Key Areas of Workforce Planning:

Forecasting talent

Talent forecasting is a process by which future talent requirements are predicted and
planned. There are four primary components of a talent forecast:

1. An estimate of the future performance of the company – in terms of growth, output and
revenue.

2. An estimate of the changes in talent necessary to cater to the growth of the company.
This includes both quantification and allocation of employees.

3. An estimate of future vacancies in the workforce that need to be filled proactively.

4. An estimate of human resources available both within the organization an outside that
will have to be inducted to meet forecasted company goals.

Creating action plans

Talent action plans should not only deal with inducting talent, but should also
demonstrate how talent can be retained and re-deployed. There are three general
activities of talent action plans:

1. Inducting the requisite talent and leadership. It is important to identify external sources
from where future leaders can be inducted, so that the company never falls short of key
talent.

2. Ensuring internal growth and development of key talent. As much as it is important to

find key talent externally, it is equally important to groom internal human resources to
cultivate future leadership within your company.

3. Forecasting and bridging gaps between talent requirement and availability. It is

extremely important to understand where exactly your company stands in terms of key
talent and leadership resources. It is also equally important to forecast future talent and
leadership requirements of your company and take necessary steps to bridge the gap
between requirements and the supply of talent.

Integrating and implementing plans

A plan, however good, will only be useful when it is correctly implemented. A plan will
only be successful when it is compatible with the future requirements of the company.
Also, every plan needs to be integrated with each and every aspect of HR. A healthy
discussion before the actual implementation ensures that the plan has adequate support
across the workforce. Discussing also helps identify hindrances or objections to
implementing the proposed plan. As far as objections are concerned, most of them can
be sorted out by offering rewards and engaging in effective communication.

There is no generic formula or accepted list of components for a workforce plan.

However, there are certain components that are common to most workforce plans. They
include:

 Forecasting and assessing: Forecasting and assessing ensures that the current and
future requirements of an organization are documented. Assessment has to be done in
 multiple areas such as labor costs, company revenue predictions and growth rate
predictions.

 Designating plans: Succession planning involves identifying and developing internal

talent in order to designate newer and bigger responsibilities. Succession planning
ensures the ready accessibility of experienced employees.

 Developing leadership: Leadership development is the process of periodically training

highly-prospective employees to take on bigger challenges in the form of leadership
roles.

 Recruiting relevant people: It is very important to make a proper estimate of head

count, open positions, employment locations, recruitment timing, etc.

 Retaining and re-deploying: Along with identifying fresh sources for inducting new
talent, it is imperative for a company to have in place a system to determine and control
employee turnover.

 Creating contingency plans for your workforce: It is always helpful to try and
forecast what percentage of your workforce is going to be contingent and classify
contingent employees by position and grade.

 Performance Mapping and Management: Performance management is a process in

which employees and managers discuss and decide what an employee’s work objectives
should be. Performance mapping helps managers get the desired output from their
teams via training.

 Career counseling and internal opportunities: Career counseling should be a top

priority for a manager. Career counseling helps employees manage and plan their
careers and helps them move up the ladder.

Levels of Workforce Planning

In generic terms, there are two levels of workforce planning – strategic and operational
workforce planning.

 Strategic Workforce Planning: Strategic workforce planning is concerned with all

strategies pertaining to the organization’s strategic plan. It addresses external factors
that impact the business, like budget cuts, and decides on the appropriate response by
the company. It helps to maintain equilibrium in the workforce by introducing in-service
training, and helps managers in mitigating risks.

 Operational Workforce Planning: Operational workforce planning happens at the

manager/supervisor level and it takes care of work-unit issues, e.g., the unit’s capability
to successfully implement the company’s business strategies.

STAGES IN STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is crucial across the organization and especially in
departments like human resources, recruiters and talent acquisition professionals, and
for line managers and the general staff. SWP is carried out in three discrete stages – the
planning stage, the development stage and the implementation stage.

In the planning stage, four activities are carried out:

Reviewing organizational strategies and workforce goals

 Workforce goals are vital in that they address key workforce issues. Desired outputs are
stage-managed although specific strategies and performance measures cannot be
accurately determined. It is best to restrict setting workforce goals to include only the
most critical business issues like managing and reducing employee turnover in core
positions, channeling recruitment initiatives to support particular programs, fulfilling
certain region-based staffing requirements, preparing for retirement of key staff
including managers, senior technicians, etc., creating a decentralized workforce by
cross-training employees, and enhancing employee performance to meet newer
requirements.

Accessing planning data and performing workforce profiling (if needed)

This also includes operational and management planning and environmental scanning.
Workforce profiling is done based on criteria like:

 Specialization

 Tenure

 Location

 Age

 Gender

 Knowledge, qualifications and skill sets

 Employment type

Defining workforce requirements (by assessing current and future skills

demand)

Identifying future demand for skills of the workforce is the primary reason behind
creating workforce requirement definitions. It is of utmost importance to identify all
conceivable scenarios based on future trends. Workforce planning should also include a
comprehensive list of all current skill sets that will no longer be applicable in the future.
At the same time, all possibilities for newer skills should be accounted for and plans
should be made to recruit suitable talent in order to bridge current and future workforce
gaps.

