Strategic human resource management is a core component of sustainable, forward-thinking organisations. HR management encompasses the identification and engagement of talents, creation and maintenance of a stimulating work environment for all levels of staff, as well as talent development needs and compensation. Ultimately, human resource professionals are responsible for ensuring that business objectives are achieved by optimising available people resources.
Unfortunately, HR management metrics sometimes turn out to be below the bar of business expectations. Employees lag behind their key performance indicators, critical tasks remain incomplete, and where the HR department can not identify the source of the problem, the overall corporate development strategy will likely unravel, leading to potentially dire consequences for the business. When a human resource management failure occurs, employees often wilfully leave the organisation because they become less productive or the work environment becomes hostile.
According to the Employee Satisfaction Report 2021 by Jobberman Nigeria, only 13% of Nigerian employees are happy to remain with their current employer. This sad trend frequently occurs when an organisation embarks on HR management initiatives or executes strategies without preliminary workforce planning — a key element of the former.
Workforce planning is a continuous analysis of staff strength, alignment with the business needs, and devising long-term talent acquisition and development strategies. To effectively manage human resources, there should be qualified and high-potential resources to manage in the first place, and that is precisely what workforce planning aims to provide. Organisation-wide workforce planning is a cost-effective way to preserve talent and ensure the right people are in the right positions within the organisation. At its core, workforce planning is much broader than recruitment — it is a holistic strategy to create a steady talent pipeline as part of HR management and the entire business continuity plan.
A cross-assessment of business and human resource plans should always precede conducting workforce planning in line with an organisation`s staffing needs. The questions for senior management to answer in order to streamline workforce planning processes include the five (5) Whats:
- What are the key business objectives for the estimated time period
- What skills and competencies must the staff possess to complete the intermediate tasks towards achieving the business objectives
- What staff in what roles should be invited to the organisation based on must-have skills
- What are the estimated cost of the required staff and possible ways to optimise it
- What internal human resources to cover the staff demand are already available in the organisation
Based on expert insights from the peer-led “Talent Pipeline Development & Manpower Planning Strategies in the Now of Work” recently organised by Jobberman Nigeria, a solid talent pipeline is crucial for organisational productivity. It saves the HR management budget from expensive external recruitment, and organisations reach optimality between the cost of talents and their value. This optimum is the rationale behind workforce planning.
To optimise your HR management through workforce planning for maximum returns on the business objectives, here are a few pieces of advice to adopt before incurring new costs on your HR budget:
Let your HR management and business development teams work in sync.
If your HR team is detached from the corporate strategists, they will be unable to understand the objectives and staff required to achieve them. Once there is an organisation-wide goal for all internal teams, the HR team has to create its sub-strategy. Make your HR managers part of the decision-making so that the vacancies will be tailored to those staff your organisation needs.
Scrupulously analyse the current HR processes, recruitment and management costs.
It is important to identify HR management soft spots. When you find out that you have begun spending more on new hires whose value remained constant or decreased over time, your workforce planning certainly requires an overhaul. And if you see that more than one employee started noticeably underperforming, it likely signifies that they are doing work misaligned with their skills or they require a backup of new staff who can close the emerging delivery gaps.
Develop a skills matrix.
To know who you should hire, you first have to understand what skills you lack. Do you rather need soft skills or hard skills? What exact skills will help you achieve the business objectives? Create a skills matrix to clarify it, then match the identified skills with fitting roles, not vice versa. You may discover that you do not need to recruit new staff to get these skills because they are already available with current employees who can be trained, transited to another role or promoted.
Elaborate on a strategy to attract prospective staff with suitable skills.
You may need to search for suitable candidates across various channels based on your assessment. These include specialised recruitment platforms and services, talent development communities, job fairs or strategic partnerships with skills trainers, universities and development agencies. Sometimes you may even discover that you can close new vacancies through an internal recruitment exercise. The earlier you determine the strategic recruitment channels, the less time and money your hires will cost.
Insisting on HR management without preliminary workforce planning is akin to embarking on a journey to a new destination without planning your route and logistic requirements. You will spend a more extended period on that journey, certainly spend more funds than anticipated, and miss out on critical appointments if you have activities you need to carry out at the new destination. Workforce planning will save you time, fast-track the achievement of clear business objectives, spur corporate growth and improve staff productivity within your organisation.
About the author
Oreoluwa Boboye is the CEO of Jobberman Nigeria, the single largest job placement website in sub-Saharan Africa that provides bespoke HR consulting services to organisations, training and placement for job seekers, and the best selection of candidates for companies hiring.