Effective Workforce PlanningWorkforce planning can be defined as a method of practices in place, that ensures the best talent is found to achieve the requirements of the role, at a cost effective and timely manner.(1)These components should be in place to deliver the objectives of the business in both a short and long term strategy. Work force planning also requires that contingency plans are also in place should something arise that would impact a business, for example an unexpected resignation in a key post. Each business will have a different goal when looking at workforce planning, as it should be adapted to the current market situation of the business.
Therefore different factors should be taken into consideration when creating a business workforce plan.Looking at our strategic plans for growth we need to begin identifying the skills demand within the current market. Our future plan is for growth in size. For this we will require an increased workforce and therefore will require people with specific skills across all areas. A Skills gap analysis(2) can be conducted to assess the current workforce. From this we can clearly identify areas for training and growth within the workforce and also highlight areas in which we can begin to fill with external candidates to produce new ideas. By looking at our workforce we can implement some strategies of good practice to make sure our teams are functioning at the highest possible level.
By using an employee survey, similar to the Cohort Survey, we can use the data to break down our departments and perform specific analysis into the company turnover patterns. This would help us idetify specific pockets of high levls of turnover which can then be investigated further using primary data sourcing for more information and finally, a more specific workforce strategy. (3)5 year career plan conversations – these conversations are vital in understanding where staff picture there careers. These can also bring out the conversation of retirement as with an aging workforce this can be something that is brought into conversation, we dont want to be seen to be enforcing retirement on staff as this breaks the law within the Equality Act 2010 (4). Employees have to inform us of their intention to retire as there is no longer a retirement age.(5)We may find that some departments are over saturated and as such a redundancy plan could be implemented to reduce the size of departments or possibly redeploy people into other areas of the bsuiness. Here is a steph by step guide to incorporating good practice when implementing a possible redundancy situation.
