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Business Case for�Strategic Workforce Planning

What is it?

Based on our extensive research on Strategic Workforce Planning, we have created a presentation that you can use to convince stakeholders that this approach makes sense at your organization. You can customize the presentation based on your organizational context.

The presentation includes the following sections:

  • Our Proposal (slides 3-5): Introduces your proposal and demonstrates its superiority over other alternatives.

  • Why We Should Do This (slides 6-9): Illustrates the benefits of strategic workforce planning and bolsters your case by highlighting examples of peer companies that have successfully implemented it.

  • Mitigating Potential Challenges (slides 10-15): Allays common stakeholder concerns by a) presenting an objective assessment of potential risks and b) proactively suggesting an action-plan to address them.

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. This presentation, including all supporting materials, is proprietary to Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is for the sole internal use of the intended recipients. Because this presentation may contain information that is confidential, proprietary or otherwise legally protected, it may not be further copied, distributed or publicly displayed without the express written permission of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates.

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Notes for the Presenter:

Printing in “Notes View”:

You may print this document in “Notes View” by selecting “File” > “Print” > and then under the “Print what:” drop down box, select “Notes.”

Graphics from Gartner research studies will reference original sources in the speaker notes.

Each slide has a Notes section, with notes for the presenter. Ensure you edit them as needed.

The narrative at the top summarizes the key takeaways of the slide and can be included in your presentation scripting.

*Additional information is included in the appendix.

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How to Use This Presentation

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Business Case for Strategic Workforce Planning

Add Presenter’s Name

Add Date

Add Company Name and/or Logo

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. This presentation, including all supporting materials, is proprietary to Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is for the sole internal use of the intended recipients. Because this presentation may contain information that is confidential, proprietary or otherwise legally protected, it may not be further copied, distributed or publicly displayed without the express written permission of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates.

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Roadmap

Why We Should Do This

Mitigating Potential Challenges

Our Proposal

  • Summary of the Case
    • Current Situation
    • Problem
    • Proposed Solution

  • Evolution of Strategic Workforce Planning

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Summary of the Case

Proposal: Implement a strategic workforce planning approach to drive current and future workforce effectiveness in light of business priorities.

CURRENT SITUATION

PROBLEM

PROPOSED SOLUTION

Traditional Workforce Planning is Ineffective in Meeting Changing Talent Needs

Engage in Strategic Workforce Planning to Maximize Current and Future Talent Needs and Effectiveness

Rapidly Evolving Business and Uncertainty has Changed Workforce Dynamics

Frequent unfamiliar organizational changes, and the uncertainty posed by technological, generational and social shifts make it challenging to plan for the future talent needs of the organization.

  • Talent shortage is among the top three enterprise risks.
  • 69% of roles have changed significantly over 4 years.

A strategic workforce plan—differentiated by its broad scope and long-term orientation—is both proactive and forward looking. Effective strategic workforce planning helps organizations better prepare for and adapt to change.

Benefits of Strategic Workforce Planning:

  • Make better talent decisions
  • Obtain higher-quality staff for business
  • Retain key employees
  • Avoid future downsizing in response to surplus staff

Most organizations emphasize shorter-term budget and head count forecasts as business leaders are under tremendous pressure to hit short-term targets and focus on immediate staffing needs.

  • 76% of leaders don’t believe they have the talent they need.
  • Identifying future skill needs to meet strategic goals is among the top three workforce planning challenges.

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Evolution of Strategic Workforce Planning

Strategic Workforce Planning

A long-term blueprint to ensure workforce optimization—a holistic strategy encompassing recruiting, developing, managing, retaining and redeploying talent to maximize the effectiveness of both the current and future workforce in light of strategic business priorities.

Continuum of Workforce Planning

56%

10%

23%

10%

Source: Gartner 2019 Future HR Effectiveness Survey

Percentage of organizations using following workforce planning approaches

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Roadmap

Our Proposal

Mitigating Potential Challenges

Why We Should Do This

  • Business Needs are Changing

  • Jobs are Evolving, Widening Talent Gaps

  • Tangible Benefits of Adding “Strategic” into Workforce Planning

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Business Needs are Changing

Source: Gartner (March 2019)

1 in 4 of customers have considered switching their suppliers in the past 30 days; among those who considered switching, 48% followed through.

Faster Organizational Change

Technology Driven

Demanding Customers

Evolving Talent Needs

Increased Competition for Talent

More Employee Expectations

39% of all job-posting activity focused on competing for just 29 types of jobs (out of 9,000 different positions).

37% of the skills employees use

today were learned in the past year.

