Workforce Planning: Winning Talent with Strategic Recruitment

Workforce planning, or recruitment forecasting, allows businesses to understand what skills their employees currently have, and to plan for any roles needed for the year ahead in order to meet business goals. This gives businesses a competitive edge to attract and engage with talent.

What are the advantages of workforce planning?

Whatever size your business is, there are many benefits to planning your workforce. A proactive and strategic approach to hiring allows your business to:

• Nurture positive candidate experiences

• Engage with the passive candidate market

• Develop better relationships with recruitment team or agency

• Have appropriate resources to hire effectively

• Reach and hire the best talent faster

• Use your budget more effectively

What’s involved in planning a workforce?

Firstly, you need to identify your business goals and any barriers that may stop you from achieving these. Once you have clarified these areas, you will be able to compare what skills and resources are currently within the business to what additional skills and talent will be needed in order to meet these objectives.

You need to consider:

• The current level of talent and skills available within the business

• Any areas which need improving or developing

• The impact of upcoming resignations, retirees, maternity/paternity leave on your workforce

• Upcoming projects or plans for growth that will require additional roles to be created

How to start planning

Successful workforce planning won’t happen organically; it requires someone to take responsibility for it and put processes in place to make it happen. But it’s not a solo venture – to be effective, the planning process needs to involve HR, the hiring manager and the recruitment agency (if you’re using one).

1. Get each manager involved in the process by asking them to provide information about current skill gaps and additional support needed in their department or team

2. Identify main factors that will affect talent needs – maternity/paternity leave, people leaving the business, new roles needing to be created

3. Involve all key players in this process – HR, managers and hiring team

4. Be dynamic – have an awareness of changing needs and talent shortages within the business by having regular contact with these key players throughout the year

5. Analyse recruitment data from the previous year and ask for feedback from other departments, hiring team and HR to identify any trends or challenges that need to be addressed for the coming year

Why bother with workforce planning?

Workforce planning is a worthwhile investment for your business. It gives you a competitive advantage over other employers by being able to tap into the passive market using longer term candidate attraction strategies: career sites and targeted social media campaigns are just some of the tactics you can use to develop and promote your employer brand and tempt passive talent to come and work for you!

By being organised and thinking about hiring needs before you get into a situation where you have gaps in your workforce that suddenly (and urgently) need filling, you will create a better overall experience not only for candidates, but for everyone involved in your hiring process.