Manpower
This article covers meaning, importance & example of Manpower from HRM perspective.
What is Manpower?
Manpower is defined as the total of number of individuals who are employed in a company or available for a particular project assignment or work. In an organization the manpower needed for a particular work and in future is estimated and planned through different techniques available.
Importance of Manpower
Manpower is one of the most critical assets in an organization. Without appropriate manpower, the work cannot happen. Imagine a factory with no manpower. The raw materials, inventory, finished goods nothing will move in the value chain. All these mission critical operations require skilled manpower.
If in an organization, the number of people available are more than the work it indicates that the organization has surplus workforce. In this type of organization, some people will remain with out work. This would be an additional cost to the organization, but sometimes organizations keep some extra employees with them just to use them when unexpected need arises. The manpower surplus maintained will be different in different industries.
Examples of Manpower
For example, in software service oriented companies, it is advisable to keep high number of employees in surplus. This is because the software service oriented companies get new projects at any point of time, and they must have sufficient manpower available to start working on that. The organization's capability to take up new projects will depend on its available employees. The clients would also look at the available skilled labor before allocating the project to a company. So the available workforce would play a key role in getting a new project from client.
In manufacturing companies and public sector companies, the surplus manpower would be minimum. And even though when they need additional employees they get them in the form of contract labors. This is because the labor laws do not allow the companies to remove the permanent workmen from the work easily when there is work and the management knows the demand for their product. And also, the demand does not fluctuate suddenly.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Manpower along with its overview.
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