Everyone talks about the importance of workforce planning. But they frequently speak without really defining what it means. That is why we like the latest report from the Conference Board, released this month: Strategic Workforce Planning Forecasting Human Capital Needs to Execute Business Strategy.

This is a must read for anyone serious about workforce planning and this short posting would not make justice of the several case studies and models.

But first, the definition: Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is the analytic, forecasting, and planning process that connects and directs talent management activities to ensure an organization has the right people in the right places at the right time and at the right price to execute its business strategy.

A nice view is their segmentation of the different approaches to address the issue. Overall, five approaches that are shown below classify how companies address the challenge to plan their workforce.

We agree with many of the 12 recommendations made to have an effective strategic workforce planning process in place, but we would focus on these three:
1. Data Integrity and up to date standard skills and competency as foundation.
2. Competent HR partner that participate in the business planning process.
3. Focused on critical talent and start small and simple.