Strategic workforce planning is more than searching and recruiting the right talent for the job. It is the collection and analysis of data from all areas of the organisation for a complete understanding of the business and its workforce needs. Following the operational metrics or changes in downstream talent needs will lead to more accurate financial projections for your workforce budget. Integrating this data with other business functions will ensure your data is always fresh, so you can properly align and equip each department with the necessary workforce they need to meet demand on any given day.

Without technology, a flexible workforce plan will rely on your ability to imagine and manually plan for a wide range of possible futures. This is very time consuming and ridiculously complex analytics to tabulate manually. In today’s unpredictable environment of lockdowns, operational challenges and the ever growing list of regulations to adhere to, trying to navigate these challenges based on only historical data is no longer effective or realistic.

Any strategic workforce plan needs to be central to the your business success. Smart companies who choose to use innovative tehnology to run automated forecasting will be able to plan ahead for multiple scenarios at a time, giving them a distinct advantage over competitors, and allow you to be ever-more strategic in how you deploy talent both now and in the future.

There are five proven steps to Strategic Workforce Planning: