| Workforce planning is a key workforce management | | | | Without their active involvement, you cannot expect to |
| step for long-term survival in a situation where | | | | develop realistic plans that are affected by diverse |
| workers are aging or leaving, and business | | | | factors. |
| environments are constantly changing. | | | | Create a workforce planning team consisting of |
| You need to replace over aged workers and workers | | | | employees from different departments, with required |
| who leave. You also need to adapt to new business | | | | knowledge and interests. Define the team's role and |
| environments by getting people with needed skills. | | | | responsibilities. |
| Workforce Planning Goals | | | | Use modern software tools and planning systems to |
| Existing workload determines current workforce levels. | | | | speed up the processes of data collection, analysis |
| So the first step of workforce planning is to assess | | | | and generating preliminary plans. These can then be |
| this workload, its skills set composition and location | | | | human-reviewed for fine-tuning. |
| requirements. To assess this requirement, you answer | | | | Start carefully with a smaller scope, review the |
| the following questions: | | | | processes, get feedback and improve the |
| - What kinds of skilled workers do you need to | | | | effectiveness of workforce planning exercise. |
| achieve your organizational purpose? | | | | In the case of large enterprises with geographically |
| - How many persons with each kind of skill are | | | | spread operations, the workforce planning exercise |
| needed to achieve targeted performance levels? | | | | should be decentralized and the unit plans should be |
| - Where would these persons be needed - | | | | consolidated. |
| geographically and departmentally? | | | | Workforce Recruitment and Development Strategies |
| Answering the above questions is only the starting | | | | Workforce planning is not just an exercise with |
| point of workforce planning. A complete plan would | | | | numbers, though numbers are important. You have to |
| also identify the strategies needed to get the people | | | | look at the labor market and competitive conditions, |
| required to man your workforce, and to keep the | | | | and develop strategies to attract and retain the kind of |
| people with you. | | | | workforce you need. |
| For the longer-term, you need to estimate: | | | | Think through the policies and practices you need to |
| - The number of workers who would retire or leave | | | | attract and retain talented people. Build your brand as |
| and have to be replaced | | | | a good place to work in. Create working conditions |
| - Additional numbers of differently skilled persons who | | | | and a managerial culture that would make your people |
| would have to be added to meet expansion needs | | | | want to remain with you. |
| - Likely developments affecting your business and the | | | | Spell these out and include them in your workforce |
| likely changes in the number and composition of your | | | | plan. |
| workforce under the new environments | | | | Conclusion |
| Workforce planning is a continuous process that needs | | | | For organizations to survive in the long term, they must |
| to be updated as the requirements and forecasts | | | | be able to attract the right kind of talented persons |
| change. | | | | and to keep them. Workforce planning helps you to |
| Implementing the Workforce Planning Process | | | | assess your people needs, in both skill sets and |
| The key requirement for successful workforce | | | | numbers, and start developing and implementing |
| planning is to get your managers to understand the | | | | strategies and policies to attract, develop and keep the |
| significance and key importance of workforce planning. | | | | kind of workforce you need. |