Who owns workforce planning in your organisation? HR, finance, senior leaders…or no one at all?

When ownership is unclear, one of the most common challenges we see in workforce planning is a lack of integration across different areas of the business. HR, finance, senior leaders, and operational leads all working independently, resulting in conflicting messaging and workforce decisions being reactive to the most pressing challenge in that moment and context, rather than being proactive and strategic. This reflects the uncertain and evolving environment many organisations are working in. When you are operating in a volatile context, it can be challenging to see any other way to respond.

When we talk about workforce planning, it is also common for people to jump straight to the numbers. What is the budget? What is the establishment? How many people do you currently have and how many people do you need for the future? Whilst these are all important questions to ask ourselves, when we focus solely on the quantifiable measures, we fail to consider the real people behind the numbers, and we risk assuming the responsibility for workforce planning sits with someone else.

How does this show up in the workplace?

“Workforce planning is done by HR. They know the workforce numbers.”

“My role is operational; I leave the strategic thinking to senior management.”

“Finance are the only ones in control of workforce planning decisions because they hold the budget.”

When we assume someone else is doing workforce planning, or when different areas of the business do workforce planning without communicating with one another, we end up in a position where nothing moves forward. There is either a lack of action or competing priorities.

We also risk isolating our workforce because statements like these indicate a belief that workforce planning is determined solely by headcount, full-time equivalents (FTE), and budgets, rather than workforce experience, wellbeing, and culture. The human element becomes removed. And if the workforce is not engaged in conversations about the future, they can feel like their voice is not being heard and that they are not valued, contributing to feelings of uncertainty and frustration. Over time this can have wider consequences, affecting areas such as attrition, sickness absence, and overall employee satisfaction.

Shared ownership, better workforce decisions

We advocate that workforce planning should be embedded into day-to-day decision making across teams because it encourages shared ownership of plans and it ensures a range of perspectives and priorities are considered. This requires workforce planning skills to be developed across a range of roles in different areas of the business.

So how do organisations build these skills and break out of the cycle of disjointed and reactive workforce planning?

The Six Steps Methodology to Integrated Workforce Planning gives you the knowledge, tools, and skills to directly address these challenges and identify opportunities for collaborative working and shared decision-making. At the heart of the Six Steps Methodology is the ethos that workforce planning does not and cannot happen in isolation. This is one of the first things we discuss on the Six Steps Open Programme, and we also cover different approaches to managing change in an effective and sustainable way.

Equally, we recognise that it is not only a case of different parts of the business working together, but also about adapting our workforce planning approach to the environment we are in. For this reason, the Six Steps Methodology is also iterative. It’s not a ‘one and done’ exercise, but something we do continually, utilising the different tools and techniques taught throughout the programme to enhance, pivot, or alter our workforce planning approach. Conversations about the future should be ongoing because the future is not certain and we cannot predict how the workforce and the environment might change. What we can do is theorise the possible futures and have the confidence in our ability to adapt and respond proportionately.

Take the next step towards integrated workforce planning

The strongest workforce plans are built through shared ownership, ongoing conversations, and decision-making that is embedded across the organisation. If you’re ready to build the skills and confidence needed to support sustainable service delivery, sign up to our Six Steps Open Programme now to take your workforce planning to the next level.