Workforce Planning – a growth strategy
Growth and increased profit is the objective of many if not all businesses and a critical factor in successfully achieving this objective involves ensuring that your workforce has the right skills at the right time and place for your business.
Workforce Planning is a critical part of your business planning is to be well position to take advantage of future growth opportunities. Like any plan a workforce plan involves understanding
Where you are now- Where you want to
- The gap and
- How to close the gap to reach your required destination.
Before you start your plan it is helpful to consider your current business context and environment and how a workforce plan plan will enhance the achievement of your business objectives as per your business or strategic plan.
Developing a workforce plan is about building an accurate picture of your current workforce and your business environment.
When considering your plan it is important to be clear about why you need to undertake workforce planning. The reasons need to be directly related to your business’s strategic plan.
Where is your business heading, for example are you growing, downsizing, transitioning, shifting skills, introducing new technology or wanting to maintain your position.
Understanding what is happening on in your region, industry sector and markets and how this may affect your workforceBefore starting your plan consider the workforce implications of your current strategic plan. This could include reviewing your vision, mission, goals, and the current position of your business and assessing capability and capacity of your workforce e to support your strategic plans into the future.
Proposed stages for the development of a workforce plan
Where are you now? This stage is critical as an understanding of your current workforce including the demographics, the skill profile and the employment arrangements. As with any plan having an understanding of the starting position is a critical success factor.
Where are you going? This stage is about future gazing for both your business and your workforce. A key consideration of this stage is whether your current workforce has the skills, capability and capacity to meet your future business goals.
Where are the gaps? You can now start to bring the information from earlier stages together to help you identify the gaps between current workforce skills and capability and the skills and capabilities your business needs for a successful future
What does success look like? Once you have identified the gaps the key question for you to consider is how you can best close the gap to help you achieve the vision you have for the future of your business
How will you get there? Action, Evaluate and Revise. A plan becomes valuable once it is actioned through implementation and ongoing review and implementation.
For information and a guide to help you develop a workforce plan for your business check out our Workforce Planning Resource.