most critical value for risks that arise in food safety, and determining food safety risk mitigation measures. The object used is the supply chain of fish cracker companies in the Buduran area, Sidoarjo. Data processing was performed using FMECA and AHP methods. The results showed that the most critical risk lies in the management of the meat grinding system with a value of 0.60494 where the influencing factors are the absence of halal certification on the product and not implementing food safety standards, so that mitigation measures are carried out, namely evaluating and fostering manpower planning and job analytic.

Nursing manpower forecast for cancer patients

Background and objectivesThis paper presents a dynamic model aimed at predicting nursing manpower requirements for cancer care over the next ten years. The proposed model, based on the Taiwan Health Insurance Database (2000 to 2010), is meant to serve as a reference in establishing policy for government health units. MethodsThe proposed prediction model uses fuzzy sets to replace definite values with interval values in order to account for uncertainties in real-world data and enhance the flexibility of prediction results. ResultsOur results suggest that the demand for nursing manpower for cancer care will grow steadily in the foreseeable future. The gap between the demand for nursing staff and the supply is expected to peak in 2027. By then, the number of oncologists is expected to reach 7,083 (54.32% of the total number of in-hospital physicians), but the number of oncology nurses will be less than 26,297 (56.5% of the total healthcare manpower). It is also expected that there will be fewer than 1,613 outpatient physicians (71.81% of the total number of physicians) and fewer than 4,967 outpatient nurses (68.46% of the total nursing manpower). ConclusionsThis paper provides a valuable reference for government agencies involved in the nursing manpower planning to improve the quality of nursing care.

Graduate Joblessness: Conviction for Entrepreneurship Studies in Library and Information Science Programme of Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to understand what the Nigerian graduates are passing through, most especially graduate of library and information science programme of Nigerian tertiary institutions. 
 Findings: The statistics of unemployed graduates in Nigeria as at 2011 showed that a disheartening figure of 42.7 million with over 1,8 million graduates churned out of our higher institutions yearly. It was further revealed that the unemployment rate in Nigeria stood at 38 percent in 2013 with further increase expected in succeeding years. The slow rate of economic growth and undeveloped private sector, faulty manpower planning, high expectations of the fresh graduate attitude towards some types of jobs, recruitments, the quest for higher education, inadequate educational curricular, immobility of labour, the long period of initial unemployment among graduates of higher institution, use of capital intensive technology, wide rural-urban migration
 Conclusion: It is evident that entrepreneurship education is important for Library and Information Science students in higher institution of learning. The training of Library and Information Science students must reflect the 21st century development in the field which is influenced by the emergence of Information Technology, hence, Library and Information Science students must have computer proficiency, familiarity with metadata, database management and application, web development and design, knowledge of electronic resources and services