Strategic Workforce Planning

Workforce planning is a continual process used to align the needs and priorities of the organization with those of its workforce to ensure it can meet its legislative, regulatory, service and production requirements and organizational objectives. Workforce planning enables evidence based workforce development strategies.

Workforce planning is a core function of human resource management and it is related to the systematic identification and analysis of what an organization is going to need in terms of the size, type, experience, knowledge, and skills of its workforce to achieve its objectives. It is a process used to generate business intelligence to inform the organization of the current, transition and future impact of the external and internal environment on the organization.

Strategic workforce planning: usually covers a three to five year forecast period, aligned to business needs and outcomes. It focuses on identifying the workforce implications, current, transition and future of business strategic objects and includes scenario planning.

Operational workforce planning: usually covers the next 12–18 months and should align with the timeframe of the business planning cycle. It is the process and systems applied to gathering, analyzing and reporting on workforce planning strategy.

An analytical approach is important as it provides a fact based method of understanding workforce behaviors. This analysis typically includes reviewing employee recruitment, promotion and turnover patterns. The analysis also uncovers the hidden causes of overtime, absenteeism, and low productivity.

Workforce plan can be classified in three:

1) Long term/ Yearly Plan: It focuses on Budgeting, financial planning, and investment planning

2) Medium Term/ Monthly plan: Analysis of requirement like workload and headcount planning

3) Short Term/ Weekly plan: It is on weekly or intra-day basis for material control, loading, and scheduling

There are fundamental activities that make up a workforce plan:

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