Strategic workforce planning (SWP) enables businesses to stay competitive by focusing on developing their employees' skills and maximizing their productivity. SWP should align a company's personnel strategy with its long-term business goals. It is an iterative process that continuously monitors skills, identifies problems, and ensures the workforce can adapt to changes. SWP leverages internal and external data to understand turnover, map talent, and build leadership pipelines for the future. Ultimately, SWP creates a flexible framework to align a company's workforce with its evolving strategy.

1. How to establish a strong
Strategic Workforce Planning
program
Notes from Talmix’s Live Broadcast: 5 December 2017
www.talmix.com

2. Why are businesses focussing on SWP today?
“The world is getting more and more competitive. Finding profit is
becoming more difficult, and the profit they do find is becoming thinner.
The focus is on growth and staying competitive. The challenge is to
increase your productivity as an organisation. And because “Capital”
now also refers to Human Capital, organisations are focusing on their
people in order to drive productivity. People skills are changing, and
skills are becoming sought-after. So, organisations are looking for
better contribution, and more value from the individuals in the
business, so that they can increase their productivity"
“In the drive to stay competitive, organisations are focusing on
growing their people” – Carl McInerney

3. How does SWP enable business agility?
“Strategic workforce planning is a continuous process. /it’s an iteration.
And completing that iteration, regular review of your business strategy
against your people, then your strategy over the next 3-5 years should
be continually forecasting, and building in more flexibility.”
“Intelligent use of high value alternatives like interims, contract
workers and independent, specialist skill, allows you to bring talent in at
key times when the business is going through high transition”.

4. Where does SWP help to understand turnover, talent matrix and
more?
4
SWP is about leveraging data: Internal & External Data
The data then informs the need for change: That’s when you identify problems,
review the strategic business plan, identify trends, and then ultimately fix and
improve on any areas that need it.
Strategic Workforce Planning is something that is done continuously, and reviewed
continuously. Your organisation is changing all the time, and because of this change, your
workforce planning has to embrace the change and fit into an ongoing organisational culture
and lifecycle.
HR Resource Planning: Short-term
Strategic Workforce Planning: Long-term -> It’s about looking at the long-term changes
within your strategic business planning and ensuring that workforce planning is a key pillar
within that strategy. This may change the types of teams you hire, depending on where your
organisation is in its growth path.

5. SWP should be a key
fundamental pillar within your
overall, long-term business
strategy.

6. Our workforce is evolving. How does SWP enable building
foundations for tomorrow’s leadership?
You’re creating a pipeline for internal and external talent, through Strategic
Workforce Planning. You known the skill you need, and you continue to
monitor your pipeline that develops alongside your business strategy.
Tomorrow’s leaders will need to focus on increasing contribution.
Organisations need to develop routes that help their talent find ways to help
people develop.
Businesses need to encourage their people to get breadth, not depth, in
terms of skill and expertise in order to deliver wider, cross-functionally, and
contribute stronger back into the overall business strategy.

7. Strategic Workforce Planning is
about aligning people to your
strategy, cross-functionally

8. How does SWP complement a technically-dominant world?
There needs to be a recognition of the power of soft skills in a very technical world, and the
value they add. There will always be tasks that could be taken in and programmed. Robotics will be
a strong factor in taking things in, programmed and repeated – which is great for productivity.
But
• What about problem-solving and decision-making?
• What about making Thinking visible?
• What about being opportunistic?
• What about thinking beyond the plan?
Where do you start to train people to do these? That comes from real-life experience and working
together.
So, to be able to differentiate and remain competitive, businesses will need to
think about how they develop their people, and that’s where SWP comes in.

9. SWP is not complicated stuff. It
doesn’t need to be.
It’s about creating a framework.

10. Tips to get started: What to keep in mind?
10
Keep it Simple!
Tailor it to you, and your organisation and your culture
Remember that it’s an iterative process: Like any process, there will be
a number of steps to move through, with an output. Be conscious of the
problem that you’re trying to fix, or the situation that you’re trying to
improve.
Remember that it’s about increasing productivity and competitiveness
within your market.
Remember that it’s about aligning your people to your strategy, and
getting the best out of them, and helping them contribute value back
into your business.

11. Final Thoughts
11
Strategic Workforce Planning doesn’t need to be a complicated process. Remember, it’s about the
following:
• Aligning your people strategy, and your changing people strategy, to your business strategy
• It’s about maximising your return on People: Just like any resource within a business, whether
it’s a piece of plant or equipment, you need to invest in it, maintain it. And it’s no different to your
people too.
• The leaders of the future will need to have different skills, attributes and references. They will
need to be people who will maintain the status quo. They will need to be people who enjoy
change, and that’s where skills beyond the technical roles are needed. You may start off with a
highly-skilled, highly-technical person in a particular role, but at some point, they will need to
transition to become a coach or a mentor – being involved in change.
• It’s about getting more out of people and increasing their contribution.
• Finding the right people and helping them transition and grow.
Strategic Workforce Planning is about creating a flexible talent plan