2023 is about to begin, and any business hoping to achieve long-term success needs to begin thinking about adopting a workforce planning strategy that’s suited to the volatility of a rapidly evolving workforce, one that is loaded with remote employees and a growing segment called the “gig economy.”
To be sure, an organization’s workforce is undoubtedly its most important asset. Without a sound strategy in place to attract and retain the right employees, organizations are forced to contend with the unnecessary costs of turnover and retraining of new workers.
Yet despite the criticality of hiring the right talent, many organizations are still neglecting the importance of workforce planning, delegating it as a “task” for their recruitment teams to handle. Unfortunately, many recruiters don’t have access to the right technology or resources to gain adequate visibility into their current workforce to understand what skills they’re lacking.
In fact, the dynamics of our workforce have become so volatile, and the demand for skilled workers has skyrocketed so high that HR leaders are likely to cringe at the thought of being placed at the helm of their organization’s workforce planning strategy. Especially when asked to adopt one for the first time.
If your organization is considering a workforce planning strategy but isn’t quite sure how to begin, you’re in luck. In this article, we’ll explore the concept of workforce planning and tell you why it’s so important for every organization. We’ll also help you understand how HR technology can significantly augment your efforts.
What is Workforce Planning?
Over 75% of today’s business leaders don’t feel that their companies are adequately prepared for the future – workforce planning helps you to be prepared. If your organization has never done so before, workforce planning can feel completely overwhelming; some would even say impossible, considering the unpredictability of modern times. The good news is that you don’t need a crystal ball. The chief components of this process are the right HR leaders and the right HR technology.
Workforce planning means doing an analysis of your existing workforce to gain an understanding of in-house skills and talent levels and then determine how any skills gaps can be filled through hiring and employee training. If done properly, workforce planning will reveal what workers are capable of being made more effective with training and what workers may no longer be a fit for the company. The biggest takeaway from all this is that workforce planning isn’t just about hiring; it’s also about moving current employees – that can include promotions, demotions, and (unfortunately) terminations.
In the last analysis, workforce planning ensures that an organization has all the right workers in all the right positions to achieve sustainable growth for the company.
Why is Workforce Planning Important?
The importance of workforce planning is attributable to the fact that it ensures that your organization has a workforce talent and skills strategy in place that not only aligns with the strategic growth objectives of the company but is also dynamic enough to fluctuate and be effective during times of unpredictability and economic uncertainty.
1.The Right Workers for the Future
Organizations that make a deliberate effort to forecast their future hiring needs accurately and take the time to evaluate the talent gaps that exist in their current workforce ensure that the organization can consistently keep the right people in the proper positions no matter what the economic environment might be. For example, these planning efforts can protect a company from the “brain drain” that can occur when long-term, seasoned professionals suddenly retire.
2.Respond to Uncertainty
The last 2.5 years have clearly demonstrated why it’s important for organizations to be dynamic enough to respond to uncertainty. Consider the lingering effects of COVID. According to a recent Human Capital Trends report, over 60% of the executives surveyed said it was important to be able to react to significant, unlikely events compared to less than 30% who said the same thing before the pandemic. Workforce planning is a strategy to help your organization react to unforeseen events.
3.Boost Employee Morale, and Retention
We mentioned earlier how augmenting the skills of an existing workforce is an integral component of workforce planning. The fact is that employee training is tied directly to morale and employee retention rates, two elements that are very important to the long-term success of any company.
Building Your Future Workforce
If you still have reservations about establishing a formal workforce planning strategy at your organization, consider for a moment that more than 70% of the CEOs today feel that the availability of key skills poses a real threat to their business. To face this challenge, HR leaders need to be given a seat at the decision-making table so they can gain a clear understanding of the goals and objectives that organizational leaders hope to achieve. Most important of all, recruiters and HR professionals must be provided with the technical tools and resources capable of carrying the heavy workload that goes into building your future workforce.
