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Workforce planning is the strategic alignment of an organization’s human capital with its business direction. It is a process of:
- analyzing the current workforce,
- determining future workforce needs,
- identifying the gap between the present and future states, and
- implementing solutions so the organization can accomplish its mission, goals, and objectives.
As a process, workforce planning includes activities such as strategic planning, workload projections, turnover analyses, budget projections. Workforce planning forecasts the numbers of people and types of skills needed to achieve success. It is a management tool that affects the full range of human resource activities including recruitment and selection, classification and compensation, training and development, performance management, and retention.
Strategic plan chart
In short, it is the process by which the current workforce is transformed to meet tomorrow’s needs.
Who is responsible for workforce planning?
Workforce planning involves supervisors and managers in identifying goals and core business functions. Senior leadership is also involved, especially in ensuring alignment between the organization’s mission, strategic goals, and objectives. The HR professional’s role is to examine how work and the workforce of the State are changing. HR and management must engage in a strong partnership for workforce planning initiatives to be successful.
Why is the state of Minnesota involved in workforce planning?
Workforce planning is an important activity that will enable agencies to determine the workforce needed for continued success. It will provide a foundation to actively train, recruit or restructure resources, bridge knowledge gaps due to attrition, and achieve maximum organizational effectiveness. It is good business. |