77% of employees expect easier options for completing routine tasks (compared to 3 years ago).

73% of business executives believe that organizational changes will occur faster.

67% of business leaders believe their company must become significantly more digital to maintain competitiveness.

19% of skills that managers learned in 2016 were no longer relevant in 2017.

Characteristics of Today’s Complex and Rapidly Evolving Business Environment

Today’s business environment is defined by characteristics that call for speed, responsiveness, and customer-centricity to be successful and to create a competitive advantage.

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Jobs are Evolving Rapidly, Widening Talent Gaps

Due to the changing business needs and technological and social landscape, organizations’ skill requirements are evolving and emerging which create a talent gap for future critical roles.

Percentage of Job Postings Whose Required Skills Changed From 2013 to 2017

Source: Gartner Talent Neuron.

Projected Critical Talent Gap

Aggregate Supply and Demand for Critical Talent Illustrative

Source: Gartner

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Tangible Benefits of Adding “Strategic” into Workforce Planning

  1. Make better business decisions now.
    • Understand the long-term implications of short-term staffing decisions.

  • Obtain higher-quality talent for your business.
    • Identify talent needs well in advance to avoid last-minute “desperation” hires.

  • Retain your key employees.
    • Engage high potential talent to proactively build the workforce of the future.

  • Avoid future downsizing in response to surplus staff.
    • Identify surplus or soon-to-be-irrelevant skills early enough to address through strategies such as training, redistribution, etc., if possible.

Strategic workforce planning helps create competitive advantage, mitigate strategic risks and drive future-focused workforce allocation decisions to set leaders up for success in long-term.

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Roadmap

Our Proposal

Why We Should Do This

Mitigating Potential Challenges

  • Potential Concerns and Proposed Solutions
    • Solution 1: Conducting Scenario Planning to Assess Evolving Talent Needs
    • Solution 2: Using Leading Labor Market Indicators to Analyze External Trends
    • Solution 3: Prioritizing Critical Business Units for Selective Workforce Planning
    • Solution 4: Integrating Targeted Workforce Plan into Strategic Plan

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Potential Concerns and Proposed Solutions

Difficulty Interpreting Business Strategy

Organizations struggle to transform business and talent strategic objectives into an actual workforce plan.

Potential Concerns

Workforce Plans Too Static for Changing World

Organizations fear their workforce plans will quickly become outdated.

Talent Supply Outside of Organization's Control

Organizations cannot control the supply of talent and are unable to prevent disruptions to the labor market.

Integrate Targeted Workforce Plan into the Strategic Plan

Participate in setting business objectives and translate them into talent objectives and risks. Create a workforce plan that integrates the strategic objectives and addresses the talent risks.

How We Can Address Them

Conduct Scenario Planning to Assess Evolving Talent Needs

Get leaders’ inputs on the business’ current state and future strategic priorities. Create multiple scenarios to assess the impact of technological, social and labor changes on talent needs.

Use Leading Labor Market Indicators to Analyze External Trends

Use future-facing indicators while analyzing existing data to predict talent availability and supply and prepare for changing market conditions.

Unsure Where to Focus Resources

Organizations do not know where it is best to deploy their limited resources for efficient workforce planning.

Prioritize Critical Business Units for Selective Workforce Planning

Determine the business units with high growth rate and organizational priority alignment and prioritize those for selective workforce planning.

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Solution 1: Conducting Scenario Planning to Assess Evolving Talent Needs

Analyze the impact of multiple potential scenarios to identify and prepare for technological, social and labor changes that could significantly shift talent needs.

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Solution 2: Using Leading Labor Market Indicators to Analyze External Trends

Thomson Reuters makes smarter use of existing data sources rather than identifying new sources to understand the future of the labor market and better prepare for changing market conditions.

Case Study: Thomson Reuters Industry: Mass Media Revenue (2016): US$ 11.17 Billion Employees (2017): 45000

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Solution 3: Prioritizing Critical Business Units for Selective Workforce Planning

Case Study: American Red Cross Industry: Humanitarian Aid Sales (2014): US$2.9 Billion Employees (2014): 25,000

American Red Cross identifies critical business units with high growth rate and alignment with organizational priorities and conducts workforce planning for those critical business units.

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Solution 4: Integrating Targeted Workforce Plan into Strategic Plan

Case Study: Alpha (Pseudonym) Industry: Consumer Products Revenue (2006): $10 Billion Employees (2006): 50,000

Alpha Company integrates human capital risk analysis into workforce planning, builds decision rules for when workforce planning is mandated. It then crafts targeted workforce plan that addresses the identified talent risks and integrates the workforce plan into the strategic business plan.

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