strategic workforce planning: building blocks to success

strategic workforce planning: building blocks to success

Foreword by Tom Kaminsky The ability to attract and retain people with valuable skills that meet business objectives is vital for companies seeking to promote innovation, reduce risk and stay competitive. With the tightening availability of critical labor skill categories worldwide, organizations need to empower forward-looking, critical thinking when developing and planning their workforce strategies. HR leaders have an unprecedented opportunity to play a pre-eminent role in aligning talent with business strategy. Embracing strategic workforce planning (SWP) is a key enabler towards leading your organization s development of a talent roadmap that will secure the resources needed to support strategic priorities. The story that follows depicts how Nina Ramsey, CHRO for global workforce solutions provider Kelly Services, collaborated with leaders across the business and developed the companies internal SWP capability from the ground up. Starting with a small but focused strategic initiative, Kelly Services has since adopted strategic workforce planning as a standard business practice. For any company looking to begin a strategic workforce planning journey, our advice is simple. Find a critical initiative that requires a talent strategy; then, evaluate your internal capabilities, engage external resources as needed, prepare to manage the change and most importantly, let the business be your guide. As Nina shares, you don t have to boil the ocean to make a difference with SWP. I encourage you to get started and find ways to utilize strategic workforce planning to drive business results. Tom Kaminsky is VP, Talent Management Consulting Practice, for KellyOCG. As an accomplished, entrepreneurial human capital executive, Tom is focused on helping organizations design transformational talent strategies. With more than 25 years of human capital industry experience, he oversees strategic planning, market strategy and integrated consulting advisory services for the practice, designing large-scale human capital programs, processes and services in response to organizational change and business requirements.

Successful organizations drive relentlessly to find new ways to improve what they do and how they do it. Then they work diligently to put those solutions to work on behalf of their customers and clients. Kelly Services has made that practice a guiding business principle as a leader in providing comprehensive workforce solutions to companies around the globe. Over a two-year period, the HR team, led by Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Nina Ramsey, used strategic workforce planning (SWP) integrated with advanced workforce analytics (WA) and change models to increase organizational capabilities. It did so initially without a big budget or a dedicated team. This article will help you gain insights to better understand how to move from SWP theory to reality. And using the Kelly example, you ll see it s not necessary to wait until you have a big budget or a fully dedicated SWP team to get started. As our journey began, it was less about the formality of process and all about focusing on what was critical to the business, says Ramsey. While we don t have a formal SWP function or department, we have built capabilities in several members of our HR team. As we leverage SWP, we create cross-functional teams with an integrated set of disciplines. We believe SWP can only be successful when fully partnered with our business stakeholders and aligned with our strategy. As Kelly established its SWP capabilities there was clear alignment between business leaders and HR. Having our CHRO as our SWP champion ensured a clear vision and strong leadership partnership. This went a long way to driving the engagement needed for success. Susi DeFazio, KellyOCG, Talent Management Consulting Practice

WORKFORCE PLANNING: A FOUNDATION FOR CHANGE The term workforce planning (WP) can take on different meanings and be a very complex process. Strategic workforce planning (SWP), as Kelly defines it, builds upon quantitative and qualitative data. Kelly uses that data as part of a decision framework that can clearly inform and transform the organizational talent strategy. Significant changes have occurred in the global marketplace and created increased talent demands. Kelly, along with many of our customers, recognized the need to leverage SWP to address changing and evolving talent needs. The HR team, along with members of the Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting Group (KellyOCG ), researched and customized foundational models for SWP, workforce analytics and change management. The models were first launched through small pilots. Following the pilots, the models were fine-tuned and re-launched. Strategic workforce planning triggers change in organizations. While working through the pilots, Kelly realized it had to incorporate change methodology to ensure sustainability. It s important to set the climate of change with business partners and provide them with valuable data to enlist their support and commitment. If there is one key theme throughout all change models, it is the importance of written and verbal communication. Kelly wrapped all aspects of its change model, including communication, around its SWP and WA efforts to enable success.

