ABSTRACT
A strategic plan guides a college in successfully meeting its mission. Based on the strategic plan, a college can develop a human resource plan that will allow it to make management decisions in the present to support the future direction of the college. The overall purpose of human resource management is to:
ensure the organization has adequate human resources to meet it goals and operational plans
allow the organization to stay apprised of the current social, economic, legislative and technological trends that affect human resources, and
allow the organization to remain flexible to the dynamic changes in the environment.
Human resource management identifies the future needs of the college after analyzing the college's current human resources, the external labor market, and the future human resource environment in which the college will be operating. The analysis of issues external to the college, and developing scenarios about the future, are what distinguishes human resource management from operational planning. The basic questions to be answered for strategic human resource management are:
- Where are we going?
- Given the circumstances, how will we get there? This article seeks to provide a framework for strategic human resource planning in academia.
SUMMARY
At an operational level, colleges put in place human resource management practices to support faculty and staff in achieving their day-to-day goals. Whether it's determining how many staff are needed to deliver services over the next year or how performance will be monitored, the human resource management practices and activities need to be strategically planned in order to answer the question, “Where is our college going and how will it get there?”
