DEVELOPING A WORKFORCE
PLAN TO ENABLE EXPLOSIVE,
OUT OF THE BOX GROWTH
ERE Expo
September 11, 2009
©Dr. John Sullivan
Advisor to Management, Author and Professor
www.drjohnsullivan.com

Dr. John Sullivan’s summary bio
 Former Chief Talent Officer of Agilent Technologies, the HP spinoff with
43,000 employees
 Has advised over 250 major organizations in 30 different countries. His
appeal is so broad, that work has been translated into 23 languages
 Monthly column in Workforce Management Magazine
 Columnist for the Electronic Recruiting Daily
 Author of eight books and more than 750 articles.
 SHRM called him “One of the industries most respected strategists” & the Best
Practice Institute honored him as one of the Top 10 Leading Thinkers in HR
 Staffing.org noted that he was “the father of HR Metrics” and Fast Company
magazine called him the “Michael Jordan of hiring”
 He has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, the NY Times, the
Financial Times, CFO Magazine and have been interviewed by CNN and the
CBS and ABC nightly news
 Currently he is a Professor of Management at San Francisco State University
and the chief consultant of the management advisory firm DJS 2

Dr. Sullivan’s current books
On-boarding HR Strategy Productivity
Metrics
Recruiting Employee referrals Employer Branding Recruiting tools

The basic premise for today is…
Can we agree that the basic premise
turnaround in recruiting is
coming…
And even though we do not know precisely when
 It’s still a wise move to develop a plan that
enables you to take the appropriate actions…
 Before the turnaround occurs
 And right when the turnaround starts
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Plan “B” is…
 Do nothing and spend your time bemoaning the
basic premise
fact that you have no budget
 Looking unprepared and being overwhelmed
when the turnaround does occur
 Producing poor or mediocre results because you
waited too late to develop a plan and a strategy
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Topics for today
1. A definition of workforce planning
2. Common errors made during a downturn
3. The 4 phases of a turnaround plan
4. Benchmark firms to model after
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A definition of
“Competitive advantage” workforce planning
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Competitive advantage workforce planning defined
An integrated… forward looking plan…
designed to predict (what, when, how much)…
and then cause action.
In order to mitigate people problems…
and take advantage of opportunities to improve
the “talent pipeline”…
so that you have the needed “people capabilities”…
to meet business goals…
and to build a competitive advantage!
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Part 1
Common Talent Management errors
made during a downturn
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Workforce planning/ recruiting mistakes to avoid
The mistakes organization’s have made:
basic premise
 This major accounting firm eliminated the
majority of their recruiting staff because
recruiting now will be so easy, it will be like
“shooting fish in a barrel”
 This biotech firm dropped it’s most senior
recruiters and only retained the “cheap ones”,
because recruiting is merely a transaction
 This government froze all hiring (right when the
best talent was available) and furloughed all, even
in revenue-generating positions > 10

