Workforce Planning: Ingredient for Ethical Growth

The workforce is one of the central resources for the company to sustain and grow. Today with increasing competition and proliferation of technology, it is the quality of the workforce that gives the competitive advantage to any organization and makes all the difference. Aligning workforce strategy with the overall business strategy helps businesses to make the most of the talent, over and above that it also keeps employees motivated, directly affecting the bottom line. Further, to tread on the path of ethical growth, workforce planning becomes an essential ingredient.

Effective workforce planning helps in two ways to ensure that the company takes into consideration how its actions affect current and potential employees:-

1. Prevents reckless hiring and laying off of employees
2. Prevents from creating excess stress or workload for current employees as the business grows

Both the above-mentioned points are significant determinants of how the company treats and perceives its employees, which in turn has an implication on talent attraction and retention. Workforce planning can play a pivotal role in the long run when it comes to the company’s reputation, margins, overall profitability, and work culture. Hence, it is high time that every organization starts treating workforce planning as part of the long-term strategic vision and puts it on the same pedestal as financial planning. 

By employing demand, supply, and gap analysis, organizations can successfully understand their present and future skill requirements, and consequently, come up with solutions to fill the skill and talent gaps. Workforce planning helps to forecast the talent needs of the company enabling it to take up new projects and grab opportunities due to reduced turnaround and reaction time to changing industry & economic conditions, more productive/ efficient employees, and better alignment of different components of the organizational strategy.

By understanding that if the workforce planning is adequately catering to the needs of business and employees, organizations can ensure that the right talent is employed at the right time for the right role, with the right compensation, and in the right position. Hitting the bull’s eye in each one of the parameters enables businesses to accelerate growth, and provides individuals with the perfect opportunity to advance in their careers