What the Heck is Workforce Planning?
It might seem like a simple question, but there is little to no agreement among HR and talent management professionals as to what constitutes workforce planning. To some, it’s mostly an administrative activity that reports on historical changes to headcount and forecasts likely changes based on historical trends (i.e., headcount planning). To others, it is a more strategic effort designed to forecast talent needs, talent supply, and the ability of existing HR programs and activities to align the two. The more strategic variant looks at both internal and external trends and predicts what will be needed to recruit, develop and redeploy “just the right amount” of talent to meet specified business needs. The definition of workforce planning I prefer is: “Workforce planning is an integrated and forward looking process that is designed to predict (what, when, how much) will likely happen in talent management and then to provide action plans that will cause managers to act in the prescribed w
