The last year's global study by KPMG titled Rethinking Human Resources in a Changing World showed that the biggest challenge of current HR was talent management, specifically retaining talent. The key to retaining talent is the process of strategic workforce planning. KPMG divided the process into ten steps illustrated in this diagram. HR professionals can use it to build a strategic workforce plan according to the needs of their companies. You can read a brief summary of the ten steps below.
1. Review the organizational structure of your company/unit
Determine why your strategic workforce management plan is needed and summarize all the "hard" and "soft" criteria. Work together with finance, trade unions, top management, etc. Beware of a too excessive scope of the plan, start on a small scale - with specific key positions.
2.Map the internal labor market
Put together information about all employees throughout the company to create a profile of the current workforce - number of employees, turnover, places of work, demographics, education, compensation, competencies, level of control, etc. Beware of inaccurate and missing data. Check everything out with managers and top management.
3. Create an expected workforce profile
Search for future trends in turnover, compensation, technology, skills, values, individual job roles, etc. using the current workforce profile. Compile the expected profile of the workforce based on 5-8 competencies. Differentiate individual job levels using the competencies. Beware of inadequately verifying information using both internal and external sources.
4. Define desired future skills and level of their accessibility
Focus on a gap analysis given the current and expected profile of the workforce. Identify what should be added and what should be restricted. Beware not to get lost in the analysis. Focus on priority skills.
5. Create a workforce model based on your hypotheses
Go through your findings with managers and get their support. Confirm where the gaps are and create a model for obtaining the necessary skills. Don't forget to collect data regarding costs, which will always be interesting for top management. Beware of not being able to respond to changes flexibly.
6. Define requirements of the workforce
Specify them using numbers and competencies. Focus on how specifically you want to acquire the necessary skills through recruitment, training, development and deployment of staff. Prepare a strategy for communicating with management and employees. Beware of confusing key roles with the highest roles. Key roles are those that bring the greatest value.
7. Build a talent acquisition strategy
Decide how to use internal resources the best and how to add potential external sources. Find ways to determine what skills your people should have as accurately as possible. Beware of regulatory measures, cultural differences, different styles of work, etc.
8. Build a talent acquisition plan
Prepare a project for the implementation of your strategy. Involve key stakeholders as well as lawyers to assess the steps you propose. Count on monitoring the progress of the project objectives and measuring costs. Beware of inadequately trained managers who will hire new employees to their teams.
9. Measure results
Appoint a project team to be responsible for project implementation and measuring the results. Build an action plan that will include all the steps of the implementation from communication to possible revisions of the project. Beware of losing priorities.
10. Secure integration with other corporate planning processes
The process of strategic workforce planning should comply with other planning processes in the company. The planning itself should, however, not overshadow the key communication with your business units leaders.
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