Workforce planning/ recruiting mistakes to avoid
Firms have…
 Furloughed and laid off in such a public way that it
may have damaged their employer brand
 Reverted back to arrogant, customer damaging
“candidate abuse” and “death by interview”
 Assumed they could continue to utilize the old
tools… (job boards, ads, static corporate pages)
while ignoring mobile phones, texting, social
networks, rec. videos, blogs, podcasts, remote
video interviews, contests, talent communities etc.
 Been overly optimistic in workforce planning
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Part 2
The four distinct phases of a turnaround plan
Note: where you the various actions in the phases
varies with the firm/ situation
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The four phases of a turnaround plan
Phase 1 Creating a turnaround plan
Actions immediately before the
Phase 2 turnaround
Actions during the first three
Phase 3 months of the turnaround
Phase 4 Ongoing operations
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Phase 1
Creating the turnaround plan
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Action steps in creating your plan
Work with the CFO/ COO
 They are the undisputed kings of metrics and
budgets
 Make the business case showing the impact on
their favorite business areas and their key
project approval criteria two examples >
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These factors indicate business impact to a CFO
Use the CFO’s favorite words in your bus. case
 Increased revenue/ profit/ higher margins
 Higher productivity
 Higher customer retention / satisfaction rates
 Increased market share
 A stronger brand
 Higher stock price
 A higher rate of product innovation
If you don’t directly impact these, forget it!
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Top 10 CFO project approval factors
The top factors that get marketing & finance
proposals funded:
1. High ROI and other business impacts
3. Low initial investment
4. High success rate/ low risk of failure
5. Immediate start up
6. Short payback period
7. It uses accurate results metrics and counting
8. No new headcount is required (Or it is reduced)
9. “Consequences of failure” is built in
10. A competitive advantage is created
11. Increased productivity (Profit per people dollar)
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Additional action steps for creating your
turnaround plan
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Action steps in creating your plan
Forecast when the turnaround will begin
 Forecast a range not a single date
 Ask the CFO for their projected dates`
 Look for “leading indicator firms” from previous
turnarounds
 Look for “external economic indicators” from
previous turnarounds (Housing sales, interest rates,
consumer spending, an employment rate etc.
 Identify previous internal precursors or warning
signs >
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Precursors indicating you have a surplus of labor
Internal precursors of a turnaround in hiring
 Increase in revenue or forecasted orders
 Increase in hours for workers or OT
 Unfreezing raises and/ or promotions
 Travel budgets are unfrozen
 Contingent hiring increases
 Key SBU budgets are increased
 Others?
 Releasing the freeze on hiring comes next
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Action steps in creating your plan
Forecast hiring volume needs
 Find the expected corporate revenue growth rate
 Use the ideal revenue per employee ratio to
predict headcount
 Forecast the available volume of internal talent
(Reduced by projected turnover and retirements)
 Develop a “yield model” or funnel (MS, Cisco) 21

Action steps in creating your plan
Consider developing remote work jobs
 To expand the available talent pool
 To increase productivity and cut costs (Best Buy)
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Action steps in creating your plan
Forecast the type of talent needed
 Identify the positions with projected retirements
or turnover
 Identify growth regions
 Identify rapid growth business units
 Identify time-to-market requirements
 Identify skill requirements
 Identify the needed innovation rates
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Action steps in creating your plan
Prioritize your customers for recruiting/retention
 Revenue generating and revenue impact jobs
 Mission-critical jobs
 Key business units
 Key regions
 Key leaders/managers
 Retention - “High risk of leaving” individuals
 Retention - Individuals with “key future skills”
 Retention – Top performers, game changers and
innovators 24

Any questions at this point
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Phase 2
Actions to take immediately before (30-90 days)
the turnaround begins
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Develop a turnaround timetable
 Develop a detailed timeline with milestones.
 Ensure that all possible actions and their owners
are on the timeline and in the turnaround plan
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Conduct a competitive analysis
 Analyze your "talent competitors" and their
growth plans from the last downturn
 Forecast when they are likely to ramp up hiring
 Forecast which jobs they are likely to initially
focus on
 Identify what tools they are likely to use… so
that you can counter them with more effective tools
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Begin building a “talent pool”
 Pre-identify and begin to build relationships with
the 100 “most wanted” game changers in your
industry (EA, MS)
 Revisit offer turndowns, semifinalists and “almost
qualified” former candidates
 Approach corporate alumni /boomerangs to
gauge their interest in returning
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Identify recruiting resources that utilize “other
people’s time”
 Re-energize your employee referral program
(Add exec referrals, college referrals, social network
referrals and e-referral cards)
 Encourage attendees and speakers at professional
events to bring back “three great names”
 Encourage and educate your employee social
network users how to attract potential candidates
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Begin re-building your “employer brand” image
 Assess whether candidate “job acceptance
criteria” have changed
 Assess your brand negatives online (Google
alerts) and among university students (Universum)
 Remember your employer brand is now
determined by others (MS), so use the media, social
networks, Twitter etc. to have “others” spread the
word about your differentiated “well-managed” and
“best place to work” factors
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Assess new sourcing tools and strategies
 Select from among the new generation of
recruiting strategies
 Referrals and direct sourcing are top
 Utilize your own top performing employees to
identify their most utilized communications
channels using a “how would we find you again”
process/survey
 Utilize sampling methods and metrics to identify
the tools that actually generate the highest quality
candidates, quality of hire and ROI 32

Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Assess your web site
 Be authentic (Test your credibility)
 Allow customized messages
 Video’s are powerful
 Their power is diminishing vs. Glassdoor.com
etc.
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Upgrade internal movement tools
 Identify IM problems, barriers and roadblocks
 Improve the availability of information about
“where best to move” internally for increased pay,
promotion, job security etc.
 Consider utilizing recruiters to proactively
internally move “overdue” employees
(Microsoft, Booz Allen)
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Upgrade reference checking processes
 Assess whether lying and misrepresentation
rates have increased significantly
 Be aware of identity theft (I’m not really that
person)
 Be aware of the “nurse of the year”
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Consider re-assessing your ATS situation
 Be aware of lower-cost options
 Be aware of CRM options
 Be aware of vendor reliability
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Steps just before the turnaround begins
Develop effective WP /recruiting metrics
 Accuracy of forecasts
 Number of vacancy days for key positions
 On-the-job performance of new-hires
 Retention rate of top-performing new-hires
 Performance turnover
 Diversity rates in professional positions
 Percentage of internal leadership vacancies filled by
individuals on the succession plan
 Convert all metrics to dollars of revenue impact 37

Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Begin hiring new recruiters
 Develop new assessment tools to determine
whether recruiters can utilize next-generation tools
 Pre-identify and build relationships with the
best
Note: Only do select hiring of recruiters before the
turnaround actually begins
 Then, hire a percentage as contract recruiters in
case this turnaround is a “false start”
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Action steps just before the turnaround begins
Cherry pick “soon to be recruited” talent
 Estimate job areas where your competitors will
initially begin recruiting
 Use competitive intelligence and visit the
corporate site/job boards to estimate when
competition for talent will increase
 Consider a talent SWAP program (Slide)
 “Pull the trigger” and hire all you can afford
before the competition starts 39

Phase 3
Actions immediately after the turnaround begins
40

Steps immediately after the turnaround begins
Fortify retention efforts
 Assume turnover rates will double (Generational turnover)
 Consider a “mass-personalized” retention
strategy (vs. a peanut butter strategy)
 Ask key employees “why they stay”
 “Re-recruit” key employees
 Consider post-exit interviews
 Consider dumping bad-managers
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Steps immediately after the turnaround begins
Fortify retirement efforts
 Assume retirement rates will change
dramatically based on stock valuations and
healthcare options (Leadership gap)
 Influence key employees to stay longer
 Accurately predict who is likely to retire
 Consider part time “after retirement” work
 Develop “remote work” options as an alternative
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Steps immediately after the turnaround begins
Improved candidate closing tools
 Assume that your image may be damaged
 Assume that candidates have changed their
acceptance criteria
 During on-boarding ask “what worked” and
“what didn’t”
 Determine how housing issues will impact the
potential relocations 43

Steps immediately after the turnaround begins
Re-energize and re-educate hiring managers
 Assume that their skills are rusty and their
approaches are outdated
 Make the business case to individual managers
that it is worth the time to invest in recruiting
 Utilize internal social networks and wiki’s to
educate hiring managers
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Steps immediately after the turnaround begins
Anticipate potential recruiting problems
 Make a list of anticipated recruiting “growing
pains” based on the last recession
 Utilize “if – then scenarios” to “test” to see if
your team is ready for all high probability problems
and opportunities
 Consider offering “talent opportunity” alerts
 Consider technology/ labor alternatives
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Part 3
And finally… benchmark firms to study
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Best practice examples in workforce planning
Benchmark firms include:
 Capital one – virtual if – then simulations, variable
timeframe with SBU, 20 person team
 Microsoft – three-year recruiting funding window
 Google – statistical algorithm for forecasting who
will quit
 Booz Allen – speeding up internal movement and
rotations
 WellPoint – external candidates as part of their
succession plan
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Best practice examples in workforce planning
Benchmark firms include:
 KTL Tencor – the whole business stops for a
month to plan, with quarterly revision
 Intel (people roadmap)
 Orcaeyes – a new generation of predictive
software
 City of Sunnyvale (Ca) - utilizes five-year
workforce planning model
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Note
I have a 244 page e-book
THE WORKFORCE PLANNING HANDBOOK
It is available for free for evaluation purposes.
JohnS@sfsu.edu
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Did I make you think?
How about some more questions ?
www.drjohnsullivan.com
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