Friday, August 17, 2007

HR’s Most Powerful Tool – The Workforce Plan

Yep, you heard right! The workforce plan is exactly what human resource management needs if it wants to move forward its agenda with executive support and funds. Knowing what skills and competencies the organization has or lacks, how much hiring is actually planned, potential attrition, etc. all can be translated into business speak.

The language executives want to hear is: Are we ahead or behind schedule on product development? How many new salespeople have been hired? Are we going to be first or last to market? Is division X overspending or under spending? Are division Y achieving profit margins or not? Workforce plans allow human resources to take raw numbers and trends and translate them into concrete business results that executives cannot ignore. Done right, workforce plans become an executive power tool and the HR advisor a key resource to the CEO or CFO. The smart HR professional not only puts a workforce plan in place but then builds the company’s entire talent management strategy around it, building it’s recruiting, retention, succession planning strategy around it. This will be a subject for the near future.

Workforce planning and strategy is my passion and you can expect to hear more in the future.
For more information contact me at fguay@rogers.com

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