Researching the market

Market research is a dedicated study of target markets and potential customers. Market
research helps a company maintain a competitive edge over their rivals. The methods
used in market research include both statistical and analytical techniques. Market
research dictates how a product can be marketed and what segment(s) of the customer
base needs to be targeted. The following information can be derived from a well-
accomplished market research initiative:

 Information about the market: This includes information about the different commodities
already available on the market, along with their prices, target segments and the overall
supply and demand scenario.

 Market segmentation: Market segmentation takes into account the various deviations in
the market like geographical and demographic differences, technographic and
 psychographic differences, etc. Market segmentation basically divides the market into
subgroups with similar driving forces.

 Market Trends: Market trend analysis is the study of the fluctuations in a market over a
period of time.

 SWOT analysis: Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat (SWOT) Analysis is a

comprehensive analysis of any business entity that is carried out right from the initial
phases of the company and is performed throughout the life-cycle of the company. A
SWOT analysis helps your company to decide what product to develop and how to
market it.

II. Development Stage

The development stage activities are classified as follows:

Modeling the workforce

Workforce modeling is the process by which current and future workforce requirements
are matched to workforce availability. Components of an ideal workforce model include:

 Demand management: Demand management is the process of tracking workforce

demand at both macro and micro levels.

 Employee availability: Employee availability is the calculation of workload and

responsibility areas, including work hours and shift timings for each employee in the
organization.

 Employee preference: Employee preference is the process of allocating work, work

hours, etc. according to an employee’s preference. The aim is to create goodwill and job
satisfaction among employees.

 Workflow management: Workflow management is the process of automating otherwise

manual tasks like time-off approvals, shift-change approvals, etc.

 Workforce optimization: Multi-dimensional optimization of cost, overtime and employee

satisfaction are some workforce optimization techniques that are aimed at creating
comprehensive and accurate schedules.

Developing resourcing strategies

Resourcing strategies depend a lot on a planning strategy known as scenario planning.

Scenario planning takes into account several alternate future scenarios, so as to help
frame present-day decisions and policies. A well-made scenario also incorporates certain
“twists and turns” into the simulation to account for changing environments in the
future.

Performing a gap analysis

Gap analysis is a performance metric that compares actual performance with desired or
planned performance. Gap analysis identifies gaps between the planned allocation of
resources and their actual allocation. It offers a comprehensive study of resources like
HR, business processes, business direction and information technology.

Engaging the resource plan

 Engaging the resource plan with your business should take into account the three core
resource areas – labor, equipment and materials

 Labor: Labor refers to all echelons of your workforce, including contractual employees.
Planning labor includes identifying and assigning tasks and roles to all employees in
order to accomplish all planned activities.

 Equipment: Equipment planning takes into account the various kinds of equipment that
will be necessary to complete the planned activities. It includes office equipment,
telecommunications equipment and heavy and light machinery (as applicable).

 Materials: Materials planning takes note of all consumables that are required to
accomplish the planned activities. It includes perishables such as paper, ink cartridges
and stationery, and non-perishables like concrete, bricks, steel, wood, etc. that are
necessary for producing physical deliverables.

Submitting the workforce plan for approval

After the workforce plan is formulated, it needs to be approved before it can be

implemented. Before submitting the workforce plan, the planned budget must be in sync
with the annual budget cycle. After submission, appropriate feedback on the workforce
plan will be collected from the authority concerned with perusal and approval.

III. Implementation Stage

Once the workforce plan is approved, it needs to be implemented. The various activities
performed during the implementation stage are:

Implementing and measuring

The implementation and measurement stage takes care of all the changes to be effected
in the domains of technology and infrastructure. It introduces new or revised efficient
processes, modifies existing policies and formulates new ones. Staff training and career
development measures are undertaken and steps are taken to facilitate employee
recruitment and enhance employee retention. It is also in the implementation stage that
succession planning is done and flexible staffing arrangements are introduced.

Integrating workforce strategy with other planning processes

It is necessary to integrate workforce strategy with other planning processes, the most
important of them being succession planning. This integration with succession planning
consists of:

 A comprehensive study of the skills and competencies required for each key position,
both in the current scenario and in the future.

 Assessing whether the requisite competencies are gender and race-neutral.

 Assessing whether incumbents are vulnerable to loss.

 Formulating and recommending replacement strategies for each key position.

 Identifying talent pools for particular areas of operation and assessing their skill and
readiness.
Reviewing, evaluating and identifying workforce issues

Review and evaluation of workforce plans is generally done after 12 months of

implementation. In this phase, it is assessed whether further refinement of policies and
processes are necessary. Also, staff training and development plans and policies are
reviewed and changes, if any, are recommended. Workforce plans are updated and any
necessary changes are considered in this stage.