Personnel optimization: reducing labor costs

Issues discussed in the material:

• What does it mean to optimize staff performance?
• Where to start optimizing staff performance?
• What are the stages of optimization?
• How to optimize your staff through personalized productivity?
• How to optimize staff working time?

In any company there are periods when it is necessary to optimize labor resources. If a critical moment comes in the organization, and activities cease to be profitable, then management comes to a decision about the need to reduce personnel costs, and therefore reduce the number of employees. We will talk about what optimization of personnel work is and how to carry out related activities in this article.

Where to start optimizing the work of personnel at an enterprise

Personnel changes in an organization are never painless, regardless of who carries out the work to optimize personnel. It is difficult for a top manager to decide who the company will have to say goodbye to. Ordinary employees are forced to be in a state of stress until the “verdict is announced.”

Personnel reductions are a difficult task, which is almost impossible to carry out unemotionally. The most difficult thing in this situation is to inform each employee that he is fired. Most often, this responsibility falls to HR specialists. It is important to remember that in any case you need to remain human and talk frankly. A small consolation for HR managers will be that in the eyes of the team they will seem more worthy than managers who chose to stay on the sidelines.

When carrying out optimization, the company must understand what the purpose of the activities is and the expected result. Before making decisions, it is necessary to identify all risks so that ultimately the opposite effect does not occur.

An algorithm to follow when staff work needs to be optimized:

• determination of the strategic goal and objectives with the help of which it will be achieved;
• analysis of current business processes;
• development of a new staffing table;
• determination of labor resource needs;
• development of an action plan for staff reduction;
• procedures for dismissal of employees;
• approval of the new staffing table.

We must not forget that staff reductions should not affect the quality of production processes. To avoid risks, even before carrying out optimization measures, it is necessary to think about labor standards and determine ways to effectively use the company’s labor potential. In practice, these measures are implemented extremely rarely.

Sometimes management is unable to independently optimize the work of personnel, so it turns to a third-party specialist for help - an anti-crisis manager. It would seem, why hire another person in a crisis? However, the reason is simple. The anti-crisis manager does his job without any emotions and strictly adheres to the approved plan, which eliminates the human factor. It is often psychologically difficult for managers to fire employees who have worked for the company for many years.

Top 3 articles that will be useful to every manager:

• Financial control at the enterprise
• Net profitability of the enterprise
• How to build a company's financial structure

Work in Russia

Rumors began to circulate in the office about personnel optimization, and colleagues began to fear for their jobs. The situation is becoming tense, some are already looking for a new job, while others are hoping for a good relationship with their bosses. We learned what to expect from staff optimization and how to behave during this difficult period.

Does staff optimization equal reduction?

HR optimization is actions to qualitatively and quantitatively transform the workforce in order to improve the company’s economic results. Dismissal of employees refers to quantitative changes. And qualitative changes require reforms within the state. This can be a reshuffle of personnel within the organizational structure, advanced training of employees, redistribution of responsibilities and other methods that include working directly with personnel. Such optimization methods are practiced in conditions of growth and prosperity of the company.

Reducing staff is one of the simple ways to reduce business costs in difficult conditions, when the previous number of employees is simply unnecessary. In addition, upcoming layoffs may indicate the replacement of ineffective employees with new specialists. Therefore, if we are talking about personnel optimization, prepare for the worst.

Who gets fired first and who doesn't have to worry?

The first to fall under the “hot hand” are less experienced and qualified employees, personnel with low efficiency, as well as specialists whom managers, for other objective and subjective reasons, consider less preferable.

There is a high probability of being laid off for those who:

— Has less experience and qualifications compared to other employees;

— Reached retirement age;

— Combines work with study;

— Often uses sick leave;

— Has disciplinary violations;

— Misses deadlines and does not fulfill plans;

— Less productive than other colleagues (concludes fewer contracts, makes fewer calls);

— Openly complains about the place of work;

— Doesn’t fit into the team;

— Is a lower management employee.

According to the law, the main criteria for selecting candidates for retention should be “labor productivity and qualifications.” Moreover, if these business qualities of several employees are equal, then priority is given to certain categories of workers.

The right to leave belongs to employees if (Article 179 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation):

— They are supported by 2 or more dependents;

- They are the only member of the family with independent income;

— They received an occupational disease at this workplace;

— They are disabled by the Second World War and combat operations;

— They improve their qualifications at the direction of the employer without interrupting their work.

Priority does not apply to employees in these categories if they prove to be less productive and qualified.

The managers themselves will not fire particularly valuable personnel, so the least likely to be fired are:

— Hard-to-replace employees (there are few personnel with their specialization or abilities in the labor market);

— Employees who have a large amount of information related to trade secrets;

- Friends of management or employees who sympathize with him;

— Employees on whom the performance of the department depends;

- Those whose position requires a long training before taking on duties.

How to avoid getting blacklisted?

