Taking a Data-Driven Approach to Workforce Planning | myHRfuture

Workforce planning (WP) as a practice has been underway for over two decades. And while many legacy WP practices have focused heavily or exclusively on role-based WP, business environments of frequent change and disruption (like the one we are now in) have led many firms to embrace a skills-based approach to WP. This article provides a good overview of WP, including leveraging data sources to drive skills-based WP. It suggests that firms can use several data sources for this purpose, such as Recruitment data (resumes, cover letters, assessments, etc.). Career history data: (role titles, job descriptions, project descriptions, awards won, etc.) Learning & Development data: (courses completed, development objectives, etc.). Performance data: (objectives, appraisals, peer feedback, etc.) External data: (professional networking sites, professional publications, patents, blogs, etc.). In terms of how firms can use these data sources to draw skills inferences about their workforce–in an agile and scalable way– I have been encouraged by developments in artificial intelligence (AI) platforms that infer these skills based on the aforementioned sources. The article discusses other ideas such as scenario planning and the three major types of WP: 1) tactical, 2)operational, and 3) strategic.