Key Steps for Developing a Strategic Workforce Plan

Resource Management can mean different things to different people. For some, it implies a more “strategic” approach taking a high level view of an organization’s  longer term needs including skills, location, cost structure and competition.

For others, it is more short term focused to support business and revenue requirements over the next fiscal year.  The former is proactive, latter reactive.   Thus there is another term for the visionary view, Strategic Workforce Planning. Which type of planning  does your organization primarily engage in?
 
A 1/28/15 article by Sue Brooks in HR Magazine.org titled ”Overcoming barriers to strategic workforce planning”  provides a good summary of the steps to take for a truly strategic plan involving organizational resource requirements for the intermediate and long term.

• Create a vision
• Engage stakeholders
• Start simple
• Define your deliverables
• Identify the right internal support
• Leverage data
• Iterate

 
What I like about these steps is that it can be applied as a structure for many broader organizational plans.  The two that particularly resonate are the steps ensuring organizational alignment. 

• Engage Stakeholders  - It is risky for any plan to be done in a vacuum without input and buy in.  DEAD ON ARRIVAL.  You cannot impose a plan on anyone. The key stakeholders need to ensure their points are addressed.  Compile this list, circulate it, get feedback.   These stakeholders are the ones who must approve to adopt and implement the strategic workforce plan.
• Indentify the right internal support -  Who needs to be involved to build the visions, priorities and requirements?   Organizations are often complex and those functions deemed “critical” must be identified and brought into the working circle.  

 
The other steps involving creating a vision, defining deliverables, leveraging data and continually update are table stakes. But without the stakeholder engagement and internal support, you will have a finished product gathering dust.

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