Bersin and Associates just released the results of their 2009 Workforce Planning Survey. The focus is on the importance of recruiting and staffing’s involvement in the process. While I would agree that integration with recruiting and staffing is essential to successful workforce planning, I disagree with the follow-on logic that this function must own workforce planning.
Based on Infohrm’s 2008 Global Workforce Planning Survey, we found that when ownership of workforce planning resides with Business Units or Management, organizations are more likely to recognize a competitive advantage – this can be interpreted as a direct competitor or competition for labor. After all, the goal of workforce planning is to reduce the risks to business strategy that are associated with workforce capacity, capability, and flexibility. As such, the foundation for workforce planning is the corporate/business unit strategy – so it follows naturally that workforce planning should be owned by the business units themselves. In the end, the business units are the ones responsible for the success or failure of their strategic plans, and the human capital requirements of the strategy are no less part of their responsibility than the financial, technical, operational, or other components.
This is not to say that HR’s role, including recruiting and staffing as well as learning and development, isn’t critical. As stewards of the process, HR professionals need to be the content experts and consultants in the workforce planning process – articulating the value of workforce planning, providing the necessary tools and processes, aggregating results, and driving accountability. Our research has shown this is best managed from a Center of Excellence.
HR must ask the challenging questions that compel managers to think about what drives workforce demand, assisting the business in translating their strategies into human capital needs. HR also leads the business in developing the strategies to ensure the needed workforce is delivered. Many of these strategies will be focused on recruiting or impact recruiting, so involvement in the process and integration of strategies is essential to success.
Workforce planning brings several critical functions together to strategically manage human capital. Recruiting and staffing is one of them, but this does not mean they must own the process.
Tags: Center of Excellence, recruiting and staffing, strategic human capital, Strategic Staffing, Workforce Planning