WORKFORCE PLANNING & PEOPLE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES – WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE? 

 

Leaders have the opportunity of shaping the future of work, building on the lessons and practices their organizations implemented during the crisis, while the COVID-19 pandemic causes fundamental societal and organizational shifts.

COVID-19 hasn’t simply transformed the workplace; it’s likely changed the workforce — and work itself — forever. The challenge for HR leaders is to respond and evolve from a static to an agile planning approach, one that can constantly rearrange the workforce to include changes in business and skill needs after the pandemic.

The upside is that this kind of workforce “futuring” – workforce planning for future strength based on technology and labor market analysis — provides significantly more flexibility than traditional talent management processes and concepts.

 

WHAT HAS CHANGED? – THE COVID 19 SHIFT

The most noticeable change is the new remote work regulations. According to Gartner research, following the outbreak, 48 percent of employees will work remotely, up from 30 percent before the pandemic. But that isn’t the only, or perhaps the most significant change in this period of change.

In general, when businesses recover from the pandemic’s effects, many may rethink important components of their business strategies. The emphasis is on HR leaders to ensure the organization has the appropriate talent to support shifting business priorities in today’s world of rapid change and unpredictability.

COVID-19 hasn’t simply transformed the workplace; it’s likely changed the workforce — and work itself — forever. The challenge for HR leaders is to respond and evolve from a static to an agile planning approach, one that can constantly rearrange the workforce to include changes in business and skill needs after the pandemic.

The upside is that this kind of workforce “futuring” – workforce planning for future strength based on technology and labor market analysis — provides significantly more flexibility than traditional talent management processes and concepts.

 

WHAT HAS CHANGED? – THE COVID 19 SHIFT

The most noticeable change is the new remote work regulations. According to Gartner research, following the outbreak, 48 percent of employees will work remotely, up from 30 percent before the pandemic. But that isn’t the only, or perhaps the most significant change in this period of change.

In general, when businesses recover from the pandemic’s effects, many may rethink important components of their business strategies. The emphasis is on HR leaders to ensure the organization has the appropriate talent to support shifting business priorities in today’s world of rapid change and unpredictability.

AI should be leveraged to create a culture of actionable knowledge-sharing and knowledge creation that strengthens organizational connectivity and provides the organization with resilience to withstand, and even thrive, in environments of disruption, ambiguity, and change.

 

MEASUREMENT OF KEY METRICS FOR A TRUE ASSESSMENT

Organizations should harness the power of technology to collect workforce insights by compiling the key aspects to be addressed in order to obtain the real-time workforce insights required. This is the time for organizations to question whether they’ve always been asking the right questions and whether they have the governance and processes in place to use data to truly sense what’s going on across the organization and workforce.

 

SUSTAINABLE WORKFORCE PLANNING

Organizations that can sense and seize on these new talent realities will gain a competitive advantage.

It is extremely important for enterprises to think about how to encourage and provide opportunities for employees to continue to grow and adapt based on their potential, rather than just their existing skills or qualifications. Now is not the time to scale back workforce development efforts, but rather focus on building a resilient workforce capable of adapting in the face of constant change.

THE BOTTOMLINE

The new realities we’ve discussed here can open up a bunch of new possibilities. To capitalize on them, however, we must find new ways to align organizations, and individuals with one another in the face of rapid shifts. In the current and future world of work, public policymakers, organizational leaders, and individual workers will almost certainly need to invest time and effort in figuring out how to work together.  However, doing so has the potential to ensure that the future of work is both efficient and rewarding for all parties.

By Aarya Sitaram   May 22, 2022