[MBA] Explain the impact environmental factors have on managers' workforce planning decisions ...

[MBA]  Explain the impact environmental factors have on managers\' workforce planning decisions ...

Explain the impact environmental factors have on managers' workforce planning decisions.  Which environmental influences do you think will have the greatest impact on workforce planning in the next five years?

Workforce planning is the process of organizing employees, their roles etc. to meet organizational objectives, government policies and employee benefits too. A prime task of manager is to align workforce that best matches with different constraints. Challenges for effective workforce planning is Environmental influences, Organizational demands and Regulatory issues.


Environmental Factors

Environmental factors are those factors having impact on workforce planning which don't lie inside organization nor is solely the regulatory compliance. We can list the environmental factors as;

Availability of workers: The availability of workers on within the institution and outside of institution matters the workforce planning. The availability means the workers appropriated for given job. Manager cannot design a job where the required candidate are not available in market.

Technology: As and when the technology changes, structure and workflow of organization changes, resulting influence on workforce planning by manager.

Globalization: Globalization brings availability of workers from various end of globe. This impacts workforce availability as: we can find workers from far end too but workforce available on our premise might be engaged too.

Culture, religion and ethics: These social factors too affects workforce planning. Culture, religion of Society where Company is established on have direct impact and company cannot move against it, else future of that company within that society is insecure.

Political and legal factors: Company and manger should adhere to political philosophy and make sure the planning as well as operation is not against government policies, agreements. The less developed country be the more impact of politics is on company.

Workforce planning in next five years

Technology have greatest impact on workforce planning for next five years. Because technology is rapidly growing and ways organizations perform day to day operation are changing. Technology is fastest growing when there are great development and invention this might influence the way we do daily tasks. The rise in use of Internet that results globalization have impact on workforce planning my managers. Outsourcing, offshoring and hiring employees from other globe which are far more capable of performing tasks out of the box should be considered while workforce planning. Making crowd of people will not make sense but implementing a limited workforce efficiently and effectively will have positive impact on organization.


Lepak, D. & Gowan, M. (2010). Human resource management: Managing employees for competitive advantage. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall