Workforce planning is a continual process used to align the needs and priorities of the organization with those of its workforce to ensure it can meet its legislative, regulatory, service and production requirements and organizational objectives. Conducting an effective workforce planning session will result in these benefits:
* Aligns strategic planning with head count and talent planning.
* Creates a clear view of talent demand and supply issues by expense area, reporting relationship, and by location.
* Provides managers easy-to-use reports and tools to determine the impact of their talent decisions and prioritizes future workforce investments.
* Provides leaders the right metrics—identifying talent risk before it impacts business objectives.
* Helps control unplanned talent costs and highlights issues that limit employee productivity.
* Builds competitive advantage through planned versus reactive talent management.
* Gives business leaders consistent reporting of results to quantify measurable and meaningful outcomes.
Here are a few tools/resources that I have used and/or developed in order to realize human capital success.
I like to start my Workforce Planning Sessions by scheduling a workshop with upper management of a business or function in order to establish the strategy for the next 12-36 months. By the end of this workshop, managers and myself have generated actionable items related to human capital to support the strategic vision. This process allowed us to have the Right people, in the Right place, at the Right time.
Once a business strategy has been established, it is important for management members to understand how our current workforce may impact our ability to realize the business strategy. To aid business leaders with this process, I created this document to be used during the workforce planning process by visualizing the number of potential retirees over the next three years. This document also highlights some of the business risks associated with the loss of employees and the economic developments that may impact our ability to attract/retain talent. All confidential information has been eradicated and all department and employee information has been changed for illustration purposes.
I like to conclude the workforce planning process by completing this excel tool that takes into consideration any and all changes that are needed to support the company/functional strategy. This document includes information from the following considerations:
* Current FTE headcount
* Potential Retirees for the next 12 months
* Turnover trend
* Additional headcount requests to support the business
* Reduction in headcount as a result of any outsourcing or continuous improvement activities
The end product can be used for budgeting purposes and to provide the Recruitment department with an insight on the expected recruitment activity in the next 12-18 months.
The last piece of information that is helpful during these sessions is to discuss succession planning for roles that are critical to the business and to prepare for any potential retention risks that the business may face. For information about what I have implemented to help with this process, click here.