Planning for Long-Term Talent Management

In a recent post to Talent Management.com’s Performance Management blog, authors Mick Collins, Bill Gilmyers and Duncan Scott say that organizations are switching back to pre-downturn views on talent. With the economy slowly beginning to recover, organizations can view human capital as an asset rather than a cost again.

Not to mention that firms are once again beginning to launch new initiatives to implement top-line talent growth. Talent management and leaders will now have to learn how to apply new methods and frameworks to build the future workforce. The tools needed to prepare workers don’t have to be built from the ground up.

The following five tools could significantly improve how organizations approach long-term talent management:

1. Scenario Planning (Functional Owner: Strategic Planning): Strategists use scenario planning to facilitate long-term forecasting in environments where future business conditions are uncertain and difficult to predict.

An organization’s HR department can use insight from stakeholder interviews, manager workshops and data analysis to anticipate supply and demand for talent.

2. Customer Segmentation (Functional Owner: Marketing): Customer segmentation can be accomplished proactively by dividing potential customers into groups according to geography or demographics.

By understanding which workforce segments disproportionately impact the organization, HR can develop employee value propositions to attract and retain these segments.

3. Competitive Advantage (Functional Owner: Strategic Planning): Firms constantly seek sources of competitive advantage, as reflected in their ability to use resources and capabilities to offer lower-cost or differentiated products and services that establish industry leadership.

More and more, firms are distinguishing themselves based on workforce characteristics. Organizations are using unique skill sets, experiences and knowledge to achieve their strategic goals.

4. Supply Chain Management (Functional Owner: Operations): Supply chain management ensures that products and services are delivered in the most cost- and time-efficient method from the firm to the customer.

Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School said, “Supply chain management is designed to reduce uncertainty and variability. Workplace planning can offer the same for talent management – forecasting the capacity and capabilities required to support the business over the next three to 10 years.”

Supply chain management for talent should include acquisition and retention but its greatest impact could be on employee development.

5. Profit Maximization Models (Functional Owner: Sales): The law of supply and demand tells us that if a company wishes to sell more products, one way to do is to lower its prices. Doing so, however, decreases the profit made on every sale. Since the firm’s ultimate goal is to maximize profit, the challenge at hand is to strike the right balance between sales volume and profit per sale.

Every organization has a gap between the current and the desired workforce. HR must balance the need to fill open positions with the cost of buying talent on the open market. Data analysis and workforce planning can provide insight about how to shape the future workforce. To learn more, read the full article here.

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