5 steps for Strategic Workforce planning
A Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) diagnosis ultimately aims at helping a company define an educated capability roadmap to shape its workforce for future business challenges
This diagnosis consists of a qualitative and quantitative gap analysis between:
The business needs (headcount and competencies)
The natural evolution of the population
Those parallel tasks are built on the same basis: the allocation of the population within the SWP Segmentation
1. Segmentation & allocation
The segmentation and level of granularity are defined during work sessions and allow :
The allocation of each employee to job segments according to their competencies
The allocation of employees to possible geographical segments
The allocation of employees to organizational segments, where applicable
2. Demographic forecasts
In order to model demographic changes, you need to:
Collect known dates and reasons for employee departures
Identify existing pension schemes within the scope under consideration
Collect data to calculate natural attrition rates
Identify known future mobilities and recruitments
3A. Workforce needs
Business needs are expressed in two phases:
Identification of the major business challenges (drivers) that will impact the company's activity in the coming years
Identification of the impact of each driver on the various entities
Various methodological approaches are possible for these stages: in house work, workshops, etc.
3B. Competency needs
The expression of competency needs is done in 3 phases:
Determine the list of required competencies in each job
Determine the target level for each required competency
Assess the current level of employees
These elements can either already exist from a parallel work on competencies, or be created during the SWP exercise jointly by HR and managers.
4. Gap analysis
This stage provides a diagnosis of the gaps in workforce and key competencies for the coming years
The analysis can be carried out at any level of the organization
Gap analysis is an intermediate result that will enable action plans to be drawn up to close the gaps
5. Action plan
The action plan must translate the SWP exercise into concrete actions:
Headcount gaps are translated into a staffing plan
Competency gaps are translated into upskilling plans
These elements provide the material for building a roadmap.