As the fourth quarter approaches, now is the time many companies begin thinking about and planning their workforce and management strategies for the upcoming year. But this looks a little different heading into 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant shift in the way people work. With remote work now being so common, workers are expecting more agility and flexibility in job roles. Businesses will need to account for these shifts as they develop their workforce plan, making the process more challenging, and perhaps more important, than it’s ever been before.
Budgets
Businesses everywhere have taken a hit as a result of prolonged lockdowns and low mobility, so it’s more important than ever for them to establish a budget that clearly aligns with their strategic objectives. Once a budget that takes into account organizational strategies, cost history, and future goals is established, a company can adapt and execute their talent management strategies within realistic expectations.
Talent Management
The term workforce planning is often seen as a more analytical and number-oriented approach to creating a staffing plan, but at the end of the day, strategic workforce planning is about people. For this reason, looking at aspects of talent management is critical to ensuring a business’s current and future workforce align with broader strategies in the face of a changing business environment.
What they have
To plan for long-term needs, it’s necessary to understand one’s current workforce. By assessing the strengths that their talent currently possesses, businesses are able to identify employees in their current workforce that have the skills to fit critical and more specialized roles.
Creating a steady pipeline of employees and developing them according to their strengths and potential fit for other roles helps keep operations running smoothly according to business objectives, and allows companies to eliminate costs that they may have spent on hiring outside talent.
What they need
Identifying talent gaps is another crucial step in workforce planning. Uncovering deficiencies in your current workforce will help you get ahead of hiring needs and implement talent management solutions for developing your workforce’s skills. Taking dedicated steps to engage and encourage employees, companies are more likely to retain talent that is working towards a strategic goal, which is critical during a time when changes to the workplace have been both frequent and highly impactful.
Beyond uncovering gaps between employee skills and strategic needs, it’s more important than ever to consider employee well-being. Identifying opportunities for remote work, for instance, will likely play a critical role in supporting employees and encouraging them to stick around.
Recruitment plans
A workforce plan should include recruitment strategies, so businesses can easily implement the plan if it becomes necessary to hire new talent. With a clear outlook on what is needed to meet business objectives and align their current and future workforce with their business strategy, recruitment teams are able to target job ads, application and interview processes so they speak to candidates that will help them execute their greater workforce plan.
Using the Predictive Index for Workforce Planning
The Predictive Index is a valuable talent optimization tool that can assist companies through various stages of workforce planning and execution.
Recruitment
Workforce planning is more than just numbers. It’s about people, and people are more than just skills and experience. Using the PI’s behavioral and cognitive assessments, businesses can better predict job performance and make hiring decisions that align with their workforce plan and, therefore, their business goals.
Development
Through its assessments, the PI gives businesses unparalleled insight into their current workforce and provides personalized strategies for developing employees and identifying leaders, helping organizations strengthen their workforce and adapt to changing perspectives of what the workplace should look like.
Plan Ahead with Empower Partnerships
As a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) and Talent Management provider and certified Predictive Index partner, we’re equipped with the knowledge and methodologies to help you develop and execute strategies that uplift your people and empower your business. Contact us today to find out exactly what we can do for you.
