How to Plan Manpower efficiently when there is a fluctuation in Sales? (Consider +/- 15% Sales against target Mnthly in recession period)

This is an excellent question and is a real pain for companies in the market.

An easy answer would be to hire sales people on commission, however this has its cons, for example, it doesn't guarantee loyalty, sales people in such situations usually seek other more reliable jobs to make ends meet.

I would suggest that you create a very good talent-pool of part-time sales persons; in the UAE, wives and daughters on family visas are the best option. This talent pool needs to contain skilled persons, it also needs to be maintained via monthly or weekly events with minimum pay, these events will be targeting "part-timer loyalty, some training" 

You cannot solely depend on this part-time talent pool, you will of course need your full-time staff but you can keep their numbers to the minimum and ensure that they are senior and the higher quality ones. Each of your full-time staff members can be made responsible for one part-time employee in terms of supervision and coaching.

Also when it comes to sales, keep the salary (basic  + housing) reasonable, while the transportation and other allowances dependent on the load of work (e.g. kilometers traveled) while the commission lucrative.

This way they dont become a burden on you during hard-times because you might not require them to travel or make phone calls often .  

In my opinion there should be a cut of line where you have to see at minimum manpower you need either case. Then you have to see if demand goes upward, how much your existing manpower and production facilities are flexible to absorb the pressure, it will help you out how much or least manpower is actually required. All products have the high times,low times and then average sales times, hence you have to evaluate on those basis that how much you can make your manpower flexible and efficient.

Thank you for your question. The one thing we believe that skilled people are core resources of the organization.  It is quite easier to kick them out from the organization than to keep them. For this we have to follow different theories of specialists who have invented from real time scenario.

You have asked "How to plan manpower efficiently when there is a fluctuation in sales?"

Almost every organizations in the world is entirely correlated with sales process. Upon the increment of sales the production and all other activities go up. This is obvious that if people wants to buy your products than you have increase your productivity. But at the same time it is also true that time always not flows in the same manner.

To ensure efficient usage of people i think you need to keep motivating them. The motivation procedure is also differs for sales people than any other dept.'s personnel. However, you can ensure cross functional activities so that they can learn about the activities of other departments in the organization. Everyone should need to learn the pain that each and every dept.'s bear. If they don't then this sort of problems will arise. For Example, If sales people know about the production process, minimum production volume, no. of products in one batch, time to produce a batch, time to check quality of batches, warehousing process, minimum time frame of storage, storage capacity, distribution process, time frame of distribution process, etc. than he may be able to provide his best in selling products in the market.

This is not only the sales person job to sell the products in the market, this is everyone's moral duty towards organization. If we can implement this thought than i believe every organization can improve its position in the market without mistake.

Knowing and implying the overall processes of different dept's in the organization, helps the organization in overcoming the recession period even without kicking out any people. During recession period, to utilize manpower efficiently, you can distribute them in different sections to learn about their process and thoughts which will be more helpful for them may be to have some new marketing strategy. Because employees are internal customers, and you can get honest feedback regarding your products from them.

when you run MRP then measure it by CRP and update it due to change the S&OP Plan you can determine daily tot requirement from  man power

This kind of situation happens all the time and would be an issue in an organization which already has lots of workforce, for example in manufacturing.

In my opinion, dealing with this situation directly on the production floor, we should have determine the minimum number of workforce needed to produce the average quantity needed. If necessary, we could even set the number to a level which production goes down to -15% , depends on the kind of the goods produced.

Then if everything goes to normal, we could arrange over time scheme to accommodate the additional 15%, whether, for example extra 2 hrs per day or even 4 hrs per day.

But having an over time scheme continuously, month after month is not the best situation for workforce. In the long term, higher level on the organization could prepare a contract with third party subcontractor to supply workforce. By doing so, the quality of the workforce is hopefully stable and reliable.

However, the above proposal is only one of many solutions on man power planing which could be applied. Eventually it will be depends on the typical goods or services produced by the organization.

I think the answer for this is that you should make capacity planning as you should calculate the manpower needed to produce the product (This should be the minimum manpower needed for minimum sales or production). Then, whenever there is higher demand whether you add shifts or let people work overtime.

The first step in the manpower planning process involves forecasting staffing needs and determining the actions needed to fulfill those needs. The most important step in forecasting staffing needs is a review of the organisation’s objectives and strategies.

From the forecasts and the comparisons of supplies and needs, the organisation is in a position to correct the imbalances. If there is a surplus in the organisation, management needs to decide the value of the human resources to the enterprise and if it will carry a surplus until normal turnover and retirements correct the situation.

If there is a huge imbalance and if management cannot tolerate the costs of carrying the surplus personnel then it might resort to involuntary pay cuts, part-time work, early retirements, and terminations. Alternatively, if there is a shortage of human resources in certain areas, cross training and hiring seem to be the only alternatives.

Best way to keep the strength of backbone in organisation on company role for the 70-75 % of your requirement and rest 25-30% will be contract base. This contractual work force will work as buffer and the take the surges of up and down in market. This mix can be changed if the market condition do not going to change for the long time (may be positive or negative) or your your order book suggests. This formula will also help you to keep your Fixed Cost in control.