When a business decides that they are going to start looking for a new employee, it is typically because they need the employee now. Most businesses say “I need this person yesterday”, sound familiar? Not today, not in 3 months, but yesterday. This simple phrase puts pressure on your candidate search and can quickly lead to issues. It can put your business in a bind on the type of recruiting they can do or cause a company to make the wrong hire. The chain reaction of being rushed to find someone immediately will inevitably impact the quality of the hire, the candidate experience, or lead you to not attract the right candidate.
Workforce planning can not be automated (even though people are trying). However, insights from analytics should be considered in how you plan. Workforce planning needs to be a part of how you plan out a quarter, year, or a 5-year roadmap. While most companies say that “their people” are the most important piece to their organization, most don’t show hiring the attention that it needs. An organization should have a “healthy fear of losing good employees”. This is part of the business and should be looked upon as such. You will be successful if you can initiate a proper exit plan, search mobilization, and a multi-channel approach. Good employees that leave can be a strong ally when it comes to attracting their replacement or future employees.
What Is Workforce Planning?
Workforce Planning is the process of analyzing, forecasting, and planning workforce supply and demand to ensure that an organization has the right people—with the right skills in the right places at the right time.
3 Key Questions To Consider When Workforce Planning
When sitting down to do workforce planning you should decide on the following things:
- What type of candidate(s) do we need to add to hit our goals?
- If we miss our goal can we sustain all of our resources?
- What do we do if we lose a top employee?
Your workforce planning should include all 3 scenarios. This will allow you to be prepared no matter what happens with your business.
Driving Recruitment With Workforce Planning
Intero Advisory is currently looking for a “Content Marketing Specialist” to join our team. We decided on opening this role from conversations during our 2020 kickoff meeting. Why? Our growth goals and the current pipeline of business would benefit from the hiring of this type of resource. Of course, we would like to make this hire “yesterday”. However, that does not mean we are going to rush our sourcing, outreach, vetting, and interview process. Our goal is to find someone that can fit in with our team, is going to become a LinkedIn evangelist, and will be someone that can grow with Intero Advisory or make an impact that helps drive their career forward.
Nothing is going to be perfect. However, if you have a workforce plan that means you have a strategy. You won’t be able to know when an employee is going to resign, have a personal emergency, etc. but you will be prepared. As Mike Tyson said “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”, we would reword this for resource planning as “Everyone thinks they have a plan, until a great employee hands them their 2 weeks’ notice.”
