As the use of temporary workers is expected to continue to increase, businesses should include these individuals in their ongoing strategic workforce planning efforts. In times of uncertainty, however, it`s even more important to develop strategies and plans for your future employees. In fact, a recent survey found that 33% of executives say they spend more on workforce planning than before. Workforce planning may seem like a vague term. Especially when it comes to general business strategy. But. He has a very simple purpose and reasoning behind him. Workforce planning is a top-down process that requires clear organizational alignment and defined strategic objectives to make and guide future decisions. Once you understand the current staffing issues and the challenges you may face, you can begin the workforce planning process. As with any process, flexibility is key, but we have five steps of workforce planning that we recommend to make sure you`re prepared. This brings us to succession planning and ensures that you maintain successful leadership throughout your business. Accurately predicting your business needs requires careful consideration and, in today`s climate, creating a flexible set of plans based on data from your current workforce. Done right, workforce planning ensures that your business always has the right amount and mix of talent to enable you to achieve your broader strategic goals.
With workforce planning, you can understand and develop strategies that bring out the best in your employees to increase performance and get a better return on investment from your labor spend. With performance monitoring and employee evaluation, you can get an overview of your entire workforce and create action plans for the future. Some companies are also investing in external data and workforce detection resources to better assess the talent market. However, such workforce detection capabilities require a significant investment of time to gain an understanding of external data sources, which HR teams may not be ready for. There are common challenges that can impact how you map the people and positions your business needs to succeed now and in the future. Here are some of the hurdles companies typically face when undertaking a strategic workforce planning process, and how you can prevent them from derailing your own efforts. While it`s a complex process that takes a lot of time and thought, workforce planning is worth it. This gives your business a competitive edge because you`re better prepared for the future, so you don`t have to crawl when needed. Workforce planning helps an organization plan for the future.
Managers can make data-driven decisions based on the importance of a role and individual performance, and the company can assess the impact of different jobs. In the meantime, leaders will benefit from workforce planning, as they will be able to plan ahead. Taking the time to plan and make decisions as part of a larger strategy improves all aspects of your business, including your employees. Despite the size or nature of the business, workforce planning is a valuable HR process that ensures you have the right people to execute your business strategy. The strategic approach to workforce planning with long-term business goals in mind and from a collaborative, analytics-driven perspective gives organizations the opportunity to adapt to increasingly changing business needs. “It has to be very flexible, because often business priorities change, even in a short period of time,” Eskenazi told SHRM. “Companies are constantly being rehired – and faster than ever.” Eskenazi recommends that workforce planning teams work regularly with management to then make changes and update the plan. All of this means that workforce planning responsibilities will vary by organization. It really depends on the role of an HR team and whether or not they were able to reserve their own seat at the executive table. Effective workforce planning ensures that a company doesn`t just react to risks such as talent outflows due to retirements or staff turnover.
Most companies are already planning for these potential events. It`s an ongoing strategic assessment of how talent risk can impact a company`s finances, product development, and customer relationships. Using spreadsheets to perform workforce planning steps is likely to be slow and time-consuming, and can lead to more human error. Similarly, spreadsheets don`t allow you to simply view your plan next to your completed tasks or get a quick snapshot of your current status. Companies need to plan their workforce based on the value and revenue they produce. Here`s a simple example of workforce planning in action: Workforce planning provides the game plan for recruiting and developing your company`s employees. A workforce sharing plan often includes a brief analysis or summary of your current workforce, future needs, and how you plan to bridge the gap between the two. This can include hiring plans, learning and development opportunities, or identifying key employees who aren`t necessarily tied to scaling your business (like a new executive or content specialist). Your new workforce plan should be created using a collaborative approach that builds consensus among all parties involved. Without organizational support and justification for new strategies, you cannot reap the benefits of workforce planning. Unfortunately, the same report that collected information from 7,000+ people across nine industries and 16 regions states that two out of five HR leaders say they don`t know what skills they have in their workforce today! To effectively implement workforce planning, HR leaders must be curious, strategic, and collaborate with leaders across the organization. A plan should be linked to your company`s overall goals and include all relevant factors that may affect your hiring and employee management.
The goal of workforce planning is to ensure that the right number of employees are in the right place at the right time. This allows an organization to work more efficiently and is especially beneficial for large companies. At times, it makes sense to look beyond recruiting new employees or retraining existing employees to meet the needs of your workforce. Casual staffing is a solution that more and more companies are focusing on, especially if future staffing needs are likely to be fluid or very dynamic. It is important to remember that workforce planning is an iterative process where progress is monitored and measured against specific milestones and long-term goals. Implementing an effective and agile workforce planning process can create a workforce with optimal staff and training that can meet business needs and minimize the risk of unforeseen disruptions. Identify the current state of the workforce as well as the future state required to achieve your strategic objectives. First, perform a current state assessment to understand the resources you have. This analysis should consider more than workforce planning, but also the current skills of existing employees and their development paths. Consider this step to establish the “flexible” workforce planning framework that defines the overall strategy for assessing future information, rather than the specific details of the plan. With the insights gleaned from current workforce analysis, the next step is to forecast the type of workforce your organization needs to achieve the identified business goals.
This process should also take into account factors such as technological advances and the potential expansion or reduction of global markets. A clear workforce plan with recruitment and training structures can make your business more agile and be able to anticipate and respond effectively to change. A survey conducted by the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) shows that 89% of 236 companies have integrated workforce planning into their business processes. There are three general guiding principles for strategic workforce planning: At a time when more and more employees are working remotely, reliance on temporary workers is increasing, and “superjobs,” where people pair multiple skills, are becoming increasingly common, defining how an organization should manage not only recruitment, but also the retraining – and even redeployment – of employees in the overall workforce planning process. Talent management is how a company implements its workforce strategic plan. The plan impacts all aspects of talent management: recruitment, onboarding, development, retention and outsourcing. Once staffing gaps have been identified, a thoughtful assessment of how best to address these gaps should include a holistic approach to talent management, taking into account the skills needed and the availability of those skills in today`s workforce. If internal talent is not available, the next step is to determine whether these needs need to be met by recruiting new talent, recycling existing talent, or hiring temporary work. Businesses need to innovate faster than ever, and they need talented people who can meet these demands.