Strategic workforce planning is a systematic approach to identifying and equipping your workforce with the skills and capabilities required to deliver on the business strategy.
Faethm is committed to providing our customers with support and guidance on using platform insights for various use cases, including Strategic Workforce Planning.
This page contains a high level overview of Faethm's six-step approach to strategic workforce planning, a comprehensive framework on setting up and running a successful strategic workforce planning programme for your organisation.
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Using predictive analytics to add value to strategic workforce planning
The Six Steps to Strategic Workforce Planning playbook series
The three types of planning
Strategic workforce planning is independent to operational and tactical planning, however it provides valuable input into both. The three types of planning are critical to the success of the business strategy.
Video tutorial
Watch our masterclass to learn more about how to use the Faethm platform for the predictive insights to best guide and inform your strategic workforce planning.
Contact us at support@faethm.ai or schedule a meeting to learn more and access the full playbook series (Steps 2-6).
Using predictive analytics to add value to strategic workforce planning
Strategic workforce planning anticipates future workforce supply and demand to:
- build cost-effective, long-term recruitment and retention strategies
- create redeployment opportunities for your internal talent pool and implement a successful internal mobility programme
- identify which skills and capabilities must be invested in, and when, to drive future productivity
Faethm adds value to each step of the strategic workforce planning process with predictive data on impacts of automating and augmenting technologies on your workforce from one to ten years into the future. Faethm’s analytics can assist you to:
- Identify critical future roles: Forecast how roles will transform as tasks are changed by automating and augmenting technologies, to then identify the skills and capabilities that your workforce will need, and when.
> Learn how to use the Job Impact chart for technology impact insights - Retain workers by developing successful internal mobility programs: Identify which current skills are transferable to future jobs to improve the success of your internal mobility program.
> Learn how to use the Job Corridor to identify and assess job transitions - Build critical skills within your workforce to improve redeployment outcomes: Use the insights on critical future skills to develop effective learning and development programs that accurately target the skills that need to be boosted and the skills that need to be built to fill gaps in critical and specialist areas.
The Six Steps to Strategic Workforce Planning playbook series
To assist you to plan and implement a data-driven strategic workforce planning programme, Faethm has developed a set of seven playbooks. Throughout each playbook, you’ll find directions on when to use the Faethm platform for predictive insights to inform your planning.
We recommend a step-by-step approach to your strategic workforce planning programme. As you complete each playbook, your Customer Insights Manager can be contacted to deliver the subsequent playbook.
The first two playbooks, an introduction to strategic workforce planning the Faethm way and the first step, are provided here to download:
The full playbook series:
- The Faethm Approach
An introduction to Faethm's six-step framework for strategic workforce planning. - Step 1: Mobilise
Build your programme team, identify who the stakeholders are, and prepare an effective communication plan to engage the business. - Step 2: The Internal Environmental Scan
Assess the current state of every role in the workforce, identify critical roles, and complete scenario planning to uncover likely outcomes of key drivers of change. - Step 3: Supply and Demand
Understand the current supply of talent in your organisation, including trends, and quantify the future demand. - Step 4: Gap Analysis
Conduct a gap analysis of supply and demand, calculate potential future oversupply and shortage, identify and prioritise the risks and prepare risk mitigation strategies. - Step 5: Strategy Development
Develop your strategy, the action plan to achieve your workforce planning goals. Align each action to the Six B’s model. - Step 6: Implementation
Execute the strategy, including project planning and change management.
Benefits of strategic workforce planning
- It's a sustainable approach
Faethm are not consultants. We focus on our modelling and our ontology, and how we can help our clients get the greatest value from their Faethm subscription. - It's a plan in advance
The workforce required in the future will be unrecognisable from that employed in current roles. By considering and addressing potential issues in advance, the business can focus on delivering results. - It builds career paths and retains talent
The best way to retain high performers and workers in critical roles is to provide clear career pathways where they can develop themselves. - It delivers cost savings
Strategic workforce planning can reduce recruitment expenses and redundancy payments by encouraging redeployment of workers where there will be an oversupply into roles that will be short of workers. - It leaves no-one behind
Faethm’s overwhelming intent is to help organisations nurture their workforce so they can develop and grow to embrace the opportunities the Future of Work will present.
Best practice principles
- Value your people
Your people are your assets, and as such, their skills development and internal mobility opportunities should be invested in. - Acknowledge the risks
A risk assessment is critical to strategic workforce planning but is only effective when the business is willing to acknowledge the risks and comply with risk mitigation efforts. - Commit to a continuous, iterative process
Strategic workforce planning is an ongoing process that requires regular evaluation and revisions. Stakeholders must commit to long-term participation. - Consult and engage
Strategic workforce planning is a highly collaborative process involving the Information Technology, Finance and Human Resources functions. - Take the time
Prior to the supply and demand step, sufficient time must be spent to ensure stakeholders understand the strategy, internal and external forces that will affect talent demand and the likely impacts of emerging technologies on the workforce. - Share the priorities
For workforce planning to deliver benefits, stakeholders should commit to prioritising the workforce planning objectives over their business unit objectives.
Next steps:
An introduction to strategic workforce planning
Step 2 - Internal Environmental Scan