Business Plan Transport Industry

MANPOWER PLANNING IN INDIAN RAILWAYS

MANPOWER PLANNING IN INDIAN RAILWAYS

*M.K.DURGAMANI

Introduction

Manpower planning is a process which aims to have the right number of staff at right places with right type of skills at right times to enable the organisation to achieve its short term and long term goals.  In other words, manpower planning is the system, which ensures the manpower availability at a given point of time.Manpower recruitment is related to matching the personal qualities of employees with the job requirements.

Objectives of mpp

1)      To ensure the human resources currently employed

2)      To plan future man power needs

3)      To anticipate reduncies and avoid unnecessary situation

4)      To determine proper training levels.

Benefits of mpp

1)      Reducing man power costs

2)      Getting best contribution from the employees

3)      Motivating the existing employees

4)      Developing the existing manpower.

Assessment of Manpower in Railways

• In open line, factors like normal wastage, death, deputation, dismissal, creation of assets and posts, leave reserve, rest givers, yardsticks etc., influences the assessment of manpower. 
• In construction projects, performance evaluation and review technique, phasing of work etc., are used to assess the manpower.

            There have been dynamic change in the technology and modernisation, electrification, computerisation, mechanisation of track maintenance etc. are taking place at fast rate to meet the challenges of traffic requirements in Indian Railways.  To meet the challenges of the changing environment, systematic manpower planning is essential. Therefore a category-wise analysis of staff should be carried out, to identify surplus and to arrange manpower in the areas of need. This adjusts the surplus in one category to other categories, where there is demand. Manpower planning ensures that the existing manpower is utilised to the maximum possible extent.

Manpower planning emphasise on training to different categories of staff to improve the skill and to increase productivity. This step reduces the availability of unskilled staff, increase productivity and maximize manpower utilization. Regular conversion training programmes reduce the wastage of manpower due to changeover. The staff are also deputed for refresher course, conversion course, promotional course etc. with the aim to develop organisationally effective personnel with pride in their work and faith in management.

            The primary objective of the manpower planning is to ensure the availability of the required skill and to reduce wastage. When the manpower availability is clearly known arrangements can be easily made to cater to the additional needs of manpower as indicated in the forecasts. Normally, the field officers responsible for executing the job are responsible for the manpower planning.

Benchmarking

Definition:      

Benchmarking   is    “the   continuous   process   of   measuring our products, services, processes and practices against the most successful competitors or companies which are established industry leaders,  then  learning  how  their  excellence    was achieved ,   and   then   setting  out  to  match or even surpass them”. Benchmarking consists of being humble enough to accept that somebody else is better, then being wise enough to learn from them and then match or even surpass them.

Manpower Planning in Indian Railways

Man Power is the biggest component of any industry and the   expenditure on staff salary and related items is a perennial in nature. Right sizing of manpower to reduce unit costs in an effective way to increase efficiency. Benchmarking is a method which will enable to scientifically and rationally right size any industry. Indian Railways, the biggest transporting industry in India, has introduced the concept of bench marking as a tool of manpower planning. In simple words, Bench marking is the search for and implementation of best practices. Since Indian Railway has a large number of activity centres performing the same type of work, it was decided to do internal benchmarking of activity centre of Indian Railways. Substantial variations were observed and the activity centers with least manpower ratio (MPR) which means highest productivity were termed as Benchmark centers.

steps in  benchmarking process 

The 10 Step Benchmarking process outlined in Robert C. Camp’s “Business Process Benchmarking – Finding and Implementing Best Practices” may be used to systematically conduct the Benchmarking Study. The 10 Steps are:

• Decide What to Benchmark
• Identify whom to Benchmark
• Plan and conduct the Investigation
• Determine the current performance gap
• Project  future performance levels
• Communicate Benchmark findings and gain acceptance
• Revise performance goals
• Develop Action Plans
• Implement specific actions and monitor progress
• Recalibrate the Benchmarks. 

In Indian Railways, the above steps can be followed in the following ways

1. Break the total activity into smaller activities and then compare the manpower availability ratios for each such smaller activity so as to arrive at Benchmarks for such smaller activities that will help in identifying the excess manpower.
2. An analysis should be carried out in respect of the best and the worst Manpower availability ratios for different activities so as to identify the reasons for being the best or the worst.  This detailed analysis should then be circulated to all the activity centres to locate their faults and to innovate ideas to rectify the same. Single line with substantial MG
3. The activity centres which have been analysed as worst should, as the first step, stop inducting any more staff in that particular activity.
4. Then the surplus identified should be redistributed rationally to make optimum use of this vital and costly resource in areas where there are well established staff requirement has been assessed.  Based on the staff profile, their age, qualification, etc., a need based training to be imparted before they are fit in that particular job, if they were not in the same cadre or category.

 Thus benchmarking offers a solution to scientifically right size the Indian Railways. Once the benchmarking of staff deployment is completed, by similar method of benchmarking of energy costs and materials costs can also be taken.

Conclusion

In our railway system, though the system of recruiting, training, placing or posting and promotion are inherited from the system of British Railways, yet manpower planning is given importance only in late 70’s, which envisages making of quality human resource towards attaining the goals of the organization duly giving importance as a service organization for transporting of goods and passenger services to all sorts of the people across the country.

About the Author

M.K.Durgamani,
Ph.D Scholar,
Periyar University,
Salem

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