In today’s fast-moving economies, the workforce itself is arguably the most important tangible asset for most organizations. Yet, despite its importance, it is often not carefully planned, measured, or optimized. This means that most organizations are not sufficiently informed of the current or future workforce gaps that will limit the execution of business strategy.

Workforce planning is a prerequisite to running organizations smoothly and delivering exceptional results. When your organization tackles workforce challenges, it can result in higher employee satisfaction, overall productivity, and good retention rates while smoothening the operations within.

Reports indicate that the global workforce management market size is projected to reach USD 5.25 billion by 2026, exhibiting a CAGR of 10.1% during the forecast period. (Fortune Insights)

Focused planning is the secret behind any good business. First, you need to know what direction you want to take your business in and what your goals are, and then have a plan to make it all happen. This means having a plan for all aspects of your business — that includes a plan for the future of your workforce.

Workforce planning is the detailed process of planning for current and future employment needs. The main goal of workforce planning is to ensure that the business consistently has the human capital it needs to run efficiently and effectively, both now and in the future.

Let’s understand how workforce planning can catapult Organizational growth:

Increased Employee Productivity

According to research by HR.com, 40% of businesses claimed that the sudden increase in employee productivity was mainly due to the implementation of strategic workforce planning. It is evident that employee productivity can result in decreased costs, increased revenues, and better profits.

One direction

When both organizations and their employees move in the same direction for the same goal or objective, growth catches pace. The secret to exponential growth lies in Intent, Plan, and Action. Intent defines where an organization wants to go; Plan defines how it intends to execute it, and Action is executing that plan. When there is one direction, everybody feels included and part of the plan, resulting in more engagement and productivity than ever.

Strong company culture

Workforce planning can help HR executives plan their workforce in a way that ultimately results in a strong company culture being built from scratch. When there is a planned workforce that feels included and productive, a culture of innovation develops. This is most evident at Apple and how they execute their work with perfection and an intent to innovate with every product. In addition, strong company culture helps people bond, share ideas and work together without conflicts but ultimately, all of them are aligned for the same goal.

Competitive Advantage:

Workforce planning also helps in building competitive advantage through proactive rather than reactive talent management. Employee acquisition and retention for longer periods allow employees to associate with the company’s goals and make them work for the good of all. When employees are carefully planned, placed, and taught, they can beat any competitor out of business mainly because they won’t be working for themselves but working for the company’s goals.

Getting started with workforce planning:

Workforce planning can be done via four steps, and by the 4th step, you’ll have a plan that suits you.

Step 1: Assess your team’s strengths

It is essential to know your team members’ skillsets, personalities, and individual qualities before figuring out what is needed. Once you assess your team’s strengths, you’ll see where you stand right now.

Step 2: Consider future goals and objectives

This one is important because it has to set the direction your workforce will have to move towards. Carefully planning your goals and objectives, both short-term and long-term, will help you define the destination you want to reach.

Step 3: Identify missing skills and resources

Once you have your team and your goals in assessment, it’s time to align them. While aligning your current workforce to your future goals, chances are you may notice your workforce is missing specific skills or resources to reach your goals. Identifying them as early as possible is crucial to building a roadmap to your destination.

Step 4: Develop a roadmap to success

Once you know your present workforce scenario, your future destination, and resources at your disposal, it’s time to build a detailed roadmap pointed towards one direction. This can include anywhere from reskilling, upskilling, or the addition of more resources to the team.

Workforce planning may seem a bit complicated at first, but this can be solved using the help of data and artificial intelligence. Rapidly developing technologies have provided us access to an incredible amount of data.

Using a tool like Draup for talent can make workforce planning smooth and fast, considering it analyses more than 10 Mn data points every day spread across 33 industries and 4 Mn+ career paths. Being an analytics-driven workforce planning tool, it can eliminate challenges and make planning a fact-based, objective, and systematic process.

It can help executives make workforce decisions using Machine learning algorithms and help them perform activities such as :

• Right workforce sizing
• Create accurate forecasts
• Track workforce plans
• Identify and bridge the skill gap
• 360-degree talent analysis
• Cost estimation