Whether your organization is hiring this year or not, knowing the current skill and capability gaps of your workforce as well as the market availability of talent (and the cost-to-acquire!) is critical for any executive to make informed management decisions.
When to Utilize Strategic Workforce Planning?
Do any of these scenarios apply to you?
- Your organization lacks sufficient number of Leaders and/or ‘A’ Players;
- Even with rising unemployment, or perhaps because of it, it has become even more difficult to find quality talent as job boards are plagued with bottom feeders;
- Currently in the process of evaluating whether to promote employees, supervisors, or leaders; or
- Currently evaluating a new product line or business venture.
Strategic workforce planning ensures employers have the right people in the right place at the right time and at the right price.
At its core, strategic workforce planning consists of three steps:
- Projecting future demand;
- Assessing your internal supply (breadth and depth of people skills and capabilities), and lastly;
- Developing your strategy to fill the gaps.
Benefits of Strategic Workforce Planning include:
- Understand labor/employment and hiring patterns and trends
- Position your firm to gain a people competitive advantage during a slower economy
- Assess your people skill and capability deficiency against your financial objectives
- Forecast hiring dates, costs, and resources
- Make informed business decisions such as whether it is more cost effective to hire part-time contractors, outsource an activity, or add full-time salaried employees
- Assess human-capital needs and risks against the opportunity landscape/ROI
- Hire more than your share of ‘A’ Players
- Improve career development and “promote-from-within” policies
- Reduce long-term hiring and retention costs
Want more resources on Strategic Workforce Planning? Try these thought-leaders:
- Aruspex > Helping Companies Plan and Build Their Best Future Workforce
- Strategic Workforce Planning Blog
- InfoHRM > Global leader in workforce planning, analytics, and reporting
- Vemo > Strategic Workforce Planning
- Achilles Group > Strategic Workforce Planning for small business
- An Outline of a Strategic Workforce Plan
- TEDS > Talent Management Solution
- Solutions Advisor: Bersin
Your #5 is quite an important one. This is a good list overall . . . strategic decisions are constant and continual in a business.
Posted by: Don Simkovich | August 05, 2009 at 01:23 PM