A good workforce planning framework makes this process virtually painless, by providing you with a method of analysing your current workforce, forecasting your future needs, and closing any gaps. Key to success for it, of course, is paying attention not just to what is happening inside your organisation, but also what is happening outside, because the outside affects your ability to recruit the skills you need – and critically also to retain them.

• Have a capabilities framework for your organisation, so you know what skills you need to succeed at your business plan
• For strategically important specialist skills, tie these capabilities to external measures of skills, such as the Australian Workplace’s skills shortage lists, or university enrolment and graduation trends
• Assess your current capability (at an aggregate level, there’s no need to audit individual skills), and analyse the employment trends of the groups of people who supply those skills
• Evaluate the environment to see what other things affect these skills, such as what competitors for these skills are up to
• Forecast how your future state will look, incorporating internal and external trend information
• Analyse the gaps you find, and use a rich view of the workforce to identify the best solutions – which might be anything from offshoring to changing your work design practices
• Track your progress to plan, to ensure you don’t get surprises down the track

If you aren’t doing these things for your organisation, then your level of risk from the skills shortage is probably unacceptably high – and there is no excuse! These are long term strategic planning activities, but they aren’t necessarily difficult. Need help? Then contact us, we can help set you up to manage skills shortages and other workforce challenges – without causing your CEO any more sleepless nights!

I'll be sharing more information about tackling the skills shortage at our upcoming networking events in Melbourne July 6 and Sydney July 21 - see you there.