He said/she said: Are you really that clueless about workforce planning?
Written by Anonymous 5 months ago
Yesterday I had two different conversations, one with an esteemed business futurist and another with a workforce-planning-loving HR practitioner type. He's the bold, blunt sort who tends to oversimplify to make a point. She's the detail-loving, circumspect quant type, who loves to delve into the details. Both are bright and can be considered experts in HR and specifically, workforce planning.
He says that companies are too busy gazing at their navels, preoccupied with internal issues that distract from the real drivers of workforce planning issues: that is, the all-important social, demographic and political stuff that ultimately determines most labor market issues. She agrees that companies are internally focused but thinks this is the most realistic way to go; internally is where you need to look first and foremost because it's the only way to get buy-in from leadership in regard to planning.
But here's the thing: Despite their differences, both agree that most companies just plain stink at workforce planning, which leaves me wondering why.
He thinks they're mostly just "clueless" about how to do it, but she leans toward the idea that the laggards are lacking in motivation and basically impatient. She says sophisticated workforce planning is hard work that takes more time and labor than some are willing to put forth.
My take on the he said/she said opining? I think both make excellent points but that it's all much messier than either describes. I suspect a lot of companies are engaged in the oxymoron of ad hoc, self-organized planning that serves their needs well enough. In one department, maybe they're looking a few months into the future, trying to figure out how they're going to find or train the staff they need to help operate a new IT app. In another department, they're just trying to push some people out the door, thinking they can probably upgrade in a few high-skill areas. Meanwhile, in a separate business unit, they're already wooing high school kids enrolled in local magnet schools so they'll have enough fresh engineers through the year 2020. Much of it hinges on local needs, specific labor pools, internal politics, idiosyncratic leaders and annual budgets.
Yeah, there's probably some cluelessness out there, but it usually works out okay because companies can move fast when they really want (and can afford) to. They don't have to plan well; they can just react when the obvious workforce needs hit them right between the eyes.
Having said that, however, I think that workforce planning can probably deliver some real competitive advantages. Organizations that anticipate workforce needs (well before the obvious whacks them in the forehead) can save themselves plenty of pain and scrambling, not to mention resources. But it doesn't start with either internal or external labor conditions. It starts with strategic planning (a point both my experts made in their different ways). Think about the car company that anticipates high oil prices, or the computer company that anticipates mobile computing, or the medical device company that anticipates new noninvasive scanning techniques. If they can anticipate trends well enough, then they can also do the workforce planning they need to get ahead of the curve faster, getting a serious jump on the competition (and, in fact, driving change in their industries).
So, make sure solid business thinking comes first. This thinking, if it's shared and envisioned well enough, will then influence workforce planning. You'll be better able to tell where you are, where you want to go, and what other possible destinations look like. Then start building that proverbial bridge (or bridges) into the future. It'll wind up faster than those messy, ad hoc detours so many organizations seem to be relying on today.
