Ward, DL & Sokol, M 2019, ‘Embracing the future of strategic workforce

planning’, People and Strategy, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 76-77..

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 Insight into Action
Embracing the Future of
Strategic Workforce Planning
By Dan L. Ward and Marc Sokol
O
ne cannot read the contri-
butions to this issue without
being impressed by how the
world of strategic workforce planning
(SWP) is evolving. It is not just becom-
ing a more sophisticated process, it is
finding its way into the core of organi-
zational transformation and helping
shape the future workplace. Here are
some our insights:
1. SWP is about as much outside in
as it is inside out. Several contributors
such as Mary Young and Seth Hollander
highlight how SWP of today and the
76 PEOPLE + STRATEGY
future is different from how it was in
the past. Shifts in technology, demo-
graphics, and the global economy will
continue to upend legacy assumptions.
If you practice SWP you are no longer
just focused on staffing positions, you
are an organizational change agent and
advisor, one who sees the future of your
firm as much from outside in as inside
out. As Brian Heger and Anisha Aul-
bach at Bristol-Myers Squibb illustrate,
this work requires a broad consulting
approach across the organization. Our
Executive Roundtable contributors
remind us that this consulting approach
is a conversation about strategy and
includes explicit focus on how SWP can
impact customers, company revenue,
and market reputation.
2. SWP professionals address the
politics of getting consensus to build
the future. Several contributors help us
recognize that SWP is more than just
modeling the numbers of people need-
ed at different levels of the business.
Savvy HR professionals such as Beverly
Tarulli and Damien DeLuca at PepsiCo
and Buddy Benge at Bayer recognize
the organizational politics at play; they
identify the clear business case to foster
a pull for their efforts, building broad
consensus around an approach to
future planning.
3. Technological change allows us to
envision worktask planning along with
workforce planning. As David Ulrich
points out, worktask planning has the
potential to transform and re-concep-
tualize the bundling of tasks, work, and
jobs in ways that go beyond tradition-
al mindsets. Traditional job design
bundled tasks into a position, but next
generation practice may be more about
segmenting back into worktasks and
leveraging how tasks can be performed
anywhere in the world. Technology,
including AI and machine learning,
make this possible. SWP professionals
have the potential to redesign how the
organization operates to achieve its
mission and carry out its work. Big data,
machine learning, AI, and our capacity
to put these resources to work will open
doors that we didn’t even know existed
in the past.
4. The shift in SWP thought lead-
ership is more than just technological
sophistication. It’s easy to think the
future of SWP is only about predictive
analytics and advanced technology. As
Jesse Harriott points out in a Perspec-
tives commentary, truly agile SWP prac-
tice also looks to replace the annual
planning exercise with more frequent
touch points and adapting the process
to meet evolving business conditions.
Harriott continues on to remind us that
inclusive cultures deliver better returns,
so SWP professionals are also in the
business of attending to diversity and
inclusion; not just planning for num-
bers needed, but becoming a voice for
a culture that can attract and retain a
mix across the organization. If you plan
to work in SWP, raise your voice and be
ready to challenge your current practic-
es and those of your firm.
5. SWP can be as much about teams
as it is about individuals. The classic
approach of anticipating the need for
individuals and their skills omits the
reality that much organizational work is
accomplished via teams. Some compa-
nies, such as brokerage and insurance,
look to acquire and lift out entire
teams to fill needed gaps. What if HR
professionals with workforce planning
capabilities were part of the merger and
acquisition due diligence process? What
if SWP professionals began to assess
teams and team leadership as part of
our ongoing diagnostic approach? For
those wanting to explore this further,
People + Strategy devoted an entire issue
to teams in 2018.
6. SWP can drive organizations and
whole industries to think more holisti-
cally about health, education, and wel-
fare. By identifying that future growth is
tied to specific critical skill sets that are
typically in short supply, we can focus
on strategies to grow that pipeline.
Years back a major hospitality organiza-
tion recognized that to grow in China
they would have to foster the growth
of schools of hospitality management.
Another company recognized that the
health of the workforce in South Africa
is critical if they are to have the employ-
ees they require. Anticipating shortfalls
in the availability of employees who
could work with data, many employers
began investing in STEM education
outreach programs. SWP can drive
broader thinking about corporate social
responsibility as necessary to the future.
Stop thinking about SWP as a better
planning algorithm and start thinking
how you can change the world!
7. SWP interventions can trigger but
also productively address flashpoints in
communities. The geographic spread
from higher cost to lower cost environ-
ments or moving to other cities and
countries to attract employees can have
unintended consequences. Amazon’s
efforts to expand is a case in point, both
showing positive and negative sides of
this: the competitive dynamics between
cities hungry for companies to establish
local presence, as well as citizen revolt
around implications for impacting the
local community economy.
8. Anticipate how you will maintain
your culture under different SWP
scenarios. Brad Winn outlines trends in
the gig economy and how this can im-
pact SWP. Suppose your SWP plans find
economic and agile leverage through
dramatically growing a contingent work-
force. That can be a strategic advantage,
but it can fail to be a sustainable benefit
if we don’t find ways to foster cultural
alignment of those gigsters with our
businesses. One scenario is that compa-
nies evolve as a source of inexpensive
economic task work for people who
may not feel a connection to any over-
riding mission or larger purpose. The
lesson of Winn’s column is that we need
to not just anticipate future workforce
needs and supply, but to also anticipate
how we will set expectations when tradi-
tional cultures may fade or transform in
unexpected ways. Executive Roundtable
participants echo this sentiment, being
simultaneously receptive to SWP that
embraces the independent market of
temporary employees while remaining
mindful that company culture and rep-
utation impacts how we fare in talent
wars, all the way up to an industry level.
9. The future of SWP may be stra-
tegic workforce agility. Edie Goldberg
and Ingrid Boyes illustrate how sce-
nario planning can help organizations
prepare to pivot for an increasingly
uncertain future. As William and Val-
erie Schiemann point out, the future of
SWP is not just algorithms and plans;
rather it is in organizational agility and
the leaders who embody related con-
cepts to foster a compelling employer
brand.
This conveniently brings us back to
a few core questions underlying SWP
efforts: Who are we today and who do
we want to be in the future? How can
we design our organization and our
work to ensure we have the right people
involved to get there?
VOLUME 42 | ISSUE 4 | FALL 2019 77
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