The above quote as rightly said by Norman Vincent Peale truly describes the essence of Workforce
planning. A talented and aligned workforce is crucial for bringing strategy to life and ensuring an
organization delivers on its objectives. This introduces us with the concept of Strategic Workforce
Planning which is now widely known to help organizations to understand the talent required to deliver their strategy.
It involves identifying, assessing, developing and sustaining employee workforce skills which are required to successfully accomplish business goals and priorities. It is vital to note that the above process is done while balancing the needs and expectations of employees. The planning process majorly comprises of identifying gaps between the labour demand of an organization and the available
workforce supply, leading to strategies used to close those gaps. Integrating workforce supply and
demand analysis into the strategic planning cycle ensures that an organization has the ‘five rights’ –
the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right level and at the right
cost, resulting in the fulfillment of the business objectives.
An efficient workforce planning delivers significant improvements and competitive advantages like
Right sizing of the workforce enables cost reduction which further leads to value improvement, It
gives you an assurance that the business strategy can be delivered, Better productivity is achieved
by aligning workforce to the operating model, It results in higher quality and timeliness of the customer delivery, Skilled and innovative workforce provides a competitive advantage, Greater staff
engagement and Employee retention and lower levels of stress.
Summing it up, a Strategic workforce plan, if rightly implemented, can dramatically improve a company’s ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.
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October 2014 |CONSILIUM