To avoid getting fired, you need to work on your image and skills from the very beginning of your career. Then the employer will not want to give up a good employee. But if it turns out that rumors about the layoff reached you earlier than the notice, you can try to improve your situation.

During the period of layoffs:

- Work more - take on overtime, perform additional tasks that are not part of your job responsibilities;

— Don’t be shy to talk about your achievements so that management will note your contribution to the common cause;

— Try to improve relations with your superiors (but do not go as far as sycophancy);

— Communicate more with clients and customers - it is difficult for management to part with a representative person.

If you do get laid off

Dismissal due to staff reduction provides for significant payments to employees. To avoid being deceived, you need to know your rights, as well as the stages of dismissal due to redundancy.

Order to reduce staff

First of all, the management issues an order to reduce staffing, which indicates the date of dismissal.

Employee Notification

Based on the order, the employer must notify employees in writing about the upcoming layoff no later than 2 months in advance of the date specified in the order. The notice must also offer replacement vacancies. Employees, upon signature, familiarize themselves with the document and also agree in writing or refuse the employer’s alternatives.

Mark in the work book

Next, they leave a record in the work book about the transfer or dismissal of the employee.

Payments to dismissed employees

The former employer legally pays severance pay and makes payments in the form of average monthly earnings for the duration of the job search (no more than 2 months), as well as compensation for unused vacation. To receive payments after dismissal, you must register with the employment center.

The employee has the right:

- Resign on the basis of written consent earlier than 2 months after notice. At the same time, he receives compensation in the amount of average monthly earnings, calculated in proportion to the days remaining before dismissal. Receipt of such compensation does not cancel the right to severance pay and benefits during the job search.

- Contact the court, labor inspectorate or prosecutor's office if the employer refuses to pay money or the rules of the dismissal procedure have been violated. It is necessary to go to court on this issue no later than a month after the date of dismissal.

Could be worse

Unscrupulous employers, wanting to save money on the layoff procedure, may persuade employees to write a statement “on their own,” which does not oblige them to pay any compensation. It’s even worse if the bosses are planning to fire you under the article. In addition to staff reduction, the Labor Code (Article 81) provides 12 more ways to get rid of an employee, including absenteeism and professional incompetence. Especially desperate ones commit theft or appearing in a state of intoxication. All this, of course, will leave a black mark on your career. Therefore, do not forget that between two evils you choose the lesser, and it is much easier to find a new job with a clean work record.

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Optimizing staff performance on your own

The scheme that is necessary when optimizing the work of the personnel of any company is standard:

1. Drawing up a list of tasks
   that are performed by a specific department. For a more detailed analysis, include the responsibilities of each individual position, which should result in a list of the functions of each employee in the department.
2. Assessment of competence and performance.
   Compare the performance of each employee with the planned ones. During this event, you may discover that a particular work unit cannot cope with its responsibilities. However, as practice shows, failure to complete assigned tasks is typical for all specialists in the department.
3. Search for the reasons why the situation described in the previous paragraph arose.
   The human factor often interferes with the production process. For example, if the “weak link” is a person who regularly fails to meet deadlines. Optimizing the work of personnel in this case will consist in assigning their responsibilities to more responsible and quick colleagues.
4. Identifying corporate spirit and its impact on performance
   . The working atmosphere undoubtedly affects business processes. Any tension in the team will negatively affect the activities of the entire company.

There are other internal factors that are ineffective in business processes, but they do not require personnel optimization, but other management decisions. These include:

• Non-automated labor, for example, a large amount of paperwork, the need to maintain documentation manually, etc.
• Gaps in job descriptions.
• Performing the same task by several employees.
• Subordination of one employee to two bosses at the same time.
• The influence of negative factors that appear regardless of the activities of the personnel of a particular unit. For example, violation of deadlines for the provision of documents by a related department.

1. Time norm analysis.
   The time required for an employee to complete a unit of work should be determined. Having understood who uses working time and how, we can draw conclusions about the performance of each specialist.
2. To optimize labor resources at an enterprise, employee suggestions for improving the work of the department may also be useful
   . It is unlikely that you will get large-scale results, but the opinion of the team must be taken into account.
3. Assigning similar tasks to one employee.
   This will free specialists from routine work and increase their productivity. In other words, this will optimize the work of personnel engaged in monotonous work.

Examples of such solutions:

• a hotline specialist who will receive all incoming call traffic and then distribute it to specific departments;
• a clerk who will enter primary data into the PC, thereby relieving more qualified workers of the routine.

1. Automation of business processes
   . Electronic databases and CRM systems will reduce the time spent on communication between departments and searching for the necessary information (documents, reports, contacts, etc.).
2. Improvement of personnel qualifications and organization of corporate training
   . These measures will have a positive impact not only on labor productivity, but also on the atmosphere in the team, and will increase employee loyalty to management. However, the costs of educational processes are justified only if there is no staff turnover at the enterprise. In other words, only those who have worked in the company for a sufficient time should be sent for retraining. And most importantly, do not forget to evaluate the effectiveness of training after this.

