Workforce Planning

Workforce planning, in essence, is gathering information about the future needs of your workplace and analyzing that information. This is mostly to understand how many people and what kind of skills you will require to meet those requirements, and then building a whole plan on training or hiring new people to meet those future needs.

Table of Content

• Strategic Workforce Planning
• What is Workforce Planning
• What is the WFM Technique
• Examples of Workforce Planning
• Benefits of Workforce Planning
• What are the 5 Key Elements of Workforce Planning
• What are the 5 Activities of Workforce Planning
• What are the 5 Rs of Workforce Planning

What is Strategic Workforce Planning

Strategic workforce planning is something in its wholeness, where you observe your company''s internal goals and see what drives more business your way.

This is a very good way for businesses to identify and address their problems and unknown situations.

What is WFM Technique?

Workforce management is a holistic process that enables your company to get the most out of its employees. It''s part of workforce planning itself, where you figure out the future demands of your organization and then work on the goals you set to achieve it all.

Examples of Workforce Planning

Workforce planning can be done in various elements, including:

• Hiring
• Contingent workforce
• Career progression
• Potential retirement
• Introduction of technology
• Internal promotion
• Leadership development; among others.

Say, for example, that you are to present a workforce planning for leadership development. It could be like this:

• Firstly, you will need to identify the kinds of leadership positions you have in your company, how they are run, which employees are likely to be the potential successors for those positions, and develop your training and mentorship programs accordingly.
• Next, form a group of employees who would be the right fit for those leadership positions, implement your training programs, and get the skill set you need.
• Assess and evaluate each employee''s performance who has joined the leadership training groups at different levels and manage their performance. Based on that, promote them internally into leadership roles.
• Finally, have them mentored by the current leaders, identify the gaps in their skill and development plan, have them assigned cross-functional projects, and have them get external training if need be.

Benefits of Workforce Planning

Workforce planning has a number of benefits. Some of them are highlighted here:

• It will help you to foresee and plan the change well in advance. You can identify your key benchmarks quite strategically with the right kind of knowledge about your workplace and business objectives.
• It can reduce your hiring cost as you will recruit for big roles with the right kind of requirements at the very beginning.
• It can also enhance your recruitment processes with the use of analytics. If you know the right metrics, you will know what the ideal skills and traits are, so it will be easier to look for in a candidate what you want in that exact position you are looking to hire for.
• It can help you align your strategic HR practices with your business strategy. You can align various policies right from employee satisfaction and data protection to learning and development.
• It can help retain talent within your organization and use it to get the best results for your organization.

What are the 5 Key Elements of Workforce Planning

The five key elements of workforce planning are as follows:

• Identifying the goals of your business
• Coming up with the proper strategy, policy, and process to align them.
• Finding the proper talent for the same, either within or outside the organization.
• Planning the finances in advance.
• Investing in the proper technology so that the whole process is streamlined and flows smoothly and with ease.

What are the 5 Activities of Workforce Planning

The five activities that must be involved in workforce planning are the following:

• Starting in the right strategic direction.
• Analysing your supplies and understanding the current demand of your organization.
• Analysing the gap between the demand and supply.
• Implementing the solution that you have formulated.
• Monitoring your progress as you go.

What are the 5 Rs of Workforce Planning

The five Rs of workforce planning are finding the right talent at the right place, right time, and at the right cost.

This helps you ensure that the future of your organization is always progressive in nature and that the HR strategies aid the business growth profitably.

Conclusion

Essentially, workforce planning helps you train; it takes your organization to the next level at a reduced cost of recruitment and secures the future of your company in the best possible manner.