Impact of human resource planning on job satisfaction in sri lankan software organizations

Abstract

The IT industry has become a major source of foreign income for Sri Lanka and has the potential to grow due to the availability of skilled human resources. In this context human resource planning within IT organizations in Sri Lanka presents an interesting research area for researchers. Job satisfaction is a main factor that is considered when planning human resources. There has been only limited number of researches on the impact of human resource planning on employee job satisfaction especially in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of human resource planning on job satisfaction in Sri Lankan software development organizations. The thesis sets out to seek how human resource planning activities facilitate the employees and business of the organizations. To achieve the aim of this study, current Human Resource processes and practices were analyzed through an empirical investigation based on several interviews with human resource managers of leading software development organizations in Sri Lanka. Secondly a questionnaire was used to collect data representing employee perspectives in Software Development organizations in Sri Lanka. The findings of this research reveal that, human resource planning activities carried out by organizations such as knowledge sharing, skill development programs, planned working hours, responsibility attached to work mainly contribute towards job satisfaction. Furthermore the research points to the fact that demographic factors including age, gender, level of education, and experience in the industry (in years), job function, employment status, and marital status do not show a significant impact on job satisfaction. Finally based on the research outcomes the author has made some recommendations to overcome HR planning barriers which affect job satisfaction in Sri Lankan software development organizations.