Steps before this action

Before issuing orders to change the staffing table, enterprise management must take a number of steps. The first of these is auditing. Personnel audit can be :

• internal, if the authorized services of the organization itself (economists, personnel officers, security service, etc.) should optimize the personnel structure;
• external, if the assessment of the efficiency of the use of labor resources is carried out by specialists who have not previously been employed at the enterprise.

The first option is good because it does not require additional costs for paying external specialists. However, not a single enterprise usually expects that it will have to fire or transfer some of its existing employees: if such a measure is imminent, it is easier to take the necessary steps in advance.

The second option is attractive because independent specialists are not interested in leaving specific employees in specific positions, they are more objective - however, the company’s management must pay for their work. In addition, external specialists cannot always assess the needs and development strategy of the company .

Audit required:

1. if the job titles in the staffing table do not correspond to the work that employees perform;
2. if the names and scope of responsibilities of the position do not correspond to officially approved professional standards;
3. when it is impossible to understand from the names of positions and structural divisions what functions are performed by employees and entire departments in the enterprise (how to cancel divisions in the staffing table?).

Based on the audit results, documentation is drawn up:

• Conclusion or audit report - if it was entrusted to external employees.
• Internal memo – if the audit was carried out by one of the internal divisions of the organization.

Already on the basis of the documentation based on the audit, the head of the enterprise can take the next step - issuing an order to make changes to the staffing table.

During the inspection it is revealed:

• Opportunity to reduce labor costs for ineffective employees.
• Possibility of redistribution of responsibilities within the organization.
• The need to increase staff by hiring new employees and assigning them some of the responsibilities of those who were previously employed in the organization.
• The length of work experience of employees with insurance.
• The legally required nature of the benefits and additional payments due to employees.

The results of the audit depend on the tasks assigned to the auditor. That is why it is important, before starting the optimization procedure, to decide on its direction.

Optimization of staff working time

As you know, time is money, so inefficiently used temporary resources have a negative impact on profit margins. If the head of the company comes to the conclusion that working time is being used inappropriately, then further actions depend on the reason for the problem.

The need to optimize staff working time arises when business processes are not properly established. Most often, each employee independently determines which tasks are a priority for him, but does not take into account that the work process of another person depends on this decision. Let’s say an employee puts off preparing a report because he doesn’t consider this task a priority, while at the same time his colleague can sit idle for half a day waiting for an important document.

A common reason for wasting time is that the manager does not know how to correctly assign tasks to his subordinates. For example, if an employee often receives several tasks in a row, then he has to start a new job without finishing the previous one. Therefore, any boss needs to start by organizing his work process.

Lack of basic resources is also a cause of downtime. For example, problems with office equipment, lack of Internet access, lack of office supplies, etc.

If the enterprise does not have a labor standardization system, then sooner or later the question will arise about the need to optimize staff working time. The introduction of control is a disciplinary measure. If a company has developed a system for recording working hours, then employees are unlikely to spend time on solving personal problems.

Setting any task must be accompanied by a so-called deadline. If a subordinate does not have time to complete the assignment within the established time frame for objective reasons, then next time a larger time period should be allocated.

For simple and frequently repeated tasks, you can set time standards. When implementing large projects, it is necessary to draw up a work schedule. If employees are unable to adhere to it, then the project manager should solve this problem and find options for optimizing the work of staff.

It is important to alternate between work and rest time. Some bosses are too fanatical about organizing the work of their subordinates, for example, they do not allow breaks and require activity throughout the day. Elementary fatigue causes inattention, which ultimately affects the result of work.

In this case, there can be no talk about personnel optimization. The manager should take into account the individual characteristics of his employees; their personal ri can be trusted with responsible assignments in the first half of the day, while it is better not to strain “night owls” with work that requires significant mental effort before lunch.

It is important to properly organize the work process and alternate between work and rest. An hourly pause of 5-7 minutes will only increase productivity. There is no point in expecting productive work from emotionally and physically tired workers.

Forced downtime also requires attention from management and decisions to optimize staff working time. Flexible schedules will help reduce the costs associated with temporarily stopping production. Optimal use of working time is the merit of a competent and attentive manager.

11.22.12 OPTIMIZATION OF THE UNIVERSITY STAFF STAFF

The head of the personnel department of KCSU, Erikenov Seit-Biy Muratovich, spoke about the basic principles of optimizing the university’s personnel.

