HR Matrices: A Tool for Logical Manpower Management

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Written by: Shruti Verma, HR Manager at OMA Emirates

We have a tough role to play as human resources (HR) leaders. Dealing with human resources is all about dealing with a lot of perceptions, personalities, and attitudes. At times, it is just tough to put things in perspective and design a strategy that focuses on balancing the facts, emotions, and perceptions.

Interesting HR matrices can be created to evaluate the existing employees and to arrive at the best manpower management strategies. A logical HR matrix is created based on well-evaluated needs or concerns of the organization and which can prove to be a highly valuable tool for any organization.

Here is a brief 5-step guide on designing and using the HR matrices for the benefit of the current age dynamic organizations:

Step 1: Designing HR Matrix

What are the key concerns of company “X” with its human resources?

  • Employee potential
  • Employee performance
  • Attrition risk
  • Employee disengagement
  • Lack of empowerment

Other interesting matrices could be:

  • HR capability vs. business priority
  • Management maturity vs. CHRO maturity
  • Employee performance vs. employee potential
  • Role of HR process orientation vs people orientation

They could range from a simple 4-box matrix to an elaborate 9-box matrix or so on based on how comprehensive one wants to be.

Step 2: Mapping Existing Employees to Manpower Matrix

This is one of the most critical steps and it must ensure:

  • Very conscious manpower mapping is to be done while minimizing the perceptual bias
  • Seeking 360-degree feedback on each employee to be mapped in the matrix: This will include an assessment of factual parameters, seeking detailed and focused feedback from colleagues, line managers, and other stakeholders

E.g., Conducting a 360-degree appraisal of a business development manager through various stakeholders might include the following:

Finance: Sales numbers, collection overdue, gross margins, overall accountability for account management, etc.

Clients: Quality of interaction, pro-active updates, availability for feedback or follow-ups, etc.

HR: Overall hygiene, sales performance, personality, attitude, compliance, growth potential, etc.

Line Manager: Quality of reports, adherence to timelines, quality of work, sales numbers, quality of account management, prospecting, etc.

  • Sharing evaluation parameters in detail with the line managers to seek more inputs or seek detailed inputs on employee performance on various KPIs and making required changes

E.g., A Project Manager, who is rated highly positive in 360-degree evaluation, might be a constant defaulter on process compliance, over lenient with the team, and hence being ineffective in managing the team

  • Making final adjustments based upon more concrete information from line managers

 Step 3: Designing HR Strategy Based on Manpower Matrix

This will largely depend upon several other factors apart from an individual employee’s placement in the manpower matrix. HR strategy might focus on the following variable factors too:

  1. Preparation for contingencies or structural changes: candidate pipeline, manpower budget (to accommodate high replacement cost)
  2. Future Plans of the company: existing employees’ skillset might be needed for future projects. In such a situation, even a “low potential” employee has to be maintained unless a ready replacement is there
  3. Impact of the employee on P&L (salary, sales contribution, margin contribution).

E.g., It might be difficult to maintain a high salaried low potential resource vs. a low salaried low potential resource.

  1. The financial strength of the company (in terms of ability to maintain salaries of staff, withstanding low business performance)
  2. Critical nature of the role (e.g., Project Manager role may be seen as much more critical than any administrative role like Operations Executive). Business critical roles must be attended to on priority
  3. Feasibility of replacing low potential or low performing resources with strong personal relationships in the company due to the long service tenure

Since the business environment and employees are highly dynamic, the number of factors impacting the HR strategy could be uncountable. However, keeping all the other variable factors constant, the following manpower management strategies might be considered for various categories of employees:

Step 4: Presenting HR Strategy to the Management

This would largely involve the following HR Analytics:

  • Number of business-critical roles held by low potential resources
  • Number of business-critical roles held by employees with high attrition risk
  • Percentage of employees identified as high potential, medium potential, and low potential
  • Sales performance of employees placed as high potential, medium potential, and low potential. (Target vs achievement, gross margin contribution, new client’s addition, etc.)
  • Percentage of salary spend on maintaining high, med, or low potential resources
  • Work tenure of medium or low potential resources with the company

Strategy proposals could be:

  • Manpower budget alterations required to hire new resources to replace low potential resources or high attrition risk resources
  • Future investment in training, certifications, reward and recognition programs, employee engagement activities, etc. To maintain high potential resources
  • Sources/timelines/talent acquisition investment for identifying replacements for business-critical resources
  • Budget for increments for promoting high potential resources

E.g., An organization with more than 60 percent of employees identified as low potential might focus on investing in or arranging for replacements.

An organization with the majority of employees identified as having high potential, the focus might be on developing capabilities by increasing investment in T&D, learning programs, certifications, etc.

Step 5: Implementing the Strategy

Important considerations in implementation could be:

  • Does the company need to maintain the low potential for any reason for some time or immediate termination can be considered?
  • Does the company have ready replacements or a potential pipeline of candidates?
  • Timelines for onboarding replacements and managing handover
  • How potential opportunities can be created for upgrading high potential resources within the organization?
  • Identifying tailor-made development program for every identified high potential resource and related investment
  • Budget allocation for identified development programs and their impact on the overall HR budget.
  • Identifying the role-specific competencies and implementing competency mapping for developing high potential resources further
  • Overall business strategy is to expand, contract, diversify, etc.

About the Author:

Shruti Verma, HR Manager, OMA Emirates

Shruti Verma is an HR professional, who is currently serving OMA Emirates, UAE as Human Resources Manager. She has more than 10 years of professional experience gained from various industries and organizations in India and the UAE.

She is a Master’s Degree holder in HR and UGC NET-qualified lecturer. Apart from her mainstream career in human resources, she has actively pursued her passion for teaching and writing.

Connect with her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shrutiverma1

 


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