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New Years Resolutions for Workforce Planners
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Happy New Year! We hope you all had a great holiday period and are back in full force for a new year of strategic workforce planning in 2008. To get started, here’s our list of new years resolutions to get you started. |
We recommend that you choose at least three of these, repeat them three times and stick to them. Doing this will help your organization stay ahead of the game when tackling future workforce issues. |
- I resolve to take achievable, pragmatic steps toward workforce planning. Workforce Planning is a journey which you must travel one step at a time, rather than attempt to implement a fully fledged approach on day one. You might start by introducing environment scanning, creating the right people metrics, or even building a forecast of your "no change future state". Whatever you choose, take the step, and then you can take the next one.
- I resolve to look outward and forward, not just inward and backward. Many workforce planning and analysis efforts focus on what has happened in the past inside our organisation. Looking at external factors and looking into the future is becoming more important. Ensure that your workforce planning and executive reporting includes these vital aspects.
- I resolve to learn Strategic Workforce Planning techniques. Adding skills such as scenario planning, forecasting, and gap analysis to your current skill set might be the most important step you can take in preparing your organisation for the future.
- I resolve to treat the talent market as a market, and apply marketing techniques to it. The talent market is becoming increasingly challenging, and we need to start competing in it just as we do in the markets for customers and capital - that way we will be competing to win!
- I resolve to be willing to forecast the future. Forecasting the future is an inexact art, but many disciplines, including finance and marketing, do so - with varying degrees of accuracy, but almost always with value gained in the process. Remember, all our knowledge is about the past, but all our decisions are about the future.
- I resolve to filter data and convert it to information and insight. While a lot of data can be interesting, very little of it is normally useful. Data becomes information when it is positioned in context, and is insightful when it relates to your organisation and the executive can easily understand and interpret it to take action.
- I resolve to make Workforce Planning a priority in my organization. Can you imagine hearing "it's not a priority" for business planning? With the talent market hotting up and baby boomer retirements looming, failure to workforce plan could prevent you from achieving your business plans, and the return on investment in workforce planning is usually compelling - make a real business case for your executive!
- I resolve to stop letting today's issues make me stop planning for tomorrow. Think of Workforce Planning as the ounce of prevention you need to prevent the pounds of cure you are spending putting out the fires of these burning issues. Look to the future and phase out this fire fighting!
- I resolve to share my experiences with other workforce planners. If you aren't a member of the new Strategic Workforce Planning network - join now!
- I resolve to say "why?" and "what if?" at least three times a week!
Contact us if you need help ensuring your organization can get these resolutions in place |
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The Conference Board's New Working Group |
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With the start of the new year, we wanted to alert you to the Conference Board’s new working group. The group will focus its research on Strategic Workforce Planning and building on the Conference Board’s previous research. The research will be based on insights gained from more than 50 previous research working group companies and more than 30 global companies interviewed by researchers
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The last group produced a stellar paper and the new group will no doubt produce similarly insightful results. The new group will focus on the challenges of planning, shaping and managing a global workforce and members will be exposed to others’ working planning strategies.
For large organizations who are already members of the Conference Board, we advocate joining this group if you can.
For more information, see here
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"This feeling, finally, that we may change things - this is at the centre of everything we are. Lose that... lose everything."
Sir David Hare
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Forecasting Talent Challenges: The Conference Board names Gail Fosler, one of the United States' most prominent economic forecasters as its new president
A recent survey finds that 51% of Australian companies don't take advantage of talent management techniques despite believing that it increases business performance
PricewaterhouseCoopers reccommends that scenario planning will help companies anticipate change and address how their people challenges
Organisations must make an effort to address the ageing workforce to stop overall participation to drop by 9% in the next 50 years
Reputation is the most important factor for 2008 graduates when deciding which employer to join
Retention is a big problem for one third of Australian employers, which leads to productivity problems and low business morale
Making talent a strategic priority is a key challenge for today's organisations
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