Getting Started
Gaining and maintaining management and staff commitment to the workforce planning process is key to developing an effective workforce plan. Therefore, agencies should work hard to gain commitment at the beginning of, or very early in, the workforce planning process. Agencies can use the following techniques to build support for the workforce planning process:
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Obtain support from senior leaders within the agency. It is important that the head of the agency and other top leaders understand the value of workforce planning-their commitment can determine its success or failure. Understanding the factors that affect the agency’s future operations and competition will help convince senior leaders of the need for workforce planning.
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Communicate benefits and results of workforce planning to managers and workers. Management should be involved in understanding the link between workforce plans and the budget, and workers need to understand how workforce planning affects them and the agency.
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Establish a workforce planning team consisting of dedicated and knowledgeable employees from different functional areas and organizational levels. Trust for the workforce plan can be achieved by involving employees in the planning process. (See "Roles and Responsibilities of Workforce Planning Teams)
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Automate the process so data can be easily stored and retrieved, thereby simplifying the process. The more simple the process is, the more participation and acceptance agencies will have from those who are participating in the process.
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Develop and implement a plan to ensure accountability within each participating division of an agency. This will help ensure success of the strategies within the plan and hold those who are not meeting the goals accountable.
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Solicit continuous feedback for improvements to the process. The workforce planning process should be continually reviewed and refined to ensure effectiveness and continuous improvement.
Important First Steps
Workforce planning does not need to be a time consuming and cumbersome process. Nevertheless, regardless of how complex or simple an agency decides the workforce planning process should be, it will require a variety of input from cross-functional areas and levels within the organization. Before people assigned to participate in the workforce planning process conduct their analyses, they should:
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Clearly understand the purpose of workforce planning.
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Determine the timeframe.
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Identify the resources available.
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Adapt models, strategies, tools, and processes specific to the agency’s culture and needs.
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Identify planning outputs that are meaningful to the organization and that support agency objectives, budget requests, staffing requests, and strategic plans.
The capacity to perform effective workforce planning will take time to develop. It is critical to begin carefully and not take on too much too soon. Agencies might find it helpful to begin planning for a subset of the workforce and then extend workforce planning through the remainder of the organization. For example, large organizations might find it beneficial to delegate workforce planning to each division and satellite office, which gives managers the flexibility to address local issues, outcomes, and strategies. If this is the direction an agency takes, the local or divisional workforce plan should be centrally coordinated and encompassed in the agency’s overall workforce plan. Another method would be to have a workforce plan occupationally focused, such as one dealing with engineering positions.
Whatever parameter is chosen, those involved in the process should communicate this to top leadership to ensure full support. Provided in this web-guide is a Workforce Planning Questionnaire. Agencies can, of course, supplement this questionnaire with more detailed plans.