KChSU plans to optimize its staff. Optimization of university staff should be treated as a separate project that needs to be planned, that is, determine the scope of work, their sequence, deadlines and those responsible for completing each task. First of all, it is necessary to diagnose the current state of affairs in the field of labor productivity and the number of university employees. It is necessary to systematize and analyze the number of administrative and managerial personnel at the university by department, taking into account the functions performed and the actual workload (intensity and duration of work). Based on the findings obtained from this analysis, a number of optimization measures can be proposed. Comparing the current number of teaching staff with the optimal one, we obtain the number of teachers in each department that needs to be reduced. However, we can talk not only about reduction, but also about redistribution of teaching staff among structural units, if this is due to the need to strengthen individual units. After this, it is necessary to plan a reduction program in which two difficult and painful questions need to be answered: “WHO?” And How?" needs to be reduced. Moreover, answering the first question is perhaps easier and simpler than answering the second. Although the first question, as practice shows, is not so simple. For example, the Labor Code of the Russian Federation directly states that in the event of a reduction in numbers or staff, employees with higher labor productivity and qualifications have an advantage in remaining at work (Article 179). Article 261 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation provides guarantees to pregnant women and women with children under 3 years of age, single mothers with children under 14 years of age or with a disabled person under 18 years of age, as well as other persons raising these children without a mother. Such employees are subject to a ban on dismissal at the initiative of the administration, with the exception of cases of liquidation of the institution. In this case, it may turn out that the listed persons do not have the highest labor productivity, however, the employer is obliged to keep them at work. Therefore, when choosing candidates for dismissal, such nuances must be taken into account. Answer the question “WHO?” It will be easier if we accept the concept of the so-called “personnel core” and “personnel periphery.” Any manager intuitively understands that the core personnel are those employees without whom the work simply cannot be done efficiently. That is, the personnel core is employees: 1) participating in the main processes of the university; 2) bringing the greatest profit to the university (or minimizing the university’s expenses); 3) those with the highest labor productivity and qualifications; 4) teachers who, due to their knowledge, skills and experience, find it difficult to quickly find a replacement on the labor market; 5) demonstrating high potential and dynamics of professional development. Accordingly, the personnel periphery is all other employees. Of course, the personnel periphery also performs certain functions, but if any crisis occurs, the personnel periphery can be disposed of without serious consequences for the work of the university, and then, if necessary, new “peripheral” personnel can be recruited. When potential candidates for dismissal have been identified, it is necessary to select methods by which staffing or headcount reduction will be carried out. There are two fundamentally different approaches to reducing numbers, which can be called “hard” and “soft”. The “hard” approach is a classic staff reduction: a certain crisis occurs, a decision is made to reduce costs by reducing staff, ineffective jobs are identified, employees are warned two months in advance about dismissal, they are paid the compensation required under the Labor Code of the Russian Federation and fired. Thus, the reduction procedure occurs quite quickly and with relatively low costs (severance compensation). However, this approach has more disadvantages than advantages. Firstly, in the case of rapid and harsh cuts, there is a risk of a mistake, which will result in conflicts for the university with both the dismissed staff and trade unions. Secondly, in the case of a city-forming institution, such as a university, the emergence of mass unemployment can result in increased social tension, and this, in turn, can affect relations with the city administration. Thirdly, the moral climate in the rest of the team is deteriorating—hard layoffs do not add loyalty to employees. And this ultimately affects a decrease in labor productivity.

“Soft” methods of staff reduction are based on the desire to avoid direct layoffs on the initiative of the administration; their essence is to create conditions for stimulating a “natural” reduction in the number of personnel. “Soft” methods are aimed at preventing such situations when mass layoffs are required. All “soft” methods can be divided into three groups: 1) “natural” disposal; 2) “soft” contraction; 3) headcount management without reductions.

“Natural” attrition of personnel “Natural” attrition of personnel is such methods in which personnel leave on their own, on their own initiative, and the task of the administration is to create some conditions for this. The easiest way is to temporarily prohibit the hiring of new employees by issuing an appropriate order.

“Soft” reduction We include the following methods of “soft” reduction: 1) Use of early preferential pension programs; 2) Incentivizing voluntary dismissals through an attractive compensation system and support for further employment.

Implementation of a personnel optimization program. Optimizing staffing is a difficult and painful tool for reducing university costs. If you apply it carefully, after a comprehensive analysis of the current situation and forecast of the consequences, it will work effectively and give the expected results. But it would be even better to build the organizational structure and management system of the university in such a way that it would be possible to prevent situations when it is necessary to reduce the number of staff. Optimizing staffing is one of the methods for reducing university costs by increasing the economic efficiency of its work, that is, in essence, its profitability and competitiveness.

Optimizing staff work by personalizing productivity

Having decided on the need to optimize staff performance, a top manager or business owner needs to be prepared for forced layoffs. Reduction of staff causes irreversible consequences in all personnel activities of the enterprise, since both layoffs and the search for new employees are a complex and time-consuming process. Before optimizing labor resources, you should analyze the current activities of the company.

1. It is necessary to identify employees who are directly involved in the production or creation of products - support staff.

Support personnel should be understood not only as administrative maintenance or cleaning services.

It is necessary to rank existing jobs by importance, and then decide which rates can be cut “painlessly” for the enterprise. You should also understand which departments are considered untouchable, that is, in which areas optimization cannot be carried out without compromising the production process.

1. It is necessary to identify what share each division contributes to the company's annual profit, and then rank it, gradually reducing the scale.

