6 Pitfalls to Workforce Planning – The First Pitfall

In my previous blog, I layed out the proverbial “six” pitfalls.

Today we’ll go into Pitfall No.1: Expecting HR to own Workforce Planning.

Workforce planning is a strategic business effort so let’s put what that means into context.

• When a company is developing its business plan, where is HR in the process?
• When an organization is taking on new business, where is HR in the process?
• When an Agency is preparing its budget requests for Congress, where is HR is the proces?

Without engaging the right workforce… er, let me say that another way. If an organization doesn’t engage the right people AND develop the talents needed by the organization to achieve their strategic business goals, the organization will FAIL! I guarantee it.

So it stands to reason that every business unit, at its highest level in an organization, is responsible for the success or failure of its workforce planning. Workforce Planning is mission-driven!

Workforce Planning is part of an organization’s strategic plan; after all, organizations can’t expect to achieve and remain successful if they don’t embrace their human capital needs as part of their strategic plan.

Think of Human Capital like this: it has its costs but because every organization is made up of people, the benefits an organization can yield from properly selecting, developing, and engaging its workforce will far outweigh the sum of its parts!

The role for Human Resources in Workforce Planning is to advise Senior Management and to deliver their needed competencies via the workforce they employ. The human resource group knows its organization’s available talent as well as what exists in the prevailing labor market; they also know the potential talent available to their organization and what is needed to develop those talents; they also know what talents don’t event exist yet in their workforce, let alone in the labor pool. Human Resources knows how to deliver what their organizations need, provided each business unit has well-defined their workforce needs.

Don’t exclued Human Resources in your workforce planning efforts. Use their value-added expertise to guide your business units, to identify potential leaders and develop your existing workforce, and to find the right people for your strategic, mission-driven, workforce needs.

[source: “Workforce Planning Pitfalls” a Whitepaper]