Why Workforce Planning Is Important?

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.

Workforce Planning

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.

Expert Knowledge

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.

HBA Consulting Solutions: A Fast Track to your Business Success

HBA Consulting has offices located in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. We specialise in the provision of practical human resource management and industrial relations advice and assistance to a wide range of private and public-sector organizations.

Since commencing operations in 1995, HBA Consulting has grown form a company with a primary focus on industrial relations, to one that can now provide a wide range of Human Resource Management and Human Resource Consulting and services.

We are increasingly asked to provide an ‘on demand’ service to our clients – many of whom don’t need ‘high end’ HR capability within their organisations on a daily basis but do need to know that if they need this type of help, its available, affordable and is exceptionally responsive – especially when a crisis arises without warning.

Under these types of ‘on demand’ arrangements, HBA Consulting can provide your organisation with assistance and advice relating to:

• HR advice and assistance, including policy and procedural matters, employment documentation and ad hoc HR queries and complaints.
• Industrial relations matters, including Award interpretation and application, review and resolution of queries and disputes relating to terms and conditions of employment, pay and Award related issues.

We also can help your organisation with workplace investigations and mediation services when you need them and have a part-time industrial lawyer available to assist with legal matters as well.

The Breadth and Depth of Our Capability

We do have a broad HR and IR capability within the company and would draw on this to assist HR clients where ever they might be, from a Human Resource Management team in Melbourne, to regional managers in Queensland or NSW.

To help paint a picture for our clients of the breadth and nature of our service profile, we have developed the following table summarise to try to set out in a simple, easy to read form, the key capabilities and services of HBA Consulting:

Practice Area	Description	Key Elements
People Planning, Analysis and Reporting	The process of shaping the workforce to ensure that it is capable of delivering organisational objectives and business continuity now and in the future.	HR planning – direction setting and integrating HR practice areas Workforce forecasting Workforce and capability profiling Succession planning/development and mobility Workforce data and analysis
Industrial Relations	The framework and processes used to manage the employment relationship and to develop and maintain a streamlined entitlements and conditions system.	Employment framework, arrangements and contracts Communication and consultation framework Remuneration and conditions strategy Grievance and dispute resolution Review of administrative decisions.
Recruitment and Placement	The process of sourcing and selecting people efficiently and effectively to fill employment vacancies and capability gaps.	Recruitment policy and planning Recruitment and selection process design and review Development and management of contracts for recruitment service provision.
Workplace Health and Safety	The ongoing management of the health, safety and welfare of employees at work.	Workplace safety consultative and governance structures and operations Workers Compensation premium reduction strategies Personal injury case management advice
Workplace Diversity	The practices and approach of taking account of, and utilising, personal differences to improve organisational performance.	Workplace diversity awareness and education programs Workplace diversity planning and strategy development and implementation
Managing and Recognising Performance	The framework and mechanism that aligns individual objectives with business unit objectives, provides recognition for employees in terms of advancement and promotion and incentives for those who achieve business unit objectives. It also allows for the management of under performance.	Design, implement and evaluate performance management systems and policies Incentives and recognition programs Managing under performance
Learning and Development	The process of identifying development needs at all levels and providing programs to develop skills and knowledge to bridge gaps in skills or behavioural requirements.	Development, implementation and evaluation of Learning and Development programs Budgeting and cost benefit analysis of Learning & Development programs Linking Performance Management and Learning and Development processes

If you would like to find out more about any or all of our HR Services, please contact:
• Gary Champion, Principal, HBA Consulting on 02 62474490, 0419401250 or gary.champion@hbaconsulting.com.au

So, Your HR Strategy Failed Again? Here’s What Might Have Gone Wrong

The importance of HR plans in an organisation cannot be stressed enough. Most organisations today understand the value of and need for a strategic HR plan. But just recognising the value of something and wanting it isn’t enough.

Building a human resource plan requires proper planning, diligence and foresight. Even with a competent HR team in place, an organisation is bound to face challenges when developing an HR strategy.

