HR Unlocked: Stories, trends and insights: Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP)
Welcome to the third edition of HR Unlocked: stories, trends, and insights, a monthly series designed to empower Talent Acquisition (TA) and HR leaders. Whether you're navigating evolving workforce dynamics, striving to align TA with business objectives, or looking for fresh perspectives, this series will deliver actionable insights - with a dash of fun along the way.
I’m Dave Procter, Director of Talent Advisory at The IN Group. In the previous two articles we have considered:
- What keeps your CEO up at night
- Your organisation’s business and people strategies which your TA strategy must relate to
- Your vision, big-picture strategy for TA and how you would measure success
- How to frame TA as a strategic imperative for the organisation
- The future critical skills which will drive your business forwards
In this edition, we explore a critical topic which is often a source of frustration; strategic workforce planning (SWP).
The first reaction my clients have to broaching this topic if often, “we don’t have one”. This is understandable, it’s often seen as a more daunting task than it needs to be. What might need to be tackled is a shift in mindset; how can we integrate hiring, capability building and succession planning into business reviews, ie normalise the conversation?
So what can we as TA Leaders do about it? In the absence of a workforce plan, take control of it rather than be a victim of its absence.
The reality of SWP in most organisations is that leaders (your stakeholders) are far more likely to red-pen your version of a SWP than to write one in the first place. So let’s accept that, swallow our pride that we will be told are wrong, and drive towards the accurate version we want! Once we have that, we can build are team and operating model around it (this will be explored in next month’s edition).
Step 1 – Use historical data
We are in a privileged position as TA Leaders to have access to data which we can use to our advantage. 67% of organisations don’t use data effectively in SWP (Gartner) and yet practitioners agree that effective SWP allows organisations to understand their future critical talent needs, build a strategy and realise a competitive talent advantage over their competitors.
Accepting that we have had a turbulent few years in hiring trends, nevertheless have a look at your hiring volumes over the last 2 years (as a minimum). Classify those hires into job families (tech, head office, high volume etc) as well as by location.
This ONLY gives you a starting point, but a valuable one, of being able to see the trends in hiring which suggest (for any given subset) that the organisation might hire X of this type of hire in Y location. Next we’ll look at hiring for the same, or hiring for the skills of tomorrow..
Step 2 – Back to the business strategy and key initiatives
Clearly historical data won’t give you the full picture, though it might give you bigger picture trends. The next step is to look and ask around your business, the simple act of doing so will elevate TA into business conversations which include hiring, rather than TA conversations about jobs:
- What and where are our major investments next year?
- What transformation programmes are forecast?
- What merger and acquisition activity are planned?
- Are we opening / closing in certain countries?
- What do growth targets / forecasts look like?
- What skills and capabilities are we looking to build which will drive the organisation forwards (future critical skills)?
- What could and should we be doing about those?
- What exceptional growth / reductions happened last year (or the previous) which will not happen next year?
The answers to these questions need to be overlaid onto what the historical data is telling you. This brings your “X of this type of hire in Y location” one step closer to accuracy
Step 3 – Planning and the Implications of attrition
We explored how attrition numbers are a factor in underlining the strategic importance of TA in the last edition of HR Unlocked. Now is the time to use it to fine-tune your SWP and show your value as a Business Partner to your stakeholders. Don’t assume others are aware of the numbers!
If you have the data to compare attrition rates across functions, locations, teams etc then of course use that to your advantage. If not, you may have to use a more blanket number, ie our business experienced 16% attrition last year. Either way you will have the attrition number to overlay onto what you already have.
Step 4 – Accept that you’re wrong!
Remember that your stakeholders are far more likely to tell you that your homework is wrong, than to have written it in the first place. So start to socialise your (draft) SWP with those business leaders.
"As a TA leader, challenge yourself first. Then, embrace collaboration and critique as gifts that accelerate your growth and elevate TA’s standing in the business.” - Expert view: Jennie Mead, Fractional CPO and Leadership Consultant, London Giant
This is where you position yourself and TA as a partner and advisor that uses data-backed insights to influence business decisions. “As a TA leader, challenge yourself first. Then, embrace collaboration and critique as gifts that accelerate your growth and elevate TA’s standing in the business.”
Explain your logic and the numbers you have arrived at. Accept the corrections that having a number in front of them will prompt; “because of X, the number should be more like Y”. Going through this final exercise will bring you to the most accurate version of the SWP you could be expected to come up with. What’s more, your stakeholders will been involved and your credibility will have risen.
What’s Next?
From the SWP to an operating model and team structure for TA.
In the next edition of HR Unlocked, we will explore what to do with the SWP. What does it mean for your operating model and how should you structure your team to deliver against it? How should you prepare and respond to the inevitable changes to the SWP which will happen?
Dave Procter is Director of Talent Advisory at The IN Group, where he partners with organizations to transform their talent acquisition strategies. His upcoming MBA research focuses on quantifying the business impact of strategic talent acquisition.
