What are you doing?

[Moz]

Hi, just wondering what others have identified as medium to long term staffing issues and how you are planning to tackle them ?

Moz

[HRbeat]

Hi Mos,

I have just included workforce planning into our employee survey this year, with only 4-6 questions. Hopefully, the survey results will provide enough data to work with in terms of strategies that need to be in place to ensure business continuity.

[Moz]

Hi HR Beat,

what time frame are you looking at?

I was thinking about 5-10 years. I realise this may not yet be on people's radar, but perhaps it should be.

Unless there's some global economic meltdown, the 'skills shortage' we are experiencing now is nothing compared with what the future holds.

[HRbeat]

Hi Moz,

I think that questions for workforce planning should be customised and take into account the particular organisation, industry sector, state, and other economic indicators that affects the labour market movement.

I have included questions for the time frame of 3 years because the industry sector we're in has a turnover of people where the average employment life span is 3 years, then we lose them to organisations outside the sector. However, taking into account that our organisation was able to retain a few people for more than 5 and 10 years, we also have a question dealing with this timeframe.

We are a flat organisation but is certainly growing, our critical roles are identified based on core business and what is required for growth.

We have just began the process, so I don't know how all this will unfold yet.

[jba]

We are also just starting to tackle the problem. My first step was to explain to senior management about talent management and staff retention followed by a discussion on market place shortfalls in the future. I then set each manager a task of identifying both talented personnel in each department across the organisation. Once we established the talented people we then looked at crucial positions. Now that we have this data i am now working on appropriate remuneration levels that reflect in the upper quartiles of market place rates.
The next step will be further communication to the talent group and mapping out training and opportunities to showcase their talents.Succession planning will be a obvious off shoot. It doesnt have to be rocket science but it has to be shared and nurtured by senior management.
To prevent an elite versus hack employee the door must always be left open by consistent and timely review. This is where I am up to anyway.

[Moz]

jba, you're obviously focussing on retention and identifying talent for succession planning. But is there any discussion about where your organisation expects to be in 3-5 years time and what your staffing needs will be then ?

Originally Posted by jba

... followed by a discussion on market place shortfalls in the future.

Yes there are skills shortages today, and these are forcing employers to focus on retention and attraction issues right now, but I suspect the challenges we are seeing today are nothing compared with what the situation will be like in 5-10 years time.

I think this could stymie growth for many organisations in the future.

[KB_Love OD]

In NZ, skilled workers are returning from overseas and gaining employment here. However in 3-5 years I think we will our skilled workforce head back overseas and the talent retention issue will be significant. We are currently doing just as JBA describes. What you put in now is what you will get out in later years, whether it is through current talent or alumni talent. But working specifically on the development of talent alongside senior management, as well as ensuring initatives are in place to engage the rest of your workforce are crucial to having a workforce for the future. I think if you can show a streamlined process of doing this consistently then you are in good stead for a high performing workforce in the years to come.

[carrol]

Hi Moz
My succession plan identified the need to develop the following strategies;
Flexible workforce options for staff and managers
Involving staff in decision making and therefore ownership and reporting KPI’s
Developing all levels of leaders within the organisation
Improving communication (up and down and sideways) and feedback
Assist the board members develop the org values and business objectives
Plan the ageing population and support internal succession plans
Cheers
Carrol