Here are some reasons why most HR strategies fail. Avoid these situations to ensure successful implementation of your Human Resource strategy and business growth.

Not having the “WHY” figured out

It might be hard to believe but many organisations develop an HR plan simply because all successful organisations have one. That’s it. There are no clear linkages to the corporate objectives of the organisation, how the defined objectives and goals in the HR strategy link to these and why the company is developing specific HR initiatives to drive some or all objectives and how are they going to benefit the employees and organisation itself.

To make sure the purpose of HR plan you develop doesn’t get lost in the process, it needs to clearly draw together these key linkages and demonstrate how it can really make a difference and benefit both the company and its employees.

At the end of the day, its not ‘HR’s’ plan its the businesses plan for creating and sustaining its people to do what it needs them to in order to deliver on its mission and corporate objectives.

There’s no plan behind the initiative

Another often overlooked aspect of an HR plan is the “how” of it. Having an HR strategy that lacks a robust plan explaining how you are going to do things is as likely to fail as an HR strategy without proper linkages to the business strategy and objectives or a meaningful role in the employment framework of a business.

There are companies that come up with HR plans full of standard principles and ideas like “we want to deliver the highest level of customer satisfaction” or “we want to be the best in the region”. These plans are just about high-level goals and aren’t helpful in terms of implementation at the tactical and operational levels of the business.

The key is to know both the “why” and the “how” of the plan.

Lack of communication

The worst case of HR strategy failure can be when there’s clarity in planning, concept, purpose and execution but there’s also a major communication gap. There’s no point in developing a strategic human resource plan with defined objectives and initiatives to be taken to meet those objectives, if you don’t communicate it properly, consistently and regularly to the business.

For an HR plan to work out successfully, it is important to effectively communicate the key components of the plan and how they will support the organisation in varied operations and meeting business goals.

Lack of sustainability

Almost every plan starts off with a bang, but it is not uncommon for many big plans to fizzle out soon after their launch. This often happens because the HR professionals and employees eventually lose interest and enthusiasm due to changes in workload, responsibilities or other company circumstances. It also can happen because its not actively monitored, progress again plan analysed and the results (or lack of them) reported to the Executive team for consideration and action.

To avoid the situation, be sure to consider the long-term impacts of the plan and how its gong to be measured, monitored, analysed and managed.

Think about change management issues and project risk

No matter how efficient your planning, implementing an HR plan without thinking over the change management implications and risks can (will!) increase the chances of plan failure. If it’s the first HR strategy or a new version of it, the change implementation issues need to be identified, considered and addressed. While you can’t always foresee everything that could arise in the future, you can still forecast and take into account some things that might impact in the future and that need to be managed now.

Handling Workplace Dispute: 3 Mistakes Managers Make While Resolving Workplace Dispute

Even in the best of workplace settings, employee disputes can and do occur. Often these can result from simple things that escalate quickly due to things like miscommunications, differences in perceptions and personality and values differences.

No matter how small or big, it is important to deal with an employee conflict in a timely fashion in order to maintain a positive, healthy work environment and to avoid ongoing escalation or collateral damage across work teams/areas.

However, for a range of reasons such as inexperience, a lack of confidence in their ability, insufficient training and limited HR assistance and advice, managers can often respond by doing nothing.

What they don’t realise is failing to proactively deal with workplace conflicts as they initially flare not only has an effect almost immediately on day-to-day business productivity but also tends to allow issues that can be ‘nipped in the bud’ via simple management action, to intensify and grow. This tends to broaden and deepen the issues involved and the time and effort required to address it at a point in time, and also can undermine staff’s confidence in the manager’s ability to manage.

Let’s take a look at some common behaviours of managers, which can negatively impact on effective and efficient management of workplace disputes.

