How can people analytics aid strategic

workforce planning?

Marianthy Riga
Organisational Effectiveness & Culture
The University of Manchester
 What will I learn?

• What is strategic workforce planning

• Different strategies
• Leveraging, analysing and harnessing data
• How can I apply many types of data to a workforce
planning question
• How to analyse for the skills gap
• Scenarios to apply knowledge
 What is strategic workforce planning?

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is a continual approach to identifying gaps in the

workforce and developing a methodical people plan to ensure we have the
employees, skills, capabilities and knowledge needed to meet strategic ambitions.
It is based on the long-term strategy yet also accommodates for unexpected events
and changes.

SWP is not… SWP is…

• Headcount budgeting • Strategy led

• A spreadsheet • A business planning process
• A stand alone HR process • About asking the right questions
• Only focused on structures, • Focused on skills and capability
headcount and roles • A risk management process
• All about the next 12 months • Qualitative, scenario based and macro
• About BAU operational delivery level
• A cost cutting exercise • Consultative and iterative

Right number of people with the right skills employed in the right place at the right time.
 Why do we need strategic workforce planning?

Political, economic, Budget limitations

environmental factors

Agile workforce
 Where does SWP fit?
Mid-
3-10 yrs
short Annual
business
planning
term budget
planning

Organisation Strategic Operational

Operational
strategy and workforce workforce
delivery
context plans plans

Trends, scenarios, Numbers, Recruitment, talent

gaps, strategies costs, development,
(years) plans (months) reward (weeks)

SWP doesn’t replace operational planning. It just makes sure that:

• It is focusing on the right questions
• There is a longer-term context to any shorter-term plans
• Operational effort is prioritised, strategy focused and cost effective
• It contributes into and is integrated with other planning schedules
 7 B’s of Workforce Planning Strategies
There are many workforce strategies that can be included in your action plan
to invest in talent and address workforce challenges and risks.

Buy Build Borrow Bind Boost Bench Bounce

• Recruit • Talent • Outsource, • Retention • High • Talent pools • Remove

permanently development insource, initiatives performance for critical barriers to
/ temporarily • Apprenticeships shared • Identify culture skills performance
• Referrals • Job services critical talent • Align • Accelerate • Reskill
from existing shadowing • Internal or • Positive work systems & development • Redeploy
staff • Promotion external environment structures routes • Address
• Attraction • Secondments consultancy • Optimum with • Identify spare under
initiatives • Job swaps • Joint ventures workloads strategic productive performance
• Employee • Mentoring • Project based • Career priorities hours • Stop low
value • Coaching teams progression/ • Simplify • Encourage value work
proposition • Secondments development processes learning of • Redundancy
• Benefits & • Digitisation any critical
reward & technology skills
6
 What does data have to do with SWP?

Data is needed to make accurate observations and predictions.

Leverage data by sourcing, organising and using people data.

Analyse by combining different data types, observing patterns

and interoperability.

Harness by making it available in a timely and user-friendly way.

Right data at the right time available to the right people

 Leverage data to answer critical questions

Performance
• Is your workforce working towards the strategic objectives?

New talent nurturing

• Are your most experienced employees actively passing on their knowledge?

Changing world
• What will your organisational needs be in 3, 5, 10 years’ time?
• What could enable your business? What is disrupting?
Recruitment
• Which specialties have proven hard to source?
• How well does your organisation retain individuals with essential skills?
 Analyse and combine to identify trends and effects

Personal Skills brought and

Role characteristics Tenure
characteristics acquired

Financial planning &

Strategic objectives Recruitment Market movements
performance

Learning &
Workforce
Performance continuous Safety records
Availability
development

Mobility Sentiment surveys

 Harness data to enable your decision-makers

Accessible Timely Expected Interactive

User-
Sustainable Self-service
friendly
 How do we identify the skills gap?

Strategy and Objectives

Defining roles, responsibilities, vision, priorities, purpose, scope and context

Business and Financial Planning

Priorities, demands, changing needs, improvements, efficiencies, goals

Supply
Demand
Number of FTE (inc. casual
Active products/services
or seasonal)
Customer behaviour
Gap Turnover, performance and
Business activity
absence
Skills and competencies Analysis Workload plans
required to conduct
Working patterns
business
Existing skills through
Market forces
hiring or training

Source: SUMS Consulting www.sums.org.uk

Let’s put our knowledge to work!
 What are we missing?

In the following scenarios, a workplace issue requiring strategic

workforce planning is posed, alongside with the data the
professional assigned to that area has available to respond to it.
#1 – The efficiency issue, where a technical team fails to honour its service
level agreements

#2 – The predictability issue, where an HR operations team is struggling

to predict its workload

#3 – The diversity issue, where a college is attempting to diversify its

workforce
 #1 – The efficiency issue
In TransCambrian Rail, Ashley is working with the frontline engineering technical
support team. They want to deliver excellent support at the time of the incident.

> SLA from 3 Struggle to High turnover Absence above Low morale &
days to 1 day achieve SLA of new recruits expected disengagement

10% to retire in “No time to Unexpected Accidents and

5 years train” workload injury

Ashley can access employee records with EDI characteristics, role types and grades,
organisational tenure, and absence due to sickness data.
What else would she need to create a credible workforce plan?
 #1 – The efficiency issue
Age
Skills & level against role type & grade
Training records
Workforce availability
Type and time of activity
Turnover, time-to-hire
Safety records

How? Surveys, new log creation for non-sickness absence, HSE

records
 #2 – The predictability issue
In the Danube Co., the HR operations department is struggling.
Sam is called in to help with a workforce plan.

Majority short Frequent Many

Long backlogs Loss of trust in
fixed term mistakes & complaints &
of contracts process & data
contracts rework blame

> Improve
Unexpected Inability to No recorded > Improve
accuracy by
workload predict volume processes speed by 50%
90%

Sam can access all employee records with EDI characteristics, role types and grades,
organisational unit, job descriptions, absence due to sickness, and training data.
What else would she need to create a credible workforce plan?
 #2 – The predictability issue
Contract end dates for all employee in organization
Department employee survey
Recruitment activity
Finance budgeted new posts
Timeseries showing request volume and time to complete to spot peaks and
troughs
Learning
Skills

How? All these data types are within records, activity and performance.
What will these tell us? Understanding demand variability, prediction of high
volume times, continuous improvement, upskilling in different roles, multiskilled
employee variable allocation in high and low volume times.
 #3 – The diversity issue
At BrightFuture College, Jordan is working with the Human Resources and Inclusion Team.
Their mission is to create a workforce plan that promotes greater equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI),
reflecting the college’s talent strategy and core values.

New starters “Leavers join Low

High staff Minority groups
leave within 3 similar representation
turnover disaffected
years institutions” in leadership

20% seniors to
No succession > Improve > Improve
retire within 5
planning retention morale
years

Jordan can access employee records with EDI characteristics, role types and
grades, organisational tenure.
What else would they need to create a credible workforce plan?
 #3 – The diversity issue
EDI characteristics in workforce distribution
Turnover figures
Benchmarking data
Talent plans
Recruitment data
Skills

How? Future workforce projections, employee surveys, learning and

development records, recruitment/retention metrics, performance
metrics, benchmarking data