Workforce Planning

Do you remember the war for talent in the late 1990s? Well get ready, because it’s about to return with a vengeance. If you read my articles and books, you are aware that I do a good deal of forecasting. In the past, I’ve forecasted the beginning and the end …

Offshoring has become a major topic of conversation lately as more and more firms look to leverage the economic benefits of lower labor costs and availability of skilled labor abroad. While politically many see offshoring in slow economic times, when jobs for U.S. workers are scarce, as taboo, for many …

As an author and corporate advisor, I receive several hundred questions a week from firms looking for advice, direction, and assistance on recruiting issues. Recently, I was contacted by a firm who posed the following questions after reading article I had previously written on preparing for the second installment of …

As authors and corporate advisors, it is rare that a week goes by without someone asking us about which firms we think are breaking new ground and establishing soon-to-be-talked-about best practices. Since we both like to tell stories, we are always searching for success stories that we can highlight in …

I am certainly no eternal optimist about the economy. But I did undergo a great deal of education in economics prior to receiving my Ph.D. This education taught me a great deal about the economic phenomenon called “precursors” or “leading indicators” that alert you to other impending economic events on …

If you expect to have a strategic impact in recruiting, you must begin to think and act like a talent manager. Talent management is a broad, business-like approach that expands the traditional role of recruiting into areas that increase the overall productivity of your firm’s workforce. One of the areas …

In order to do succession planning, you must first identify the “future leaders” of your organization who will be included in your succession plan. Once identified, those leaders can then be targeted for development and, eventually, a planned progression throughout the organization. But what is the best approach to use …

During economic downturns CEOs and CFOs come to HR looking for ways to cut labor costs. As sales go down, labor costs must also go down proportionately. Unfortunately, HR’s responses to requests for labor cost reductions frequently come well after they can have a real impact. But HR must learn …

In last week’s article, we looked at the “precursor approach” to workforce planning. We saw how using this approach was a great way to split the difference between extensive statistical modeling and relying on “gut instinct.” Here we’ll take a look at some precursors that can be used in conjunction …

There are three parts of all successful workforce plans. It turns out that the three parts are not all equal, however. The first part, which is the workforce forecast, is the most important. It projects company growth and the corresponding change in our talent needs as a result of that …