Workforce Planning

It’s better to be prepared than surprised.

When it comes to achieving your strategic goals for 2013, a workforce plan is indispensable.  Properly designed and executed, it can transform your staffing function from a reactive, “vacancy-filling” role to one that continually aligns your organization’s human capital with its strategic goals.

By taking a systematic approach to using employees, you can dramatically improve your company’s ability to respond to changing conditions.  In other words, a workforce plan can help ensure that you’re prepared – and not surprised.

Although each company’s process is unique, developing a workforce plan typically involves:

1.       Analyzing your current workforce, starting with your 2012 Workforce Summary (link to previous post).

2.       Envisioning the operating environment that will most likely exist in the future.

3.       Identifying the competencies that will move your organization forward to overcome challenges, seize opportunities and thrive in the new world of work.

4.       Establishing the gap between “what is” and “what needs to be.”

5.       Developing strategies and implementing tactics for building your ideal workforce, so your organization will have the “people capabilities” to meet your business goals and be able to sustain a competitive advantage over your competitors.

Whether your company wants to: operate more cost-effectively in the current economy; seize every opportunity as conditions continue to improve; or simply forecast talent needs more accurately, here are five action steps you should consider adding to your workforce plan:

1.  Control labor costs and/or headcount. 

Identify which key positions, key individuals, and key skill sets will have the most business impact during the next two years.  Once you prioritize, you can then focus on retention, redeployment, and development efforts for the most impactful positions.

2.  Redeploy key employees.

Create a proactive redeployment process to move your top performers and highly skilled individuals into the units and jobs where they can have the greatest impact.

3.  Keep your best and brightest working for you.

First, identify the things that excite and frustrate your key workers.  Then provide a plan for increasing their level of excitement, challenge, learning, and opportunity within the firm.  Finally, develop a “bad manager identification program,” because bad managers are the number one cause of employee turnover.

4.  Revisit your succession plan.

Churn your talent pool, hiring top performers while simultaneously releasing below-average employees.  This approach will foster employee development and minimize the potential for a future talent gap.

5.  Get ready to “explode out of the box.”

Ensure you have sufficient talent to capitalize on every new opportunity by retaining your best recruiters and having them focus on:  developing Web 2.0 recruiting tools; maintaining employee referral programs; updating your employment branding.  Additionally, develop a “boomerang” program that maintains relationships with your very best former employees, and may allow you to rehire them when you’re ready.

Free Workforce Planning Consultation

In today’s operating environment, workforce planning is absolutely essential.  Be prepared – not surprised – by contacting PrideStaff to schedule a free workforce consultation.  Our employment experts will:

• Forecast your talent needs.
• Examine your talent supply.
• Help HR align the two by providing the right staffing and support services.
• Prepare your business to “explode out of the box” in 2013.