Yesterday I was interviewed by Michelle Ockers for her Learning Uncut podcast. We were discussing Strategic Workforce Planning and how Learning and Development can get involved to drive mutual benefits. So I thought I would outline some of the foundational concepts and show the relationships between these two integral functions – as I see it.
What is strategic workforce planning?
Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is a process to analyse, forecast and plan the workforce by understanding gaps between current and future demand and supply and determining the strategies to minimise those gaps to execute an organisation’s strategic priorities.
Strategic workforce planning aims to achieve two things
Generally, through SWP we develop plans to ensure we have our workforce capacity and capability right.
Capacity is about getting the right number of people while capability is about what ensuring these can do what we need them to do.
Planning the number of people required will achieve capacity. Our People Analytic friends will play a critical role here. But planning to ensure those people are able to do what we need them to do is where Learning and Development professionals can apply our expertise and make a massive difference.
Adam Gibson, Author of Agile Workforce Planning suggests there are six (6) components to capability:
- Skills
- Knowledge
- Mindset
- Physiology
- Accreditation
- Environment
The 6Bs of strategic workforce planning
Strategic Workforce Planners refer to 6Bs (or 8Bs, 9Bs, depending on who you are speaking to. But for now, let’s stick with the 6. These Bs are the broad approaches that organisations we can manipulate to achieve our strategic priorities. Encouragingly, Learning and Development professionals can provide their expertise to add value in all of them.
How the 6Bs support the workforce planning process
By referring to the 6Bs we can encourage people to think of alternate solutions to workforce challenges rather than relying on our usual default buy (recruitment) approach.
Where learning and development can add value
Below I have mapped each of the Bs to tools within a Learning and Development professional’s toolkit that can be applied to support implementation of the strategies.
Additionally, Learning and Development professional have expertise that is critical to the planning process and not just the implementation process. We can scale up the difference we make by being involved in the decision making around the priority initiatives and the order they might occur in. Basically, we can recommend evidence based approaches to develop capability so it is available as and when it is needed.
In the episode, I did mention two of the gurus of Strategic Workforce Planning. Here are links to their LinkedIn profiles and company websites:
Alicia Roach – Co-founder of eQ8
Nick Kennedy – Chair of The Workforce Planning Institute
