Working in HR and recruitment, wouldn’t it be great to have a crystal ball? We could use it to predict the jobs our firms will need to fill in two years’ time and therefore start a recruitment campaign well in advance. We could anticipate the parts of our organisation that will shrink in the next six months, freeze hiring in those areas and begin re-skilling and re-training staff to work in the functions that drive business growth.
But while crystal balls are the stuff of fantasy, there is a methodology out there that is very real, and that will show the C-Suite that our approach to workforce planning is robust and effective.
Through Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP), we can create a talent plan to identify current and future skills gaps in our organisations. This visibility enables us to decide whether to build, buy or borrow the skills or to automate the tasks. With SWP, we are empowered to put measures in place to train and upskill our talent, growing our internal talent pool. Effective SWP integrates an organisation’s broader business goals, human capital planning and operational requirements. From there, we as HR professionals are perfectly placed to align skills, roles and people to meet short- and long-term organisational objectives.
SWP is particularly useful for identifying people at more junior levels of the organisation who might otherwise have limited access to training. This is important, because lack of opportunity to develop risks leaving those workers dissatisfied and stuck, unable to progress in their careers. By developing SWP early, we can build pragmatic career paths that will encourage people to stay and grow with the company. This allows us to develop a healthy internal talent pipeline, while also helping to address some of the issues associated with unhappy employees, such as poor mental health, poor performance and absenteeism.
Key to strategic workforce planning is having access to good information, and organisations must develop, lease or buy tools that enable managers to analyse and interpret the available workforce data. This can be used to inform the decision-making process when recruiting and it will enable HR professionals to conduct a skills audit or skills analysis to predict future resource requirements.
As part of the planning process, managers should work with HR professionals to consider changes in the wider world that could impact their workforce needs. For example, advances in technology are leading to increased automation of manufacturing processes, meaning roles that exist today will not exist in the future, while roles that will be pivotal in the future do not exist today. HR professionals can again help managers consider how employees in affected roles can be upskilled or reskilled and be developed to take on roles in other areas of the organisation. Alternatively, they can consider the kind of recruitment strategy that might be needed to attract new employees, and whether they need senior or more junior talent.
The plan can be used to create development paths for existing staff to grow into the roles that will be needed in the future. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to revolutionise the workforce, so there will be an increased need for people with digital skills. This again will require HR professionals to plan ahead and ensure that solutions are put in place to meet future demand for new skills, leaving their organisation ready to maximise the opportunities that lie ahead.
Other external influences to consider are changes in the political environment, new legislation, and economic threats and opportunities. It is important to continually monitor and adapt to trends and issues and recognise that SWP is not a one-off exercise. Through horizon-scanning and by adopting a strategic approach to planning for the future, it is possible to ensure that resource, training budgets, and company finances can be allocated in advance and managed more cost efficiently.
As we have explored, the aim of SWP is to ensure you have the right people in the right jobs at the right time. It is not something that you can do quickly and easily and it cannot be achieved by HR in isolation. It is a complex exercise that requires careful data aggregation and planning, and input from others. It is important that HR professionals talk to hiring managers and to other departments, such as finance, to ensure the scenarios they model are sound and that the data they use is accurate.
So, although it is not possible to predict the future, HR professionals have a key role in scenario planning. Scenarios have the power to engage and open the minds of recruiting managers and decision makers. It forces them to ask, ‘what if’ and to acknowledge that it is not possible to maintain the status quo. It will help them see that the workforce must evolve and adapt.
Although the task may seem daunting, and you may wish that you had that crystal ball, it is worthwhile. When done well, SWP is a valuable tool that can help grow your internal talent pipeline and give your organisation a competitive advantage in preparing for the future.
Seb O’Connell, President, EMEA & APAC – Cielo
