A simple guide to workforce planning
Figure 1: Overview of Workforce and Training Plans
This guide sets out the main steps in workforce planning. It is a comprehensive and financially rewarding approach that includes improving productivity and ensuring that deman for staff is planned on a robust and transparent basis (see Figure 1).
The overview, shows the how the workforce and business plan should be closely linked. This in turn means that the workforce needs to be owned at board level. It is best to explore several scenarios in order to cope with the numerous dynamic pressures that organisations face.
Both the workforce and training plans are gap filling exercises, with an element of contigency planning built in to accommodate unforeseen eventualities.
Figure 2: Workforce Planning Cycle
The Workforce planning cycle is shown as high level questions that are covered in greater detail in the grid that follows Figure 2.
The following steps use questions to guide you easily through the process. They have been used very successfully in healthcare, but have wider applicability. They are:
Steps |
What is involved? |
1. What needs to be done? |
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2. Where does it need to be done? |
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3. When does it need to be done? |
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4. How should it be done? |
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5. What new competencies will be required in the future? |
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6. What are the current staff competencies? |
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7. Fill competency gaps |
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8. What should be the skill mix and organisational structure |
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9. How many staff are needed |
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10. How many staff have we got? |
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11. What are the gaps and where will the new staff come from? |
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12. Is the plan affordable? |
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13 Monitor the plan |
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