Human Resource Management
Fall 2008

Style Sheet for Workforce Planning Paper

Due October 15

Please bring to class on  this style sheet, the workforce planning instructions and the spreadsheet

The purpose of this assignment is to acquaint you with the process involved in human resource planning. As noted in the text,  in public sector agencies, costs for personnel usually represents 50-70% of their operating budgets, so the need to plan for changes in the composition of the workforce (and therefore the competencies available to the organization) is critical. This is especially true today when many agencies are faced with the need to downsize their workforces, and need to ensure that those employees essential to the mission and future of the agency aren't the ones that go.

For the purposes of this assignment, you have been asked by the National Park Service (NPS), a bureau within the Dept. of Interior (DOI) to determine what the agency will require from its workforce over the coming years, and to project attrition in the workforce for the next year.  There are three parts to the assignment:

I. Organizational requirements planning. The first part of the assignment requires you to evaluate agency documents such as Dept. of Interior's  strategic plan (refer to sections of relevance to NPS), DOI's assessment of external and internal drivers and any others you think would be relevant to assess the direction the NPS is headed, and the workforce competencies it will need to achieve its goals in the near future. (You need not print out or even read all of these documents--just enough to give you an idea of NPS's mission and goals for the future and the forces that are likely to shape that mission and affect its ability to achieve its goals). Refer also to the RAND report assigned for this week's reading.

II. Workforce planning, specifically an attrition projection.  This requires you to employ Markov Chain analysis to make this projection. We will do this together in class. You will look at expected attrition, along with the analysis you conducted in Part I of this assignment to make recommendations for recruitment efforts, etc.

III.  Adjustment projection Finally, you will need to consider the Bush administration's drive to outsource significant numbers of federal jobs, including those within the Park Service.  You will need to use your own judgment to modify the transitional probabilities to account for this changed scenario, recalculate attrition rate, and explain your results and revised recommendations.

The product you turn in should be a short (not to exceed 5 pages) memo addressed to the NPS director. The memo should address the following:

• Your analysis of NPS future goals, direction, and the workforce competencies that will be required to achieve those goals

• Your analysis of what the agency can expect in terms of attrition, if current separation rates continue. 

• Your recommendations as to what the agency might do to bring its workforce into alignment with its future needs

• Your analysis of what might occur should the agency be required to outsource some of the functions currently performed by rangers.  Come up with a reasonable revised table of transitional probabilities and recompute the attrition projection based on those. Your analysis should include attention to the impact outsourcing might take on the current workforce; i.e.,

  • who is likely to be laid off,

  • who might leave in lieu of being laid off and how the agency might avoid that if you think it would be problematic

  • any other recommendations you can make for how the agency should address workforce needs in order to achieve its goals should the outsourcing requirement come to pass.

With the exception of your original forecast of attrition among park rangers (bullet #2), there are no right or wrong answers in this assignment. But you do need to explain your reasoning with respect to the conclusions you reach and recommendations you make.  I recommend that you also review the Human Resource Planning chapter in the text as this may help you with this assignment.

You should turn in the above memo (maximum 5 pages, double-spaced), along with your excel spreadsheet (on a diskette or CD) showing your computations.  You might also consider augmenting your write-up with a table or graphic that would accent  your findings.

Your grade will be based on the coherence and logic of your analysis and recommendations, your understanding of workforce planning, including how to forecast attrition, and the extent to which your memo is well-organized, concise, and well-written.

For additional sources and approaches on workforce planning, see the Department of Interior's manual, and that developed by the Commonwealth of Virginia.