To achieve the most revealing picture, the analysis should be detailed, that is, understand the “meaning” of each staff unit. To do this, you should use the system described in point No. 1 - “core” and “periphery”.

A thorough analysis cannot be carried out if the company does not have effective financial accounting. “Personification of revenue shares” is possible only if management clearly sees the entire revenue structure. Obviously, the gradation of departments and personnel according to the degree of “profitability” is a very subjective process. Therefore, the use of approximate data may even lead to false conclusions.

This event requires time to find the right decision, which is best made collectively. Optimizing staffing also requires certain efforts on the part of the HR department.

1. In a similar way, it is necessary to “personalize” costs.

The costs of maintaining structural units should be ranked according to the same principle as in the case of income. Distributing costs such as renting premises or a share in the payroll structure will not cause difficulties. However, indirect costs, for example, on advertising, are no longer easy to personify. Management is faced with the question of what to do with direct costs?

The logic in this case is clear. Let's take sales managers as an illustrative example. Revenue from the work of this personnel consists of the amount of closed transactions (goods sold), and all costs and additional expenses (for example, for an advertising campaign) should be included in the cost price.

When choosing evaluation criteria, you need to adhere to the sequence of the algorithm. Both sales managers and production shop workers have a single income base, which is obtained from the amount of sales made, but the amount of their costs differs. The task of personification is to find those job functions that do not require an additional work unit to perform.

Here again there is a need for detailed and structured financial accounting, which would allow cost items to be ranked not only according to indicators accepted in accounting, but also according to more applied characteristics.

1. At the final stage, each unit (ideally, each official) is assigned points:

• 1 value – income that arises from performing work duties;
• 2nd value – costs associated with their implementation.

For clarity, the data can be presented in the form of a table with three columns: department/position, income, expenses. Having received a picture of the current state, you can begin analysis and further conclusions. A typical situation might be:

• the values ​​in the revenue column are significantly higher than the values ​​in the costs column;
• the expense column turns out to be larger than the income column.

You should not perceive “unprofitable” departments (and employees) as a heavy burden for the enterprise. Imagine that the organization is the human body. Which organ could be easily removed?

The described method allows you to identify which responsibilities require an additional work unit, and whose activities do not need to be interfered with.

Based on the above, we can conclude that changes in those departments that show high profitability are not required. Moreover, if there is a stable system of communications between profit “generators” and top management, then the rules of the game should not be changed. Additional regulations and reporting forms may have a negative impact on performance. Optimization of the number of personnel can only be carried out by increasing it, that is, including more employees in the process. It is important that these are highly qualified personnel.

Practice shows that hiring newcomers to work in an efficiently operating department inevitably leads to a drop in its performance. However, you should not refuse employment to candidates without work experience. If the applicant has a good recommendation, then over time he will begin to prove himself and move from a conditionally unprofitable position to a more “profitable” one.

The situation is much more complicated with those whose cost column is higher than the revenue column.

• If this situation is typical for an employee of the “central core”, then you need to check again how objective the indicators of “profit” and “costs” are. It is possible that the problem is more fundamental, that is, the enterprise itself is unprofitable.
• The standard situation is that an employee with negative conditional profitability is in the “periphery”. The decision to cut him is based on the following principle: the greater the difference between the conditional expenses and the income received, the higher the risk of his dismissal.

What do the concepts of outstaffing, outsourcing and personnel leasing mean?

These methods are very well practiced in the West, but in our country they are just gaining momentum, but are not yet used everywhere:

1. Outstaffing – this method involves the removal of working personnel from the business. Employees can be registered as employees of another company, while still performing their previous functions.
2. Outsourcing - In this case, it is not the personnel that are transferred outside the business, but the work process. Often this process is not core, but without it the entire business will not function properly. Enterprises operate by organizing it in one direction or several areas. At the same time, the size of the enterprise can be reduced and the resource load reduced.
3. Personnel leasing - this method lasts more than one day; it involves hiring with a subsequent right of purchase. That is, if an enterprise does not have the opportunity to hire an employee at this time, it cooperates with him unofficially, with the right to hire him in the future as an official employee. There are also categories of workers who are constantly listed in leasing, these are consultants, contractors, and technical specialists. These employees are registered with another provider company.

In what situations is it necessary to optimize the number of personnel?

1. When there is a reduction in commodity production or a reduction in the volume of services. We have to save costs so that the profitability of the enterprise does not decrease.
2. Sales volumes have increased, but the company does not consider it necessary to increase jobs.
3. The enterprise has excess staff, and there is a reserve of labor productivity in reserve.
4. The structure is organized and functions are distributed between departments.
5. The company is trying to find internal financing and reserves to implement its plans, and is trying to reduce working capital.
6. There is a need for more expensive specialists and a rejection of cheap labor. Which makes the demands on employees increase.

Two examples of personnel optimization

Example 1. Construction company.

The team working at the wood cutting site consisted of six staff members:

• Sawing machine operator – one person;
• General workers – four people;
• The forklift driver is one person.

