Connected people planning – also called capacity planningOpens a new window – is a new frontier in Enterprise Resource Planning business management software that creates detailed plans for individuals to accomplish specific objectives.
Such people plans can be an important pillar of your company’s overall operational strategy.
They show how your employees are working together and whether they’re the right people for the right tasks at the right time.
They also show senior managers whether too many staffers are assigned to a task and help them reach clear-eyed decisions about staffing.
Human capital is often overlooked in today’s businesses, but the new generation of automated ERP systems can play an important role in personnel management.
So-called “smart ERP†should account for real life experiences, like time for your new hires to become acclimated to the organization and for contingencies such as unexpected absences.
Systems that have been specifically designed for HR departments already satisfy some of these requirements, but they may not be able to meetOpens a new window all your business’s objectives.
A window into everyone’s work
Connected people-planning software gives senior executives a window into everyone’s involvement and a ruler for measuring whether they fit into your financial objectives.
The new generation of cloud-based ERP platforms should be able to connect HR, finance and operational business planning so that your organization can react quickly to changing business situations by optimizing your talent, skills and head-count to serve your organization.
New solutions should be simple to use and include predefined, fully-extensible templates.
Organizations can then use the templates to build on their individual requirements. They will ensure your executives can benefit from access to intelligent data to make better-informed personnel decisions.
It may not be necessary to abandon your existing ERP setup either – people planning modules are available that can be configured for your existing ERP platform, for example where you’re using an industry-specific solution.
Examples from the US and Europe
Examples of people-planning solutions include those produced by the Virginia-based Deltek SolutionsOpens a new window and the Netherlands-based Unit4Opens a new window tech company while OracleOpens a new window has developed a people-planning capability as part of its resource planning product.
It’s easy to let your people fall into the gaps created by your financial ERP platform.
But supporters of capacity planning say a properly configured system that accounts for your personnel properly, well beyond HR requirements, will lead to better project and resource planning for your company.
It will, they say, enhance the effectiveness of the collaboration between key project personnel, ensure everyone’s schedule is up to date and integrate with the other project planning tools you are using.
People-planning software provides greater insights once a project is underway.
Knowing who is doing what, where
Real-time resource planning means that as the scope of a project changes, sometimes at short notice, your organization can react dynamically, quickly allocating personnel from other areas of your business.
Senior management can now get real-time insight into resource plans and know exactly who’s working on what and when.
Ultimately, you want a solution that can create the best value for your company, and that means making sure that the right employees with the right skill sets are being assigned to the right projects, at the right time. People planning with ERP is one way to get you there.
Key takeaways:
- People planning is an emerging area of ERP development that focuses specifically on the human resource needs of your organization.
- It journeys beyond the day-to-day HR needs of your organization, helping senior managers and project planners to allocate and track personnel within sometimes very large and diverse firms.
- People planning software should be able to integrate seamlessly with other software, for example core ERP platforms, HR or project-planning systems.
- The real value of people-planning ERP is to help companies optimize their personnel pool and keep track of ongoing projects far more efficiently, and in real time.