The Imperative of Integrating Corporate Business Plan with Manpower Planning

Traditionally, manpower planning as human resource activity is used by organizations to ensure that they have the right number and the right kinds of people, performing tasks at the right places and at the right time all in a bid to fulfill business objectives. Business plan seeks to identify the various factors critical to the success of the organization. It also focuses on how the organization can be better positioned and equipped to compete effectively in the market, while manpower planning, contributes to the business by providing the means (people) to accomplish the outcomes from the planning process. This paper provides conceptual clarifications and examines the imperative of integrating business plan with manpower planning. It buttresses the need to strategically integrate the two plans as it ensures effective utilization of both human and material resources to achieve organizations aims and objectives in a rational manner. It concludes that manpower plan is intrinsically linked to business plan and that an organization can derive competitive advantage from the development of business plan that blends with the manpower plan. Lastly, recommendations for the effective interlink between the two plans were made to guide practitioners.