Ms. Grace Abella-Zeta is the president of IRC Philippines, which does executive search, staffing services and outsourcing in the Philippines. Her talk is about Workforce Planning.
For her, HR Planning ensures that the right number and the right kind of people are available at the right time to achieve business objectives.
Workforce planning has always been controversial. A lot of companies are based on the budget. It should consider the SKILLS AND TALENTS needed to meet business objectives.
The leader to follow is US ex-President Dwight Eisenhower who places importance on Planning. He was in the military so this was his forte.
Most companies do not plan. Why?
It’s hard to plan because sh*t happens so more important things come into play. It is really difficult to plan. So what are the solutions?
Know the business strategy.
Create long term staffing strategies that will eliminate gaps and surpluses. Make a long term and short term plan for the company.
Example: Finding an account officer. The president will interview the applicants so this is a critical role.
The challenge is to find a good executive presence. Most applicants are engineers but this is not a good profile fit.
Define the model parameters to address the issue. Find out the supply and demand to the best of your ability. Get the numbers:
Use qualitative methods in workforce planning. For example:
Trend analysis is not as useful because trends will change. So only do it if trends will NOT change.
Regression analysis looks at the correlation between the performance metrics to staff needed. There’s a program needed for this, but very helpful.
Staffing should be planned long term:
Here’s what we need to be careful for:
Ghosting is now popular in dealing with manpower. So what is workforce planning again?
To summary, workforce planning is required to meet business objectives. Focus on critical positions and recalibrate if required.
To plan, know the business. Use thinking tools and get management support. Know the market rates and comparables.
Failing to plan = Planning to fail
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There’s still time to buy tickets for the 12th Philippines HR Summit:
