Strategic Workforce planning (SWP)
In the age of diverse work culture which has a huge geographical spread, the nature of operations is globalized
and the mobility within and outside the organization
cannot be restricted. The workforce planning needs to
be aligned with the core objectives, nature of the work
and organizational culture. The entire structure of workforce needs to be affected with focus on achieving a
sustainable competitive edge.
pipelines are created in sync with the forecasted needs
that have been chalked out in terms of the human capital.
Fig. Future Levels of SWP (GE)
Components of Strategic workforce planning
Basically for any organization a few important components need to be emphasized upon to generate a
framework of achieving robust results for workforce
planning.
The process of SWP was initiated at GE Energy by inculcation of pilot projects that focused on enhancing various capabilities. Each pilot required a different data approach and forecasting technology, and yet others were
focused on areas like organizational processes and organizational change. Currently, GE
Energy is focusing on Level 1 of SWP, where
the focus is on the functioning of Business
units.
Incorporation of HR Analytics to strategic
workforce planning:
Case study: Inculcation of SWP in GE Energy
GE Energy consists of multiple verticals like Energy Management, Oil & Gas and Power & Water. The organization consists of a dedicated team of professionals who
focus solely on Global Strategy and Planning that spans
across various offices across the globe, including experts
who work on Strategic Workforce Planning for isolated
business units. On a macro level, country level research
is conducted and an exhaustive analysis of human capital is done, as it can have huge impact on the overall
economic prospects. Forecasting is an integral part of
the planning process at GE and it ensures that the right
approach is followed to get the required results. These
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This is the era of analytics. Analytics covers
the entire spectrum of data generation, storage, and conversion by analytics of the raw
data into useful information. The workforce
needs to be chosen in a scrupulous manner, it
needs to be groomed in a holistic but need
oriented fashion, monitored with the objectivity of
better performance, rewarded for greater drive and
motivation. By using business analytics tools, we can
provide a competitive sustainable edge to the concept
of strategic manpower planning. The data, converted
into information will aid the organization in making value added decisions and thereby make the planning process system oriented and robust. Based on the above
premise we can achieve a number of essential steps in
the process of workforce planning.
An amalgamation of business processes and HR analytics can be used to formulate and affect the following
sequence of operations.
October 2014 |CONSILIUM