It is obvious that the operator and the forklift driver are those workers without whom the production process is impossible. The workers were easily replaceable. Subsequently, management decided to use a mechanized system for laying sawn wood, as a result of which four employees were laid off.

Example 2. Subsidiary.

As a result of the expansion of activities, the company formed a subsidiary with a staff of 65 people. Based on the results of the first six months, it turned out that the branch’s activities were unprofitable. To find the reasons, management decided to analyze the work of the design bureau, which had 28 employees, that is, 43% of the total staff.

As a result of the analysis of the performance of functions by the PKB staff and the achievement of benchmark performance indicators, it turned out that this particular division was unprofitable - the payroll exceeded the profit from the results of work.

In parallel with this, top management assessed the personnel potential of designers and constructors and identified the “core”, as a result of which they decided to reduce staff and say goodbye to those employees who fell into the “periphery” (about 40%). To reduce the risk of failure to meet planned targets, an agreement was reached with a polytechnic university and an architectural academy, whose students underwent practical training at the company. This approach paid off over time, and the company stopped operating at a loss.

Optimization of personnel composition. Part 3

As of: 12/01/2010 Magazine: Personnel Directory Year: 2010 Author: Pugachev Vasily Pavlovich Topic: Personnel Rotation Heading: Personnel Management

Start

The world-famous company IBM estimates the cost per employee in the UK throughout his entire work at the enterprise (including training, pensions and other social costs) at approximately 1 million pounds sterling. Annual expenses per employee in Germany are approximately equal to the cost of three middle-class passenger cars. In the management of the 21st century, it is recognized that personnel are the key factor in the success of the company.

The quality of decisions made, as well as the efficiency of using monetary, material, technical, raw materials and other resources directly depends on managers and other employees. Increasing the role of personnel and their management in modern production has two aspects: on the one hand, first-class personnel are the key to the success of the organization, on the other hand, it is an expensive resource, the costs of which are very significant and are constantly increasing. But, as the crisis has shown both in the world and in Russia in particular, this is the first source of savings and cost reduction. But is reducing personnel costs always a real optimization?

Personnel costs became especially acute during the crisis, when, under the influence of financial difficulties, many managers began to feverishly look for how to cut costs and where to save. According to a habit that goes back to the traditional underestimation of the importance of the human factor in production in our country, the first item of savings is usually determined by personnel costs: layoffs follow, salaries and social benefits are cut, costs for training and personnel development are cut, etc.

Often, these types of measures, especially during a global crisis, are necessary. However, most often they have serious negative consequences: the company loses competent employees who are well aware of the specifics of work at this enterprise, corporate commitment and non-material motivation are undermined, organizational culture is destroyed, the socio-psychological climate worsens, labor productivity, quality of products or services decreases. As a result, the enterprise suffers large losses, and it will take many years to eliminate their preconditions.

Meanwhile, the negative consequences of laying off workers, cutting social benefits and salaries, training costs and other things can be reduced many times over if a policy of optimizing the composition of personnel is pursued, scientifically grounded and taking into account the real situation at a given enterprise.

Optimization concept

Talk about optimizing the composition of personnel as one of the most important areas of activity for personnel services and company management as a whole began in our country relatively recently - only since the beginning of market transformations. Until now, few managers can satisfactorily explain what it is from the point of view of modern science and best management practices.

What is staff optimization and how does it differ from regular redundancy?

“Staff composition optimization” is a complex concept; in order to find out its meaning, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the components of this phrase and, above all, the term “optimization”. In this case, “optimal” means the best composition of personnel for the company. In modern, civilized and humanized business, optimality is determined from the point of view of economic (or business - for non-profit enterprises) and social efficiency. Economic efficiency is understood as achieving, with minimal costs, organizational goals - economic results, the most important of which are usually considered to be the growth of capitalization and profit of the company, as well as labor productivity. In addition, economic efficiency involves ensuring stability and working for the future.

If a company, in order to achieve short-term benefits (high profits today), without caring about the future, squeezes the maximum possible out of its employees, sharply worsening the condition of the workforce, then from the point of view of long-term goals such a policy cannot be considered cost-effective.

Important indicators of economic efficiency (and optimal staff composition) also include flexibility and adaptability. They mean the ability of staff and the entire organization to quickly adapt in accordance with the requirements of the situation, the ability for organizational innovation and renewal. Measures to optimize the composition of personnel should be aimed at maintaining and developing these company capabilities. Flexibility and adaptability are especially in demand in times of crisis, when an enterprise is forced to quickly rebuild, change the range of products or services, and look for new market segments.

Social efficiency characterizes the humaneness of labor organization and personnel policy. It presupposes employee satisfaction with work (its content), conditions, pay, and the very presence in the team: relationships with management, colleagues, subordinates, and business partners. In other words, social efficiency reflects the human aspect of work activity. Although it is associated with additional costs, but, being harmoniously linked with economic efficiency, it has a positive effect not only on the psychological state of employees, but also on staff motivation, corporate commitment (reducing staff turnover) and, as a consequence, on labor results.

