Strategic workforce planning is one of the most powerful tools for companies to reach and sustain performance against their strategic objectives in a highly competitive market.
Planning is the engine and the main link between talent management and workforce. A solid human capital management team is built around a comprehensive workforce plan.
Although many companies recognise the importance of better planning, most still lack the skills and tools to manage and execute strategic steps that will drive business results.
Let’s begin by explaining workforce planning and why it’s essential.
What’s workforce planning?
According to Human Resource Management Sydney, Workforce Planning refers to an organisation’s process of assessing its workforce and deciding the best steps that must be taken to meet future and current staffing requirements. It involves finding cost-effective and efficient ways to retain and recruit talent.
Why is workforce planning important?
Your future is built when you act with purpose. Agile workforce planning significantly impacts employee experience and allows companies to form cohesive teams for long-term, impactful results. Investor relations are improved, and talent management capabilities are enhanced.
Workforce planning assists companies to:
Attain financial goals
Business planning is made easier by the collaboration between finance and human resources. The productive union between these two groups enhances collaboration through connecting people, processes, and technology.
Finance and human resources depend on each other as a key source of revenue.
Finance should analyse people’s data to understand how they contribute to the organisation. With these insights, HR can strategise how to allocate resources, hire the right employees at the right time, create programs that nurture talent, and establish a workforce aligned with financial goals.
Enhance employee experience
Planning for a workforce is about people. A company that plans keeping its employees in mind, it prioritises and cares for their well-being, ultimately improving the employee experience.
Your organisation can increase business agility by utilising engaged employees and their talents. Flexible workforce plans tailored to employees’ experiences and needs will help you achieve this.
An analysis of your workforce can help you determine how to increase productivity and profitability. This will ensure that your hiring strategies align with business needs and your workforce plans align with your corporate plan.
Promote collaboration
Planning for the workforce is collaborative and encourages participation from all members. Collaboration is the only way to gain cross-functional insight and identify interdepartmental connections. Knowledge and teamwork can also broaden your horizons.
A focused approach is a key to getting the best out of your team. Where should you begin? There are four fundamental principles that can help you design your workforce planning model.
4 fundamental principles of workforce planning
Right people
Many companies depend heavily on new employees to reach their goals. These companies may need to increase their workforce to handle their workloads.
The new world of remote business has made it possible to find top talent regardless of their location. Expand your talent acquisition strategy to find the best talent for your team.
Some things to consider:
- A global talent search
- Factors that impact staffing
- Productivity
Right skills
It is crucial to know what competencies your company needs from its employees in order to meet future challenges and fill skills gaps and this can be done through human resource consulting brisbane. Identifying the experience levels that support strategic competencies to translate hiring into strategy and turn business models into long-term success is crucial.
Some things to consider:
- Essential skills required throughout the organisation
- Impact of skills on strategy and business model
The right time and place
Continuing growth means putting the right people in the right positions at the right times and in the right places, and this requires that employees are evenly distributed across the company.
This means that companies must establish clear business goals to hire people who can help them achieve their company’s future objectives.
Some things to consider:
- Alignment between talent distribution and company requirements
- Adjustment to the hiring strategy to achieve business objectives
Right price
Consider the direct and indirect costs of hiring. This includes costs for job advertisements, interview time, new employee salaries, benefits, and insurance.
Knowing what these costs are will help you keep your budget within reach and make sure that you are optimising your costs by only hiring the right people when they’re needed.
Some things to consider:
- Aim to reduce costs for talent
- Planning for direct and indirect hiring expenses
- Budgeting only for the skills and talent your company requires
These principles should be the basis of your strategic workforce planning.
The 7-step process for strategic workforce planning
Once these are in place, you can use them as building blocks for a productive, engaged team.
Set goals
Strategic workforce planning is designed to help you achieve your business goals. The first stage of strategic workforce planning should assess your short- and long-term business goals.
Including the right people in this step is essential; it is not enough to have business partners or HR professionals only. Some of the best people to include in strategic workforce planning initiatives are line managers, business executives, financial service representatives, and HR technology experts.
Analyse the workforce
Analysing the current workforce is the second step of the planning process, and this step requires business leaders to assess the quality and quantity of their workforce.
Identify skills gaps
A skills gap analysis can provide valuable data for the future workforce. A skills gap analysis could indicate when an employee is planning to retire. The skills gap analysis would have given enough time to allow human resources to prepare rather than scrambling for the replacement.
Future issues are to be anticipated
Companies with adequate preparation for the future have a competitive edge in their industry.
Business leaders must create a workforce plan to anticipate future issues and provide steps to address them. Future workforce issues can include supply chain issues and labour market concerns.
Create an action plan
Next, you need to assess the objectives and analyse the workforce. These plans should include strategies to recruit & retain talent, restructure the company, and enhance technology.
Follow the action plan
Implementing the action plan involves ensuring that resources are available, roles are clearly defined, and that needs are met to achieve the business goals. This involves working with leaders and hiring managers to gauge the impact.
Monitor and test the plan
The workforce planning strategy must adapt to changing business needs. Regular Monitoring and testing of your plan allows you to monitor progress and identify areas for improvement.
Remote workforce planning
Companies can be prepared to adapt to the inevitable changes that are constant in the workplace through strategic workforce planning. It helps businesses to be agile in times of crisis, like the Covid-19 pandemic that has already changed how people live and work around the world.
In order to provide safety and well-being for employees in times of crisis, many organisations encourage remote work. However, remote work has become the norm.
Companies must adapt their business strategies for remote work to allow employees to be productive and reach their goals.
These are some strategies to plan a successful remote workforce.
- With clear guidelines and rules, establish remote work policies. These policies should outline job responsibilities, departmental and organisational goals & objectives, customer impacts, job performance, and job performance.
- Choose the right people to do the job. It is important to identify the best employees for your job.
- Prepare for potential problems and be prepared to address them. It is important to act to prevent or solve problems.
- Set clear objectives and expectations and monitor and evaluate the company’s actions.
Summary
In today’s changing marketplace, it is more important than ever to stand out from the crowd and be able to attract and retain talent.
Planning your workforce is key to maximising everyone’s talents for the benefit of your organisation.
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