Workforce Planning
Change this Buzz Phrase into an
Effective Tool
By John Baldino, SPHR
Understanding workforce planning and knowing how to implement it are
essential for HR professionals in everything from local governments to
multinational corporations. Here are some tips on how to apply it to help
your company plan and grow effectively and successfully.
W
HR phrase that many
bandy about. We all want to walk into an executive’s
office and say, “We’re going to do workforce planning.”
Of course, the executive will say, “Excellent,” because he or she
does not know what workforce planning is, but it sounds really
good. The executive will want to know, “Can we market that? Can
we sell that and make some money off of it?”
I probably won’t answer those questions for your executives
in this article, but I want to dive into how workforce planning
can help you in your role as an HR professional and how it can
be a partner in the overall strategy for an organization. There are
whole college courses on workforce planning. This article gives
just a flavor of it.
orkforce planning is an
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2014: Volume I
According to a Workforce Solutions Review from The
Conference Board, “Few companies have a robust method for
determining the right mix of employees and contingent workers.
Creating a total workforce management framework gives
companies a holistic understanding of how they use talent and
helps them evaluate for the future.”
The Human Capital Institute has an area of focus on
workforce planning, as it is one of the most sought-after skills in
talent management today.
Workforce planning is used everywhere — in state agencies,
local governments and large corporations. You’ll hear more and
more about it. For example, there soon will be a standard baseline
that the HR industry can use to measure workforce planning so
www.HRCI.org