Two sides of optimality

The optimal composition has two dimensions: quantity and quality of employees. The number of personnel, in turn, is characterized by the main indicators: gross and net personnel requirements. Gross (total, gross) need is the number of workers with the required qualifications and motivation required by the organization to complete the planned amount of work within a certain time frame. The net personnel requirement is determined by subtracting from the gross personnel requirement the composition of personnel that the enterprise has today or will have at a certain time. In other words, it characterizes the discrepancy between the workers required to perform production and other organizational tasks and their expected composition in a given time period. When determining the net need for personnel, the estimated (predicted) changes in its composition associated with retirement, transfers, layoffs, injuries, etc. are taken into account.

The quality of personnel is characterized by their professional qualifications and motivation, although in practice, due to the difficulty of determining the level of motivation of employees, especially when hiring, the quality of personnel is usually understood as their professional qualification level. The most important modern indicator of the quality of an employee is the competency profile: a set of knowledge, skills and personal qualities that allow a person to perform certain types of work.

So, in light of the above, optimization of personnel composition is subordinated to ensuring the company’s strategy, its economic and social efficiency. Therefore, the optimal composition of personnel would be

in quantitative and qualitative terms,
which is able to implement its strategy and main objectives, ensure capitalization and profitability, stability, flexibility
and adaptability, as well as high employee satisfaction with work and stay in the enterprise team (social efficiency). One of the practical recommendations follows from this: before dismissing (or recruiting) employees or reducing (or increasing) personnel costs, it is necessary to carefully analyze how the current state and planned changes correspond to the above and some other criteria for the optimal composition of personnel.

Let's start with planning

Optimizing the number of personnel is one of the permanent, most important functions of personnel management. Most often, the need to optimize the composition of personnel is due to the mismatch of the existing personnel composition with the tasks facing it. In other words, it occurs when the composition of personnel in quantitative and (or) qualitative terms does not meet the requirements of the time. Meanwhile, due to changes in the situation, equipment and technology, the goals of the enterprise and the existing composition of employees, the desired compliance is very rare and does not last long. Therefore, optimization of personnel composition is almost always relevant for an enterprise.

How is personnel composition optimized in practice?

The starting point for optimizing the composition of personnel is its planning. Nowadays, without personnel planning, any effective personnel management is impossible. Personnel planning is the determination of goals and activities in the field of providing the organization with specialists, with optimal quality and quantity, as well as their effective use in the interests of the employer and employees. It allows you to foresee future changes in the organization, personnel and external environment, determine in advance ways, methods and forms of effectively attracting employees, optimize the use of human, financial and other resources, rationally distribute them, reduce unforeseen personnel costs, and ensure economical, rational operation of all funds.

There are various types of personnel planning: planning of personnel marketing, recruitment and development of personnel, personnel costs, etc. Central among them is personnel planning.

Personnel planning

This central type of planning is a detailed assessment of the existing and determination of the future, the expected composition of personnel in quantitative and qualitative terms, as well as its labor potential and organizational capabilities. In terms of time, personnel planning based on the existing state of personnel goes far beyond the present and serves as the starting point for all calculations of future changes. It allows you to identify specific qualitative characteristics (specialty, competence, qualifications), as well as the quantitative composition of various categories of workers: operators, programmers, lower, middle and senior managers, etc.

Personnel planning is necessary for preparing any decisions in the personnel field. It is the core, the backbone of all personnel planning. Based on information about the current state of personnel and expected changes, almost any measures to change personnel are developed and implemented, and all personnel activities are carried out. This type of planning makes it possible to determine the state of personnel, rationally fill jobs and use employees, take into account and provide for personnel costs, make decisions on reducing or increasing the number of employees, their training and development. In other words, it serves as the basis for accounting and planning any actions to optimize the composition of personnel.

The initial, first link in the process of optimizing staffing is determining the gross, general need for personnel, i.e. the quantity and quality of workers necessary to implement strategic goals, tactical and operational tasks, as well as the company’s policy regarding employees. In order to ensure that machinery and equipment do not stand idle, that each workplace is occupied by employees who are able and willing to work, and that there are no endless “smoke breaks”, it is necessary to timely and clearly determine the need for personnel. Moreover, the number and qualifications of personnel must be calculated in such a way as to ensure high-quality performance of work within a certain time frame with minimal costs. Taking into account changes in production tasks, the external environment and staff turnover, this can only be done on the basis of systematic planning of personnel requirements and the development of programs to satisfy them.

As a result of determining the personnel requirements, it becomes clear how many employees are required, what qualifications, by what time and in what places to perform the planned organizational task in a certain situation. As can be seen from this definition, the need for personnel is determined by five parameters:

The number of employees required by the organization. The quality of the required workers, i.e. their specialty, qualification group. Time of need (when, by what time it is necessary to find or lay off an employee). In this case, one should take into account the average time required to search, select, register and adapt a new employee, as well as the statutory deadlines for notice of dismissal. Place, spatial location of the unit where the need for personnel or its reduction arises. A situation that may arise by the time the need for personnel is actualized and which reflects the state of the external environment, the external conditions of the company’s activities. For example, a severe, snowy winter makes it difficult to carry out the task of transporting goods and shipping products, thereby increasing the required number of personnel. The situation may also reflect expected changes in the global or labor market.

