Workforce planning, especially “strategic workforce planning,” does not work for most organizations. While workforce planning in all its forms and variations is emerging as the hot HR topic for 2012 and continues to gain momentum, I fear it is doomed to become the HR “flavor of the month” for most organizations.
How do you define Workforce Planning?

Put simply, workforce planning is the process an organization uses to determine the skills and human capital needed to accomplish the organization’s mission. Strategic workforce planning is identifying the skills and human capital that will create a competitive advantage for the organization.

As I built a Workforce Planning center of excellence in the mid-2000s, I realized there were three distinct types of workforce planning: operational, tactical, and strategic. I created the Workforce Planning hierarchy to help my colleagues and the business understand the different workforce populations, different time horizons, and most importantly, different purposes of each level.

Why Workforce Planning Does Not Work.

Let me count the ways (and I will address each one) … over-promising, lack of common understanding, misplaced ownership and confusion with succession planning. See some of the vendor claims of the benefits of adopting “workforce planning:”

From Sage Website
Strategic workforce planning (emphasis added) is a continuous process and, supported by the ConnX Workforce Planning software module, your business will have a future supply of capable and effective talent, minimizing exposure to shifting tenure trends.

Workforce Planning software captures the skills required for positions and those held by employees in order to perform a skills-gap analysis …

The employees’ personal development plan is integrated with their career plan in ConnX and the employee’s progression is then mapped throughout your organization. Integration with ConnX Learning & Education enables the employee to link to available training courses that provide the skills required for their development plan.

Succession planning tools within ConnX Workforce Planning enable HR to identify and plan for employee turnover. It also provides the tools to distinguish replacement candidates within your current workforce.

According to these vendors – what people issues can’t “workforce planning” cure?

“Workforce Planning” is …?

It is the breath of benefits of workforce planning that leads to a lack of common understanding among stakeholders dooming many workforce planning efforts. Instead of recognizing the subtleties, business leaders often dismiss HR out of hand as not understanding the realities of business.

But it is not just an issue of “HR speak” – some of the fiercest debates over defining the purpose and scope of workforce planning occur among our HR brethren. The reality, which no one wants to admit, is these debates are often offensive measures designed to prevent workforce planning efforts from changing how HR functions operate. It is the threat of this all-encompassing process perceived as a locust invasion that dooms its ultimate success from within.

Whose baby is it?

Workforce planning, strategic or otherwise, has the greatest impact when it is a business process owned by the business. Research has repeatedly shown that when Workforce Planning is perceived as an HR process for the benefit of HR, Workforce Planning fails (i4cp, 2010).

I have preached HR’s role is to be stewards (or nanny) of the process but not to take an ownership role. Yet the reality is HR usually introduces the process to the organization, is the most knowledgeable about the process, and leads the process steps. Of course, under these circumstances, the organization will perceive HR as the owner.

Identifying the next CEO is strategic, right?

Often a driver of workforce planning is the succession planning process. Succession planning, especially in publicly traded companies, is mandated by the Board to be completed on an annual basis. This time-intensive and highly confidential process is the bane of many HR departments’ existences. There is a great desire to simplify, make the process easier, and have the process add value to the business rather than be a self-imposed compliance activity. Here is the logical leap many organizations take…

Strategic workforce planning is about planning for the critical roles. Succession planning is about planning for leadership roles. Leadership roles are critical to the success of the organization. Therefore, Succession Planning equals Workforce Planning.

Many organizations with whom I have worked either started Workforce Planning as a way to cure the challenges of Succession Planning or insisted the two processes must be tied together. The confusion this causes is another reason Strategic Workforce Planning often fails.

What Does Work in Workforce Planning?

While I am critical of the workforce planning process as practiced by most organizations, there is no doubt I have seen value in some of the underlying workforce planning process. I am encouraging my clients to think about “strategic workforce preparation” instead of pursuing strategic workforce planning. It seems to me “preparation” is what our leaders are asking for, not planning.

What’s the difference? Preparation is about being nimble and agile. Preparation is about insight and not being surprised. Preparation is about reacting more quickly than your competition. As the old joke goes, you don’t need to outrun the bear, you just need to outrun the competition. Or as economists say, a “relative competitive advantage.”

There are six workforce planning processes key to achieving Strategic Workforce Preparedness:

• Determine a workforce “point of view
• Segment the workforce
• Create Internal Supply Profiles
• Create External Availability Profiles
• Develop future state skills/competency models
• Build Business Scenarios

Mary Ann Downey is a consultant with inTalent Consulting Group and is Principle/Co-Founder of HR Metrics Coach. Ms. Downey and Cindy Lubitz, Founder/Managing Director of inTalent have partnered to present HR Boot Camp™: Strategic Workforce Preparation on Nov. 8, 2012 in Atlanta. They will discuss getting the best from the strategic workforce planning process in a one-day workshop.