Posts Tagged ‘Recruitment’
Maximise Your Workforce Productivity = Capability x Capacity + Contribution
Blog courtesy of Wendy Perry, Head Workforce Planner, Workforce BluePrint who presented Maximise Your Workforce Productivity and Uncover Funding Opportunities at a breakfast event in Townsville on 17 April 2012 sponsored by DEEWR and the Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE.
QLD is nearly twice as likely to be having difficulty in attracting staff in regional towns/cities (48.6%) than the national average (25.8%). The mining states of WA & QLD are also facing difficulty in attracting staff to rural and remote locations, with twice as many respondents in these combined states saying this is the case (17.9%), compared to the rest of Australia (8.9%). Labourers have been much more difficult to recruit in QLD (20.3%), which has recently suffered considerable damage from flooding, than the other states.
Source: Bank West Skills Shortage Report, April 2012
Why Workforce Planning? Why for you?
- Risk management
- Significant employer or small employer
- Dynamic and complex economy
- Legislative and contractual environment
- Significant growth or downsizing
- Challenges with shift in demographics and age profile
- Industry and policy directions (national, state, local)
- New project, site, facility
- Problems attracting, recruiting and retaining staff
- Improve quality, workplace health and safety
- Example of good practice and increasing requirements for contracts/client expectations
- Evidence based approach for capability, tenders and proposals
Business Health Check – strengths and development needs
At a high level where are the strengths and where are the development needs?
From 0 – 10 rate your organisation across the following areas:
- Strategic Direction
- Development of Business Processes
- Human Resources
- Finances
- Customers
- Market Analysis
What is Workforce Planning? What is Workforce Development?
Workforce Planning is the process of taking stock of the current workforce, forecasting future workforce requirements and identifying gaps or issues.
Workforce Development relates to strategies and activities that bridge those gaps.
Develop a workforce plan in 5 easy steps
- Context and environment
- Current workforce profile
- Future workforce profile
- Gap analysis and closing strategies
- Review and evaluation
Who should be involved?
- Business owner/manager and/or executive commitment
- Whole of business? Slice/sample? Depends on the size of your organisation
- Utilise communication mechanisms across the organisation – executive, management, general staff, clients
- Incorporate existing information e.g. Staff surveys, performance management, job descriptions
- An approach that works well is a working group representing job roles
- Development of a project plan
- Over educate & over communicate
Design workforce development strategies to attract and retain your workforce – build capability and capacity plus contribution. Gap closing strategies may include:
#1 = Retention
- Ageing particularly if you have an outside workforce with Workplace Health and Safety issues
- Succession planning, knowledge management, communication, career paths
- Training needs analysis, learning and development plans, leadership development
- Work Life Balance – packaging benefits of flexible working arrangements, phased retirement
- Employer of Choice, reward and recognition
- Common employee views – not feeling valued and respected, could attract a higher salary elsewhere, don’t like internal politics
- Check on excessive hours, stress management
- Priority occupations – demand vs. supply + or –
#2 = Attraction and Recruitment
Maximise Your Workforce Productivity by building on Capability x Capacity + Contribution through a workforce plan and take control. Already have a workforce plan in place? Use this checklist to compare your plan against a good practice approach.
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Workforce Development Plan
So what is workforce development?
It is an umbrella term for implementing strategies that help you bridge the gap between your current workforce and your target (future) workforce. Workforce development strategies address the gaps that you find when you undertake workforce planning and training needs analysis where the output is a workforce plan. The strategies could be about attraction, recruitment, retention, career progression, succession planning, job design, skills and competencies, values and behaviours, KPI’s and performance.
Generally when you write a workforce plan you cover the same time frame as the organisation’s strategic plan which could be 1, 3, 5, 10 or 20 years depending on your industry and budget cycles. The steps are reflected in the document itself starting with 1. Context and environment, 2. Current workforce profile, 3. Future workforce profile including forecasting demand and supply, 4. Gap analysis, priorities, implementation, 5. Review, monitor, evaluate.
Review your workforce plan regularly – about every 6 months or if there has been a major workforce change or refocus of the business. The workforce plan is a dynamic document resulting in a prioritised action plan identifying who will do what and by when – it’s not uncommon for organisations to have numerous updated versions of their workforce plan over the timeframe for which it has been designed.
