Workforce Planning for Human Resources

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Hello friends.

Now, let’s talk about “planning and forecasting”.

If you remember, I mentioned planning and forecasting when we were discussing the Strategic Staffing Model.

Planning and forecasting are very important for any strategic staffing model. Because it can tell you, in what way the organization should alter its strategy in the future or in today's time, so that they can get the right talent at the right time.

Now, imagine that you are making a business strategy, and even if you get skilled talent to execute it, will your strategy not be successful? If the type of people you want, the type of internal behavior you want, if they work together with you, then you can definitely reach the end result of the strategy.

Now, imagine if it happens that you do not get the required talent according to the business strategy that you have made, then what will happen? You either have to train them, or you have to rework your strategy. Because as you have a limited talent pool, you have to work with that. Okay.

Now, “workforce planning” is the “process of predicting an organization’s future employment needs and the availability of current employees” and the external talent pool that you have and the right skill sets available to you to meet the employment needs are all linked with the organization's business strategy.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, this is a very important element of the staffing strategy of any organization, because they predict the challenges of today and the future and how we can safeguard them, either by proactively hiring people or by developing their skillsets. Okay.

Now let’s talk about the entire workforce planning process.

So first of all, you have to “identify the business strategy” that is what the business ultimately needs. What is the measurement of success, on the basis of which you will include new people in the organization?

Then, you have to “articulate the firm’s talent philosophy and strategic staffing decisions”. Every organization’s talent philosophy is different based on how they hire, retain, and develop the new talents in their organization.

What kind of outlook do they have towards the employees so that the employees stay with the organization for a long time, and can associate themselves with the growth of the organization? Okay.

Then, you have to “conduct a workforce analysis” in which you map the present skillset with the expected skill set. Then, you see where you need to hire externally. And then specifically you hire externally for those positions and you recommend the rest of the internal talent pool for those positions. (Got it?)

Then, after the workforce analysis, you “develop and implement action plans” so that the “gaps between the demand and supply forecasts” can be bridged.

Yes, “the action plan should be consistent with the firm’s talent philosophy”. The plan must include “recruitment, retention, compensation” of the new and existing talents, then their “succession management”. Then what have they thought about the training? And how will their overall development be in an organization? (Got it?) The utmost attention should be given to that too.

Then, the “action plans can be short term or long-term depending on the organization’s needs and predictability of the environment” based on the data that they have.

Now that you have implemented the action plan, your work is not finished here yet.

You will have to “monitor, evaluate and revise the forecasts and the action plans” wherever needed. Because, as the outside environment changes, the organization’s environment also needs to change. Due to this, the organization’s policies, strategies, and overall outlook might also change.

You need to keep this in mind while planning your workforce and keep it as flexible as possible so that you can incorporate any changes easily and implement them immediately.

If your workforce plan is rigid, you will have to start from scratch to apply any new changes and then, build the workforce again step by step.

Now, let’s talk about “forecasting”. Now, forecasting is not always reliable because you might have considered some factors, but at the same time, you might have ignored some factors.

So, instead of giving any specific numbers to the estimates, you can provide a range where you can represent your forecasting report based on “low, probable, and high estimates”.

Now, why does this happen? Because it’s not necessary that the future situations will be the same as the current ones. So, as the organization’s internal and external environment changes, the firm’s assumptions and expectations will also change. And based on that, the overall forecasting will also affect and change accordingly.

Now, same as the workforce planning, you need to monitor the forecasting also continuously, because if there are any major deviations from your range, then you need to analyze which factors did you miss which created this huge gap? Okay.

Now, let’s understand how forecasting is done for various things?

Well, if we talk about “business activity forecasting”, then an “organization’s product demand directly affects its need for manpower”.

So, let's say there is a product whose demand has increased in the market and you do not have the required manpower for its production, then either you have to work overtime with existing manpower, or you will have to include more people in your team to increase the capacity. Okay.

On the other hand, you will have to “locate reliable, high-quality information sources within and outside of the organization to forecast business activity”.

Then, how can we forecast the overall labor demand?

Well, always keep in mind that “it is a good idea to identify minimal as well as optimal staffing levels”.

What will happen from this is that you will know how many people are required for your production or the services you have and what is the optimum required staffing level at which you can give maximum production. So according to that, when you forecast the overall labor demand, then you will know a range at the particular production level, that you need this many people and our maximum threshold is for this many people. Okay. (Understood?)

Now, “an organization’s demand for labor depends on its forecasted business activity”. It depends on their business needs. And it majorly depends on the strategy they are applying.

Now, “business needs can include many things like”:

– “How much staffing level is required for achieving and generating a given amount of revenue”.

For example, let’s say your business needs to generate a particular revenue in a particular time frame. Or, you want to achieve any business metric in a particular time frame, for that, what kind of hiring will you be interested in?

Let’s take an example. Suppose you need a salesperson staffing level to a particular extent so that you can generate a revenue of 5 million dollars in 6 months. Now, you have to analyze what strength is required for your sales staff. Also, if you want to do that many sales, do you have that much production capacity or not? So, if you want to increase the sales staff, you might need to increase the production staff as well…

Then, if you want to increase your production staff, you move on to the growth strategy. But if you need to decrease your production staff, then you might be heading on to restructuring where you analyze your overall business entirely once again in which you check if you can make any required changes so that you can perform at an optimal level.

And lastly, if you have any new innovative ideas, then you can include how you can create new products and services for your business needs. okay.

Thank you.

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