Importance Of Workforce Planning

Section B- Managing HR assignment

A) Outline and explain the purpose and importance of workplace planning to a HR department. “Workforce planning is an essential tool for anticipating possible future developments and maintaining a well-structured workforce of an appropriate size, which is able to meet the changing needs of the public service in a cost efficient manner” OECD(2011) (1)

Workforce planning is a process to measure and compare the current workforce with the future demand in relation to the organisations strategy and business planning process. An organisation operates most effectively when the right people with the right knowledge, skills and abilities are deployed correctly. A good plan will help an organisation with avoiding staff

It also links human resources strategies with the business strategies in the current and changing environment and also must have an eye on future pressures and needs and have strategies in place to address any changes. Workforce planning is a systematic, fully integrated organisational process that involves proactively planning ahead to avoid talent surpluses or shortages. It is based on the assumption that a company can be staffed more efficiently if it forecasts its talent needs as well as the actual supply of talent that is or will be

Examples should be used to illustrate your points.

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”(Roy Keane, circa.2002)

The consequences of not following a workforce plan can be crucial to the short term future of a business but more importantly can affect the growth of the business or service in the future. A good workforce plan analyses its existing workforce, but if it’s neglected by a business it can have serious consequences. Especially if the staff is an aging or middle aged workforce. Poor workforce planning will leave a company facing mass retirements and then in turn short of skills. This makes a company or service reactive rather than proactive. Take the GP situation in Ireland for example, we are facing a shortage of General Practitioners in many areas of Ireland due to retirements and emigration of newly qualified doctors as there is no future for them because of poor workforce planning. There are no incentives in place by the HSE to keep the young GPs here as they are only offering temporary roles. According to ICGP Medical Director Dr Margaret O’Riordan (3) (2015) "Unless corrective measures are introduced, the current trends in emigration and retirement will result in fewer GPs to treat patients in rural areas in the next ten years.’’ This shows how serious a problem can get without workforce planning is and is putting the health