Creating a path for continuous strategic workforce planning

Organizations face two major challenges when they implement ongoing and continuous workforce planning. The first is finding the technology and tools that are right for the organization today while also leaving room for it to grow. The second is identifying which skills will be needed for the future and which are becoming obsolete as automation and artificial intelligence (AI) reinvent jobs and the nature of work itself. To successfully enable continuous workforce planning, we recommend the following steps:

1. Match technology to maturity: New or growing strategic workforce planning (SWP) functions require tools that enable basic workforce planning now while allowing more complex planning to be conducted in the future.
2. Anticipate organizational changes: Generative AI is leading to the creation of a new support ecosystem requiring different skillsets, such as automation managers, and the development of new types of tech functions, such as AI prompt engineers.
3. Leadership alignment and education: Leaders need to focus on being more interconnected with their organization and other leaders, as SWP is a living process that is impacted by many variables, requiring organizational-wide buy in and collaboration.

In this paper, we discuss the benefits of integrating SWP into the wider enterprise performance-planning process. We also describe effective ways to hire, develop, outsource, and automate your staffing needs so that you can accomplish the strategic, operational, and financial goals that will support your business growth.