WORKFORCE PLANNING: STRATEGY AND RESULTS In 2014, our executive leadership launched strategic initiatives in response to market forces, says Kristi Stepp, VP, Organizational Effectiveness. One of those strategies, focusing on professional and technical staffing growth, required extensive SWP efforts. After forming cross-functional teams to support this growth project, work began on operational priorities. Kelly had a compressed timeline and a modest budget to complete this work. Without an established SWP function, as Ramsey noted earlier, the team instead leveraged Kelly internal talent to execute SWP. Core competencies and knowledge on the team included business acumen, operational knowledge, data analysis, project management, organizational effectiveness and strategy. In partnership with the business, the team established a collective vision of the preferred future and then began to leverage SWP, WA and change management models. These tools brought clarity to the scope of what was needed to close gaps and drive closer to their shared vision. It s important to set the climate of change with business partners and provide them with valuable data in order to enlist their support and commitment. We used a blended model that included SWP, change management and workforce analytics to increase our organizational capability, says Stepp. This model helped to ensure alignment across the business as we worked towards the shared vision. STRATEGIC PRIORITIES Selected Business Initiatives SWP Change Management WA Increase Organizational Capability Measure, improve, and close gaps

STRATEGY ANALYSIS DEVELOP & EXECUTE A TALENT STRATEGY TALENT MAPPING GAP ANALYSIS WORKFORCE PLANNING ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING SUPPLY ANALYSIS & FORECASTING DEMAND ANALYSIS & FORECASTING Regardless of the SWP model, it s important to honor the wisdom of your organization, but not be held captive by it. Begin by determining if capabilities needed exist internally. You can then determine what expertise you may need from the outside. Nina Ramsey, CHRO, Kelly Services

TRANSFORMING THE TALENT STRATEGY The team started with resource planning and reporting something that many organizations are already doing. These efforts opened the doors with operations leaders as the team introduced strategic workforce planning and analytics. At the same time, senior leaders were asking for a single point of truth for the status of their business. When Kelly implemented SWP, it utilized strategy analysis, talent mapping, environmental scanning, demand analysis and gap analysis, which resulted in exactly what they were looking for a transformed talent strategy. Additionally, Kelly HR led a cross-functional team to design and implement a set of dashboards to provide the requested single point of truth for performance across the organization. The transformed talent strategy resulted in changes, including organizational design, role purification, performance metrics, reward strategy, training, brand management and efficient work processes. These are just some of the changes that established and reinforced the framework on the journey to the shared vision. When Kelly implemented SWP, it utilized strategy analysis, talent mapping, environmental scanning, demand analysis and gap analysis, which resulted in a transformed talent strategy.

BUILDING ON SUCCESS THE JOURNEY CONTINUES What started as special projects and committee work has evolved into organizational capabilities within HR and in the business. This allows Kelly to anticipate human capital outcomes for strategic initiatives and helps enable the organization to achieve its objectives. Cross-functional teams, including business leaders, meet monthly to analyze quantitative and qualitative data regarding the professional/technical business performance. Leveraging ongoing trends and predictive data allows Kelly to continue to close gaps and offer proactive solutions. The business demand continues to increase for this type of support. Kristi Stepp outlines the results succinctly. Change management has been integrated into every step of our journey, with strong emphasis on clarity of vision, communication and leadership commitment. The results have been highly encouraging. For our focused work in the professional and technical (PT) area from 2013 to 2014: Turnover was reduced More PT recruiters achieved their goals The average headcount on assignment per PT recruiter increased Increased profits were realized from enhanced PT recruiter productivity By any measurement or metric, strategic workforce planning and workforce analytics can and does help companies do many things more successfully. Effective execution of SWP and WA can estimate the probability of employee success, identify the need for new departments or positions, analyze and forecast future technical needs and optimize a company s organizational structure. Over the last three years, Kelly has matured its workforce analytics capability from reporting to projecting to predicting. Our stakeholders are genuinely committed and proactively demanding more to get ahead of talent supply and demand challenges. In the final analysis, that is the true measure of success. You don t have to boil the ocean to make a difference with SWP. What you need to get started is a critical initiative that requires a talent strategy. Then you should evaluate your internal capabilities, engage external resources as needed, prepare to manage the change and most importantly, partner with the business every step of the way. Your results on the first critical initiative will set the stage for momentum in your SWP journey.

About KellyOCG KellyOCG, the Outsourcing and Consulting Group of workforce solutions provider, Kelly Services, Inc., is a global leader in integrated workforce solution delivery for clients worldwide, utilizing proven talent supply chain strategies. In addition to integrated solutions, KellyOCG specializes in Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Contingent Workforce Outsourcing (CWO), Human Resources Consulting, Career Transition and Executive Coaching & Development, and Executive Search. Visit kellyocg.com for further information. KellyOCG was named to the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals 2015 Global Outsourcing 100 list, an annual ranking of the world s best outsourcing service providers and advisors. kellyocg.com All trademarks are property of their respective owners 2015 Kelly Services, Inc. 15-0443A