Workforce planning is the strategic process of ensuring an organization has the right number of people with the appropriate skills at the right time to meet its goals. It involves assessing current workforce capabilities, forecasting future needs, and identifying gaps to develop a plan that includes training and recruitment. Effective implementation requires management support, communication, and regular evaluation to adapt to changing circumstances.

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2. What is Workforce Planning?
Workforce planning is, simply stated, the
 Right number of people with the
 Right competencies in the
 Right jobs at the
 Right time
to accomplish the agency’s goals and
mission.
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3. What is Workforce Planning?
Workforce Planning is a systematic process for identifying
and addressing the gaps between the workforce of
today and the workforce of tomorrow.
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4. What is Workforce Planning?
Workforce planning is creating an integrated and
ongoing strategy for ensuring an organization is
prepared with the appropriate human capital to meet
current and future needs.
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5. Why do Workforce Planning?
 Nearly 60% of state employees are
45 or older
 Helps the state compete in today’s
market
 Allows decision makers to
determine the workforce needed
for tomorrow’s success
 Gives managers the human
resource information they need to
manage their programs effectively
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6. Workforce Planning Steps
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7. Scenario planning
 Articulate the agency’s vision, mission, organizational values,
and objectives.
 Have a defined strategic plan for the agency
 Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats) analysis
 Prepare the Demand Forecast
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8. Demand forecasting
 Workload changes
 Program initiatives
 Anticipated attrition
 Roles and functions
 Mission/strategy changes
 Distribution
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9.  Identify any current or pending statutory,
regulatory, or legislative mandates
 Identify any current skills that are becoming
obsolete due to new technologies
 Identify new skills needed to continue with
the business of the agency
 Identify shifts in changing work tasks
 Identify turnover rates in the current
workforce
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10. The Demand Forecast
Generates:
 Quantitative and qualitative data on anticipated
workload and workforce changes during the planning
period
 Quantitative and qualitative data on future
competency and skill requirements
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11. Supply forecasting
 Skills
 Distribution
 Demographics
 Workload/Productivity
 Staffing levels
 Succession
 Outsourcing
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Profile Existing Workforce

12. Supply Projections
 Supply projection examines the current and future
composition of the workforce and workload.
 Quantitative data on current and projected workforce
 Quantitative data on current and projected
competencies
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13. Supply Projections
Look at trend data
Workforce Profile
Hiring Patterns
Retirement Patterns
Turnover statistics
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14. Identify Labor Market Influences
 Labor pool decline
 Changes in labor pool
 Downsizing outside State
Government
 Changing occupation outlook
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15. Start by learning about your agency
determine the competencies that already exist in your
agency
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•Conduct general assessment of employees’
current skills
•Ask employees to identify career goals and
future desired skill sets
•Review PDs and job descriptions
•Hold focus group interviews to determine
skill and competency levels

16. Forecasting technique
Gap Analysis
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17. Gap Analysis
Use the Demand Forecast and the Supply Projections to
identify differences (gaps) between where your agency is
now and where it needs to be in the future
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18. Gap Analysis
 Identifies situations where future demand will exceed
future supply
 Identifies situations where future supply will exceed
future demand
 In both types of situations, your workforce plan must
address eliminating these gaps
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19. Action Plan
 Develop your plan around the most
mission critical gaps
 Define critical job competencies
 Define and redesign jobs
 Define recruiting needs
 Define training and development needs
 Identify restructuring opportunities
 Identify a timeline for making the changes
 Describe how the plan will be measured
(objectives)
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20. Implementation Plan
 Obtain management leadership and support
 Develop change management strategy
 Communicate
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21. Obtain Management
Leadership and Support
 Workforce Planning should be viewed as a significant
piece of an agency’s strategic plan
 Senior-level management should lead the planning
process
 Agency’s program managers will gain the most
benefit from the plan
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22. Develop Change Management
Strategy
 Change must be managed
 Change involves all stakeholders in the agency
 Objective view of the change is needed—often
agencies will contract out for some portion of the
Workforce Planning process.
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23. Communicate
 Make the process transparent—let your employees
know what’s going on
 Let your employees know what’s in it for them
 Planning for future workforce needs is an excellent
time to offer career growth and opportunities to
current employees
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24. Monitor, Evaluate, Revise
Monitor
 Continuously monitor the plan and consider any internal or
external developments that may affect the action plan.
 Consider upcoming legislation, budgetary concerns, and other
external developments
 Monitor projections to determine if current conditions meet
projections
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25. Evaluate
 Obtain feedback about the action plan and how it is
working
 Meetings
 Surveys
 Interviews
 Focus groups
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26. Evaluate
 Measure the results of the plan
 Do the gaps still exist?
 Are skills being developed?
 Are staffing levels adequate to perform the critical
mission of the agency?
 Do new hires possess the needed competencies?
 Celebrate achievements!
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27. Revise
Make necessary revisions
Communicate changes
Report on accomplishments
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28. Typical Workforce Planning
Issues to Overcome
 No commitment from agency leadership to provide
the necessary staff
 Doing it half-heartedly - Do it right, or not at all.
 Not including agency employees
 Wanting it too quickly.
 Lack of available data.
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