Does your organisation really have a workforce strategy?
B
A workforce strategy is
critical to making the
most effective decisions
about managing people,
performance and risk,
but according to expert
Colin Beames, very few
organisations actually
have one.
eames, the director of Advanced Workforce
Strategies (http://advancedworkforcestrategies.
com/), says given that people management can
amount to 30-to-80 per cent of an organisation’s
costs, the business case for developing a workforce
strategy would appear to be “overwhelming”.
Too often, however, business goals, plans and strategies
are developed without any accompanying detail
describing how people will be managed and assisted
to achieve what the business has set out to do.
Beames says in a recent HR Daily webcast (http://www.
hrdaily.com.au/nl06_news_selected.php?selkey=2751)
that while many organisations have bundles of HR
policies and practices, and some undertake a form of
workforce planning, succession planning and talent
management, this is very different from having
developed an integrated, whole of workforce strategy.
A workforce or human capital strategy is an important
form of asset management, and is the sum of actions
taken to acquire, retain, develop, motivate, and deploy
human capital in the service of an organisation’s mission
- it goes “well beyond” workforce planning, he explains.
Further, a workforce strategy shouldn’t be
confused with an HR strategy, which is focused on
transactional, policy and process functions, he says.
Signs that you don’t have a strategy
According to Beames, factors that suggest
your organisation might not have an
effective workforce strategy include:
• applying a “one size fits all” HR policy
approach, by paying all employees at the
market midpoint, for example;
• using the same recruitment process for all positions;
• adopting the same employment value
proposition (EVP) for all roles;
• reporting turnover only for the workforce as a whole;
• segmenting the workforce on an organisational
level or job/salary level basis;
• using the same performance management
system and forms for all roles; and
• not defining a methodology for identifying critical
roles, or those that should be outsourced.
These practices are “a recipe for mediocrity”, he
says, and can indicate that an organisation is not
differentiating its workforce roles sufficiently.
“They indicate a complete lack of understanding
of how the characteristics of roles vary and
their importance to the execution of the
business strategy and business outcomes.”
Two guiding principles
Beames says two principles should guide
development of a workforce strategy.
Original story found here:
http://www.hrdaily.com.au/
nl06_news_selected.php?act
=2&stream=All&selkey=2756
&hlc=2&hlw=
The first is workforce segmentation, which
includes identifying various role categories (critical
roles, specialist roles, those roles suitable for
outsourcing, and so on) and differentiating HR
policies and practices for those various roles.
“Segmentation is the key to treating workforce assets as
a portfolio that can be managed and analysed,” he says.
The second principle is strengthening organisational critical
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