Strategic Workforce Planning

In our ever-changing world, organizations are missing a good opportunity by not taking the time to do a workforce plan as a part their people strategy.

Here is why this is important: Your people strategies need to align with your organization’s strategic plan. Sounds simple and really a no brainer but making it happen can be challenging.

What is a Workforce Plan? It is a careful and deliberate look at your current workforce in light of where your organization is headed. It starts with your organization’s strategic plan and builds from there.

Savvy organizations include representatives from HR in the strategic planning process so that the organization’s goals can be linked to a workforce plan. Think about it—if you don’t have the right people with the right skill sets in place, odds are you won’t be successful—no matter how well-crafted your plan is.

In the strategic planning process, you will look at where you are and where you’re going. You will ask questions including:

• Will your organization be growing?

• If you won’t be growing, can you keep your current headcount?

• Will you be entering into new markets?

• Is there a new product or service in the future?

• Is your market segment growing?

• Is there a possibility you will need to downsize?

The workforce planning process continues the planning process by asking and answering another set of questions:

• Do your current employees have the right skill sets to accomplish what was outlined in the strategic plan?

• If not, is reskilling a possibility and how will you make that happen?

• If reskilling isn’t an option, how will you right size your organization?

• What retirements are possible?

• Will you need to hire from outside the organization to get the skills you need?

• If you need to go outside, how will you onboard and develop new hires?

• What about budget constraints in downsizing and hiring?

• What sources for the necessary talent are available and how will you recruit?

• How much time will it take to downsize and get new staff in place?

• Do you need to do a GAP analysis to determine current staff strengths?

When you set out to do a workforce plan, make it a collaborative process—not an HR program. Ideally, your workforce planning process should be a part of the organization’s strategic planning process so that you have the appropriate people in the room. However, if that doesn’t happen, do your best to gather leaders from key parts of the organization who are decision makers to develop the workforce plan.

For more about the workforce planning process, check out The Big Book of HR and The Decisive Manager and stay tuned for a future blog post on succession planning.