As job roles change and you implement workforce development strategies, the framework that measures your workforce capability also needs to change to reflect the organisation’s structure and focus. You may want to build a capability framework to help you measure your workforce capability and capacity. Revisiting your demand and supply forecasting is important to see if you are on track.
The process is facilitated transparently, involving people from across your organisation to help identify strengths, development needs and issues. Communication, consultation and education is critical so you know what to do and what you are aiming for using a practical, straight forward approach – don’t over complicate it!
How to build a Competency Framework
First of all why do you want to build one?
Often it’s because people ask for training and development that may not be directly related to their job role, it may be dealt with ad hoc and often training needs aren’t aggregated at an organisational, project or team level.
Another reason could be that you are looking for an evidence based approach to assessing skill level and performance, you may be recruiting, looking at career progression or you may want to demonstrate your workforce capability for a tender, proposal, project or industry awards.
Whatever the reason, I suggest you start with the end in mind – what are you wanting as the out and outcomes and then work your way back.
Secondly, who needs to be involved to validate and who needs to be briefed and kept up to date with the framework as it develops. Communication and consultation is absolutely critical so work out who are your audiences, what do you need to say, when and how often, and what communication methods will you use including existing communication channels. Utilising a group of people representing their job roles, especially if they are well networked in their area is a good way to go. Help them to know the purpose of the framework, what it will be used for and their knowledge, experience and understanding of the job roles in the framework to validate the competency and skills profiles.
Thirdly, think about the structure which needs to mirror the organisation or client (could be internal or external like a project) you are working with. I like the structure of core competencies i.e. everybody needs these, functional competencies including leadership i.e. some people need different functions, and job specific competencies i.e. skills that make 1 job role different to another. Draw a diagram of the competency framework and have the map to relevant skills sitting behind it.
Fourthly, what can we use the framework for? Training and development needs analysis,performance management, competency based job descriptions and recruitment, career and succession planning, evidence against industry standards and for tenders, proposals, marketing and promotions.
A final word on who needs a framework – well it’s up to you! I have developed a framework for a 1 person business up to a government department with 43 000 people because they had very real business reasons to build one in the first place.
99 Ways to Retain Good Staff
At a recent Enterprise Connect workforce re-engineering network meeting, participants took on the challenge of coming up with 99 ways to retain good staff. Here’s the results – we got to 63 so what else would you add?
- Rubber chicken award – recognition of a job well done
- Clear career pathways
- Exchange programs – across the organisation, outside and back again
- Defined expectations from the team member and manager
- Understanding of the psychological contract and unwritten agreements
- Two-way, meaningful communication
- Performance – defining good and poor performance
- Input into decision making
- Empathy and understanding for issues outside of work
- Team discussions, meetings and planning
- Democratic workplace and included
- Birthday leave – leave day for your birthday
- Flexibility with work commitments – early/late start
- Professional development
- Events, dinners and industry functions – BBQ’s, Melbourne Cup, lunches, Christmas
- Conferences and travelling
- Boss willing to work alongside staff
- Nice work environment
- Positive atmosphere
- Health and well being programs, flu shots, checks
- Free drinks machine, tea, coffee and biscuits
- Years of service awards
- Bring your partners along to special events
- Gifts, thank you, pressies and awards
- Transport provide for special occasions
- Know your staff well – personal interests, partner and kids names
- Balance in the team – experience, knowledge, skills, generations
- Find out what people want to be known for
- What do people say and think about you?
- Accommodation and housing
- Project based opportunities
- Exciting work
- Clear about future directions
- Access to the boss
- Multi skilling
- Find out what work people want to do
- Share management duties such as chairing meetings
- Activities to support charities and volunteer
- Public acknowledgement
- Massages, mini breaks
- Listening
- Photos, video of career history
- Wellness programs
- Work sports teams and leagues
- Manage the poor performers
- Toolbox chats
- Social and environmental responsibility initiatives
- Competency based recruitment and selection
- Match ethos and values
- Attitude over aptitude
- Set goals and review regularly
- Build your own training centre – pride and joy to conduct own training
- Ask why do you stay?
- Immaculate facility
- Social club and activities
- Demonstrate good management in the tough times with clear communication
- Internal mentors
- Mid-career opportunities – networking of similar cohort across the organisation
- Higher education opportunities – complete a Masters degree as a group
- Phased retirement
- Surprises – nice ones
- Exercise program – Pilates as a group
- Gym program to support physical requirements of the job