Before talking about HR planning I have to go through the definition of planning itself.

Planning is the process of thinking about the activities required to achieve a desired goal or planning is the legal context of permitted building developments.

Also, planning has a specific process and is necessary for multiple occupations (particularly in fields such as management & business). In each field there are different types of plans that help companies achieve efficiency and effectiveness. An important, although often ignored aspect of planning, is the relationship it holds to forecasting. Forecasting can be described as predicting what the future will look like, whereas planning predicts what the future should look like for multiple scenarios. Planning combines forecasting with preparation of scenarios and how to react to them. Planning is one of the most important project management and time management techniques. Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specific goal. If a person does it effectively, they can reduce much the necessary time and effort of achieving the goal. A plan is like a map. When following a plan, a person can see how much they have progressed towards their project goal and how far they are from their destination.
There are many types of definition for HR planning and process, below are some most common definitions and explanations of HR planning and process.

Human resource planning is a process that identifies current and future human resources needs for an organization to achieve its goals. Human resource planning should serve as a link between human resource management and the overall strategic plan of an organization.

A process used by organization to evaluate their workforce needs then plan a head to meet those needs. HR planning is an outcome of a tight partnership between human resource management and finance department and it is related to the systematic identification and analysis of what an organization is going to need in terms of the size, type, experience, knowledge, and skills of its workforce to achieve its objectives. It is a process used to generate business intelligence to inform the organization of the current, transition and future impact of the external and internal environment on the organization, as well as a key input into the budgeting process.

The HR plan needs to be flexible enough to meet short-term staffing challenges while adapting to changing conditions in the business environment over the longer term. HR planning starts by assessing and auditing the current capacity of human resources. The goal of HR planning is to have the optimal number of staff to make the most money for the company. Because the goals and strategies of the company change over the time.

Below are the most common steps taking into consideration in HR planning:

• Determining the Objectives of Human Resource Planning: The first step in every process is the determination of the objectives for which the process is to be carried on. The objective for which the manpower planning is to be done should be defined precisely, to ensure that a right number of people for the right kind of job are selected.
• The objectives can vary across the several departments in the organization such as the personnel demand may differ in marketing, finance, Procurement, HR department, based on their roles or functions.
• Analyzing Current Manpower Inventory: The next step is to analyze the current manpower supply in the organization through the stored information about the employees in terms of their experience, proficiency, skills, etc. required to perform a job.
• Also, the future vacancies can be estimated, to plan for the manpower from both the internal (within the current employees) and the external (hiring candidates from outside) sources. Thus, it is to be ensured that the pool of talent is maintained to meet any vacancy arising soon.
• Forecasting Demand and Supply of Human Resources: Once the inventory of talented manpower is maintained; the next step is to match the demand for the manpower arising in the future with the supply or available resources with the organization. Here, the required skills of personnel for a particular job are matched with the job description and specification.

Analyzing the Manpower Gaps: After forecasting the demand and supply, the manpower gaps can be easily evaluated. In case the demand is more than the supply of human resources, that means there is a deficit, and thus, new candidates are to be hired. Whereas, if the Demand is less than supply, there arises a surplus in the human resources, and hence, the employees must be removed either in the form of termination, retirement, transfer, etc.

Employment Plan/Action Plan: Once the manpower gaps are evaluated, the action plan is to be formulated accordingly. In a case of a deficit, the firm may go either for recruitment, training, interdepartmental transfer plans whereas in the case of a surplus, the voluntary retirement schemes, redeployment, transfer, layoff, could be followed.

Training and Development: The training is not only for the new joiners but also for the existing employees who are required to update their skills from time to time. After the employment plan, the training program are conducted to equip the new employees as well as the old ones with the requisite skills to be performed on a particular job.

Appraisal of Manpower Planning: Finally, the effectiveness of the HR planning process is to be evaluated. Here the human resource plan is compared with its actual implementation to ensure the availability of several employees for several jobs. At this stage, the firm must decide the success of the plan and control the deficiencies, if any.

As a conclusion we can say: Human resource planning is a continuous process that begins with the objectives of Human Resource planning and ends with the appraisal or feedback and control of the planning process. There are several benefits of Human resource planning that led its scope to expand across the different organizations.

HR determine how to proceed, which is the final phase of the HRP process. HR must now take practical steps to integrate its plan with the rest of the company. The department needs a budget, the ability to implement the plan and a collaborative effort with all departments to make the plan happen.