Leveraging Technology for Workforce Planning
You’ll quickly discover that there is a dizzying array of HR technologies on the market today offering to solve your workforce planning challenges. With so many choices and having to confront the anxiety of having to adopt a workforce planning strategy for the first time, it can be difficult and overwhelming to select the best tools. The most important thing to remember is that the tools and technologies chosen need to focus on accurately collecting and analyzing information about your workforce over the course of time so that you can make well-informed decisions that are based on verifiable facts.
Fortunately, we’ve done the research and have put together a list of the top tools and resources in HR technology that is capable of significantly enhancing the success of your workforce planning strategy.
1.Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) isn’t just another HR software application – it is the flagship technology investment of any organization that hopes to build a great workforce. If you want to have the most success implementing a workforce planning strategy, then 2023 is the year to invest in a cloud-based ATS system. To be sure, ATS systems are designed to make the lives of recruiters and HR professionals easier by using artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to automate just about every process in the recruitment and hiring lifecycle.
In terms of workforce planning, few, if any, technical resources offer as much value to an organization as a modern ATS system. With its capabilities as a robust and scalable database, an ATS can reliably inventory swaths of an important candidate and employee data and provide you with the tools you need to access key metrics that can tremendously augment your workforce planning efforts.
In addition to the remarkable database capabilities of a modern ATS system, many also offer HR professionals the following tools:
LEARN MORE: 5 ATS-Powered Recruitment Hacks to Find the Best Candidates
2.Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The evolving importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in ATS systems cannot be overstated. AI has already ushered in an “era of automation” that is invaluable to recruiters today. An ATS with an AI-powered engine can be relied upon to handle the many monotonous tasks of applicant screening so that HR staff can dedicate that free time to more important matters. However, the advantages of AI show up in workforce planning as well.
To identify existing gaps between the skills of today and those skills that are required for an organization to succeed in the future, an AI-powered ATS can be used to detect where training opportunities can be applied to strengthen an employee’s skill set for a specific position. In other words, artificial intelligence technologies can reveal where skills gaps might exist in the future, thereby alerting organizations to upskill their current staff members.
RELATED: How Talent Acquisition Benefits from Artificial Intelligence
3.Advantages of Cloud-Based Software
Access to cloud-based software solutions has completely transformed how we work and collaborate with one another. In fact, the advantages are so profound that cloud-based software solutions are rapidly becoming a requirement for any business that hopes to remain competitive in a marketplace that’s growing increasingly mobile and digital.
Workforce planning strategies that are developed with the support of a cloud-based ATS system stand a greater chance of success because of how these solutions can augment your team’s efforts by enhancing their levels of collaboration. Finally, today’s job market applicants are demanding more access to online services. With a cloud-based ATS system, you can offer this to job candidates, who will then be more likely to share their information – the same information you need to help develop an effective workforce planning strategy.
4.Speed / Time-to-Market
The modern job market moves at an incredible rate of speed. That means modern workforce planning strategies must account for the fact that the best candidates are also often the first to be hired. In fact, the best candidates are off the market in as little as 10 days! The good news is that almost 9 out of 10 HR professionals today will tell you that having an ATS has helped them hire talent faster.
A successful workforce planning strategy is one that recognizes that speed matters in this job market. With an ATS system fueling your recruitment and employee development efforts, your workforce planning strategies stand a much greater chance of success.
Conclusion
For every successful workforce planning strategy, there is often a foundation of reliable HR software supporting it in the form of a powerful ATS system. If your organization is serious about building a world-class workforce capable of helping your organization compete at the highest levels, then you need the best ATS system on the market. Manatal has helped thousands of businesses with our AI-powered ATS and CRM that offers the latest advancements at an affordable cost.
If your organization is interested in learning how our cloud-based ATS platform can support your workforce planning strategies, you can schedule a free demonstration with one of Manatal’s talented professionals, or you can also take advantage of the free trial the company is now offering.
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