Ignoring the situation until it is about to (or does!) ‘burst’

Some managers tend to overlook a problematic situation altogether until the situation is ready to explode. Then they need to take urgent action to try to deal with it – and this almost always occurs at a really inconvenient time – like just prior to Christmas.  Putting your management head in the sand won’t make the problem go away – it will only make it worse. The best way to deal with workplace disputes is to deal with them early and thoroughly.

When handling a conflict that escalates quickly, your frustration (with yourself for not dealing with it earlier and the situation itself that’s become urgent) can work as added fuel to the situation, potentially affecting the decision-making process and the ability to contain and resolve the matter well. At these times, it is really important for the manager to ‘think and act – don’t react’. Take a little time to gather information from the parties and consider it before moving to a decision and an action. Reactions often simply compound and prolong the problem.

Allowing workplace politics to interfere

Nothing can intensify an employee conflict like office politics. When office politics get in the way, disputes take an ugly turn.

As the manager, your objective should be to resolve the situation without alienating a group or being biased toward one. Perceptions are as critical to resolving these matters as the tangible actions taken. Remember that an unfair move (perceived or otherwise) on the manager’s part can give rise to more conflicts and create irreversible barriers in the workplace.

Trying to win the situation

The objective of workplace dispute resolution in the first place is to come to an agreement or solution that is workable and reasonable for all parties. It might mean there is a need for compromise – including for the manager in terms of the way forward. Take a leaf out of the Steven Covey management bible ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ and initially ‘seek to understand, then be understood’. Sit with the employees, listen hard to what they are concerned about, gather all the input and only then try to create a clear picture of what is going on, why and what the options might be in terms of resolving or improving things for those caught up in the conflict.

The Bottom Line

Dispute and conflict in the workplace is not really preventable. Thinking about how to approach these types of circumstances before they arise helps to be ready when they do.

The highly experienced HR Consultants at HBA Consulting, located in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, can provide guidance, assistance and advice to managers in terms of both heading off workplace disputes and also managing them effectively when they do arise.

Human Resource Management and Benefits of Human Resource Consulting

The Human Resource Management function within a business supports and enables the workforce to deliver against its business priorities.  It also leads and supports the managers and staff within an organisation to deal with issues related to employees, across areas such as recruitment, compensation, benefits, performance management, training and organisational development.

Targeted use of Human Resource consulting, a service specifically aimed working with a business area to identify and address HRM needs either proactively or reactively, is an attractive option for businesses that need expertise for their employee-related matters but can’t justify or maintain a full time capability. A combination of strategic, forward looking assistance together with ‘just in time’ support on issues as they arise helps to achieve cost reduction and time efficiencies by providing them as and when needed and with the right level of expertise and advice.

Some of the benefits of HR consulting are:

Recruitment and Selection: Consultants who specialise in recruitment can help you in identifying the best recruitment strategies suited for your business needs. They can even train you to make wise recruitment decisions. So, an HR consultant can help by creating a productive and effective workforce and thereby minimising your costs and inefficiencies associated with poor recruitment strategy and practices.

Legal Proceedings: An HR consultant can handle matters related to employee-relations like complaints filed by employees alleging unfair practices efficiently, effectively and with minimal risk. Not only can a HR/IR consultant save you on costs, but maintains the integrity of workplace policies and procedures. Additionally, the consultant can advise you on how and what proactive measures to take for avoiding future risks associated with employee-relations.

Strategic Issues:  HR consultants focus on strategic human capital development. They can effectively guide your existing HR staff in designing, coordinating and implementing HR tactical functions. Additionally, they can even perform the functions during start up stages, peaks in workload or when unplanned leave or staff turnover impacts on resourcing levels.

Proficiency: Small businesses that don’t have a dedicated HR department can benefit from the expertise of an HR consultant who can lend a helping hand in handling day-to-day operations. Consultants can even advise HR staff on functions that will optimise employee engagement and productivity.

Nowadays, many small to medium-sized businesses look to hiring an HR consultant, to increase their capability when required and to minimise risk over time.