“Manpower Inventory involves the classification of characteristics of personnel in an organization, in addition to counting their number. ”
The term inventory is often used in relation to counting of physical objects like raw materials, work in progress, finished products etc. It may also include the qualities and the abilities of persons working in a company. In that case an inventory is called a manpower inventory the items that are to be included in it are hard to pin down.
It is because it involves the classification of characteristics of personnel in an organization, in addition to counting their number. Both present and future characteristics of personnel are recorded in the manpower inventory.
The first step in manpower inventory is to decide who should form a part of it. Whether inventory should be in relation to only executives or it should cover all persons in the organization.
Generally it is prepared for persons working on significant posts. For example, the executives and some persons from the working staff are covered in it.
While taking persons from the operative staff only those persons are included in the inventory who have the potential of taking up higher responsibility tasks.
After determining the persons to be included in manpower inventory, information regarding them is collected in considerable detail. Some information is collected from records while some may be collected through meetings or talks with the concerned people. The factual information such as age, sex, experience, education, wealth, health, etc. is noted from the records. The brief interview with a person helps in understanding his caliber, mind-set, aspirations, etc. A summary statement of information is prepared about each person and is kept ready for consultation. This information helps management to find out the suitable person in an organization for taking up senior position in future.
The next step is to pass on to talent catalogue. The present and future capabilities of persons are assessed. Some scale is prepared for the appraisal of persons.
It is meticulously tried that the scale is a uniform one so that a common appraisal ground is available for all the personnel involved in a particular department or section of the business.
Besides appraisal tests, remarks about persons are also given. The remarks may relate to their talent, choice taking ability, training required, etc. In this way promotions are also dealt with easily as manpower inventory says much about job specialization of the concerned persons.
