Certify and Increase Opportunity.
Be
Govt. Certified HR Staffing Manager

HR Staffing | Process of workforce planning

The workforce planning process includes five major steps and illustrated in figure 5.1.

• The business strategy of the company is identified: A company’s vision, goals and business strategies are identified for their effect on staffing requirements. The future staffing requirements are also established that influence the numbers and types of employees needed.
• The talent philosophy and the company’s strategic staffing decisions are articulated: The company’ commitment on factors like promotions, retention, preferences for hiring people with certain skills and training influence the nature of the employees they will need. These are important while planning and forecasting.
• Workforce analysis: This involves forecasting the labor demand and labor supply and identifying the gaps between these two aspects.
• Developing action plans: Action plans are developed to address gaps between labor demand and supply forecasts. The plans should be consistent with the company’s talent philosophy and can include both short and long term recruiting. For example, addressing the issues related to addressing issues with many employees in roughly the same age may require a long term action plan.
• Action plans are monitored, evaluated and revised: The workforce plans have to be evaluated for its effectiveness and revised accordingly. As markets and business environments change, changes in workforce plans are needed.

As a process, workforce planning includes activities such as strategic planning, workload projections, turnover analyses, budget projections. Workforce planning forecasts the numbers of people and types of skills needed to achieve success. It is a management tool that affects the full range of human resource activities including recruitment and selection, classification and compensation, training and development, performance management, and retention.
Strategic plan chart

In short, it is the process by which the current workforce is transformed to meet tomorrow’s needs.

Go back to Tutorial                                                                                Go to Home Page