In most organizations people are the biggest cost and certainly are its biggest asset.
Workforce planning is about aligning your people strategy with your ever-changing organizational needs and your tactical and strategic business plans. Ensuring your organization has the right people with the right skills at the right time is critical. Workforce planning should provide analysis of your current state versus where you want to be and should show you what you need to do to bridge that gap.
There are still blurred lines when it comes to who should lead workforce planning. In many organizations, HR owns the process. While, if it exists, Organizational Development may own it. The office of the CFO is increasingly viewed as a key player in overseeing the workforce planning strategy because of its ties to the profitability of the organization.
CFOs are in the unique position of being able to look across the enterprise to understand and plan for the broad financial and operational impacts of workforce transformation. As a former CFO, my staff should understand the needs of the departments in my organization, down to the individual level as well as the implications of any changes to our overall operational strategy – looking out not just this month, but over the next couple of quarters into our two-year and three-year growth plan.
We understand there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to workforce planning during a time like this. To help, there are several factors to consider when you are looking at all these moving pieces:
- Emerging technologies
- Alternative workforce models
- Seasonality
- Your workforce by department
- Budgeting at the individual level
To get a proper handle on these moving parts, we are looking at automation of the planning process. The benefits of automating the workforce planning process place it even more in the CFO’s domain: Faster insights; more time to spend on higher-value tasks; more accurate decision-making; real-time analysis; ability to model “what-if” scenarios before committing to a decision; better ability to match spend to resource; and better cost savings over time.
QueBIT is partnering with Pigment to present a workforce planning product tour session on March 27th in conjunction with the Pigment FP&A Week. I look forward to seeing you there as I will co-present.
Why attend one FP&A webinar when you can attend a whole week’s agenda of some of the best minds in the planning space.
It’s Pigment’s FP&A Week - The Rise of the CFO
1 week, 9 sessions, 15+ speakers