Determining the need for workers involves determining the quality and quantity of personnel that is optimal for fulfilling production tasks and implementing personnel policies. Quality and quantity are planned in unity and interconnection, since their carriers are specific people occupying specific jobs. Initially, qualitative characteristics are determined: categories, professions, specialties, level of qualification requirements for employees.

The process of determining the need for the quality and quantity of personnel is impossible without labor analysis (work, workplace, professional labor analysis - often these terms are used as synonyms*). Job (workplace) analysis is a procedure for determining the purpose, goals and content of work activity (work processes), as well as the requirements for the employee occupying this position. Such requirements in modern companies are usually formulated in the form of competencies required by an employee occupying a given workplace.

Job analysis is a rather labor-intensive and costly procedure. Therefore, when the company has the necessary documentation and it is trustworthy, then the need for personnel quality is calculated based on:

professional and qualification division of work recorded in the production and technological documentation of the work process; requirements for positions and jobs expressed in job descriptions or job descriptions; the organization's staffing table, including a list of positions; documentation regulating various organizational and managerial processes and containing requirements for the professional and qualification composition of performers.

Workplace analysis is the basis for determining not only the quality, but also the quantity of personnel. Simultaneously with determining the quality needs for professions, specialties and other characteristics, the number of personnel is calculated for each quality indicator. This calculation is carried out during the analysis of working time - determining the necessary (proper) time spent on certain types of work activity. This takes into account not only the time spent directly performing the work itself (primary time), but also preparatory and auxiliary time costs. By summing the quantitative needs for individual qualitative indicators, the total need for personnel is found.

So, at the first stage of the process of optimizing the composition of personnel, the gross need for personnel is determined. To optimize staffing, it is necessary to clearly understand what kind of personnel we have and what work they are capable of performing. Without this, it is impossible, in particular, to determine how many and which employees need to be laid off or recruited.

Determination of labor potential

The second stage of the technology for optimizing personnel is personnel diagnosis, which means identifying the organizational competencies and capabilities of employees, i.e., their labor potential. This potential characterizes the productive, or more precisely, organizational, abilities of employees, which can be realized in the presence of appropriate requirements and conditions.

The labor potential of an organization makes it possible to establish what tasks it can plan, what business (production) results it can achieve with a given composition of personnel. In addition, the company's management, knowing the structure of labor potential, its components and especially the latent (hidden) labor potential of employees, has the opportunity to make maximum use of the company's labor resources, for example, due to the currently unused competencies of performers.

Individual qualities of employees that have organizational significance are characterized by labor potential. In the specialized literature, to characterize the qualities that express the organizational capabilities of employees, the following terms are used: “abilities”, “competencies”, “qualities”, “traits”. In the last decade, labor potential has increasingly been defined in the form of competencies. As already noted, competencies are ensured by the presence of the necessary personal qualities, knowledge, skills and abilities among employees. All personnel of an organization represent a certain set of competencies necessary to perform its tasks. And from this point of view, personnel optimization is planning the optimal quantity and quality of competencies (recruitment), their acquisition, preservation and use by the organization.

Establishing the company's labor potential (personnel diagnosis) creates an information base for all personnel planning and, above all, for the rationalization and optimization of personnel needs and ways to cover them. The result of the diagnosis is a refined professional qualification composition (how many workers of what qualifications actually work in different departments and in the enterprise as a whole), as well as a set of competencies differentiated by individual employees and departments. Such information is necessary to optimize staffing, since it allows you to determine:

how many workers of what qualifications are actually used by the enterprise and its various divisions; the level of qualifications of workers, as well as how well it meets the requirements of the workplace and the work performed in them. If there is a lack of competencies, it is necessary to plan either appropriate training for employees, or their relocation to jobs with lesser requirements, or their release; untapped capabilities of employees and work teams at various levels. Due to this, it is possible to rationalize staffing requirements and reduce personnel costs.

For example, if an enterprise has employees who are well versed in programming, and this competence is not used, and the company plans to create new jobs equipped with numerically controlled machines at the beginning of next year, then it is more profitable for it to plan not to attract new specialists from outside, and the use of own reserves. It may be necessary to provide for appropriate training activities, as well as the relocation of employees and the replacement of vacant positions.

Having identified the general need for personnel and the labor potential of the proposed personnel (taking into account changes that can be relatively accurately established by a certain time based on retirement planning, average staff turnover rates, occupational diseases, injuries, etc.), it is advisable based on comparison Based on these indicators, develop a plan for optimizing staffing. It includes proposed quantitative and qualitative changes in personnel composition, carried out in various ways. These methods will be discussed next time.