Anaplan’s workforce planning enables businesses to develop agility, responsiveness and lean operating models through real-time visibility into their workforce, automating tasks and making data-driven decisions.
6R’s of Workforce Planning
In order to accomplish an organization’s short- and long-term goals, workforce planning is a process that makes sure the proper number of people with the right talents are employed in the right location at the right time. In addition, due to the business planning’s ongoing evolution, two new Rs are introduced. The “right contract” and the “right cost” are factors that organisations consider when hiring workers.
6R’s
Right number of People – Businesses should have the required person-hours on hand to accomplish the business deliverables.
Right Skills – For accomplishing short- & long-term goals, companies should have the right-skilled labour for excellent deliverables.
Right Place – Coordinating the needs of the organisation with the preferences, talents, and capabilities of the workforce. Employees may need to be moved to various positions or divisions within the company to accomplish this.
Right Time – Customers demand real-time, immediate service. Therefore, businesses must ensure the availability of resources without any delay.
Right Contract – The employee’s employment status should be compatible with the organization’s overall talent and resourcing plan.
Right Cost – Evaluating the workforce’s costs and ensuring that they are in line with the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. Ensure that they are in accordance with the organization’s financial goals, this may entail monitoring labour costs, perks, and compensation.
As a result, workforce planning is not a stand-alone process but rather requires a network of talent interventions. Although it used to be known as manpower planning, it is now more frequently referred to as “resource planning,” “resource allocation,” or the umbrella term “workforce planning.”
Challenges in Workforce Planning
To achieve a company’s regulatory, service, and production standards, many businesses struggle with this procedure, which entails coordinating people management with corporate goals. The majority of organisations use a finance-led strategy for workforce planning, which is primarily focused on keeping headcount under budget to avoid cost overruns.
According to a survey by Deloitte’s 2015 “Global Human Capital Trends, only 5% of HR professionals consider their workforce planning process to be “excellent,” compared to one-third who describe it as “adequate” and nearly 60% who label it “weak.”
Workforce Planning 2.0 – “Workforce Analytics”
Data analytics is essential for creating a workforce action plan that meets the needs of each company’s present and future workplace.
Data analytics is now prevalent in many company functions, from finance to logistics. Companies must establish a systematic approach for identifying labour requirements, developing strategies to satisfy those requirements, and successfully implementing them if the organisation have to overcome the skills gap, full employment, and record retirement rates.
Following is a list of three data analytics methods that are crucial to workforce planning and can assist businesses in adapting to changing market demands now and in the future.
- Descriptive Analytics – It is used to describe what has happened in the past. It is often used to identify trends and patterns in workforce data. For example, an organization may use descriptive analytics to analyse turnover rates and identify departments with high rates of employee attrition.
- Predictive Analytics – It is used to forecast future workforce trends and outcomes based on historical data. For example, an organization may use predictive analytics to identify which job roles are likely to be impacted by automation or which skills will be in high demand in the future.
- Prescriptive Analytics – It is used to recommend actions that organizations can take based on the data analysis. For example, an organization may use prescriptive analytics to identify the most effective recruitment channels to use for a particular job role.
- Diagnostic Analytics – It is used to understand why certain outcomes occurred. It is often used to identify the root causes of workforce issues. For example, an organization may use diagnostic analytics to understand why a particular department has a high turnover rate.
Applying strategic Workforce Analytics
| Retention |
| Monitoring compensation rates for undervalued but high-performing personnel |
| Observing productivity patterns |
| Finding behavioural characteristics that point to early potential resignation |
| Talent Management |
| Establishing performance benchmarks to assess current performance |
| Identifying training or skill gaps to provide appropriate learning opportunities |
| Recruitment |
| Auto-scan of public resumes |
| Conducting background and social media checks |
| Shortlisting potential candidates |
| Decrease the expense of hiring |
| Match potential candidates with current talent better |
| Mitigate race and gender bias |
Business executives can now access a wealth of knowledge overall. Since there is a lot of data to collect and analyse, many businesses are now using workforce analytics projects to gather information about their employees, organise it, and derive practical insights.
Data-driven decisions serve to enhance workforce management, increase the effectiveness of business outcomes, and enhance performance over time.
We at Polestar Solutions help in Workforce planning with a diverse set of service offerings like Anaplan, Data Management & Analytics, and Business Intelligence.
Anaplan makes it easy to do iterative scenario analysis – make changes to top-down budgetary settings and understand how the plan is going to impact the budget. Managing the compensation that will be given to each member of the workforce and monitoring how he will be paid out are additional helpful aspects for human capital management. In short, Anaplan’s powerful platform delivers core capabilities that provide very fast time to value on strategic workforce planning, workforce planning process and human capital management.
At Polestar Solutions, our team of Anaplan experts have the experience and expertise in consulting and implementing Anaplan for Fortune 500 clients, unicorns and small to medium enterprises globally.
Our team of Anaplan solution experts have built solutions for every domain of your business – from HR, Strategic Finance, Human Capital Management, Supply Chain, CapEx Planning, Sales and Operations Planning, Demand Planning, Sales Territory Planning, Sales Performance Planning, Workforce Capacity Planning, Succession Planning among others.
Related Faqs –
Ques. What is the role of data analytics in strategic workforce planning?
Answer: Data analytics provides valuable insights into a company’s workforce, allowing businesses to make data-driven decisions about their talent acquisition, talent management, and performance management strategies. This can help organizations optimize their workforce planning, identify skills gaps, and align employee performance with strategic goals.
Ques. What are some key metrics that can be tracked through data analytics in strategic workforce planning?
Answer: Key metrics that can be tracked through data analytics in strategic workforce planning include employee turnover rates, employee engagement levels, training and development metrics, recruitment metrics, and workforce productivity metrics. These metrics can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of an organization’s workforce planning and management strategies.
Ques. What are some challenges businesses may face when integrating data analytics into their strategic workforce planning processes?
Answer: Some common challenges businesses may face when integrating data analytics into their strategic workforce planning processes include the availability and quality of data, the ability to effectively analyze and interpret data, and the need for specialized expertise in data analytics. Additionally, businesses may face challenges related to data privacy and security when handling sensitive employee data.