If you were to create a list of the most important words for any successful organization, it’s likely that planning and employees would be on that list. So, why is it that so many companies are failing to implement proper workforce planning strategies?

In fact, statistics from Oxford Economics have found that only 34 percent of companies have made “good or significant” progress toward goals of building a workforce to meet future business objectives.

That means the majority of companies have only made “slight or moderate” progress when it comes to implementing a workforce planning strategy.

Workforce planning is essential in today’s business environment. It helps your company prepare for future challenges, analyze your workforce competencies to ensure you can achieve your goals, as well as reduce costs on ineffective hiring processes.

What is workforce planning?

Workforce planning is a forecasting strategy that identifies and analyses your business needs in terms of qualifications, experience, knowledge, skills and the quality of its workforce in order to achieve business goals.

Essentially, it’s about identifying and addressing the gaps between your company’s workforce of today and your human capital needs of tomorrow.

Workforce planning is particularly important in today’s business world, which is characterized by its constant evolution and uncertainty. Organizations today must have a strategic workforce plan if they are to face modern workforce challenges, increase capability, reduce costs and align resources to achieve the goals they need to grow.

How can my company create a workforce plan?

Despite workforce planning becoming an essential element for every single organization in the past couple of years, many companies are still struggling to create a strategic plan that analyses both their current and future workforce needs.

To help, The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has developed a five-step workforce planning model. The model serves as a useful starting point for understanding exactly what’s involved in workforce planning.

The model is made up of five steps:

1. Set your strategic direction.
2. Analyze workforce, identify skills gaps and conduct workforce analysis.
3. Develop an action plan.
4. Implement action plan.
5. Monitor, evaluate and revise.

What benefits will my organization realize from workforce planning?

If you are planning to implement workforce planning into your organization’s business strategy, that’s great news. You will be setting your company up to realize a wide range of benefits that will ensure your business is not only competitive, but ready for future growth.

Workforce planning can improve employee retention, ensure you are able to identify and acquire top talent, identify skill gaps within your workforce, help you to optimize your workforce budget and much more.

Not only that, but workforce planning will also prepare your business for the future by ensuring you have the visibility and control needed over your workforce to deal with the ever-changing market, as well as adapt to future challenges.

Benefits of proper workforce planning include:

• The ability to develop a comprehensive picture of where skills gaps exist within your company, and where future competency can be improved.
• Increased analysis and evaluation will give you the knowledge needed to make decisions about how to structure and deploy your workforce to meet your objectives.
• You will be able to identify and overcome both internal and external barriers that create challenges for your workforce.
• Align your workforce requirements directly with what your company is trying to achieve.
• You can prepare for unexpected workforce issues that could occur in the future.
• Proper forecasting will save you money on last-ditch and desperate hiring processes when you previously might have over or under-estimated your workforce requirements.

Are you unsure how to exactly implement a successful workforce plan into your company’s strategy? No problem, HCMWorks is here to help. Contact our team of workforce experts today, and find out how our specialized knowledge in the market gives us the tools we need to revolutionize your company’s workforce.