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Workforce Planning Strategies: Key Insights and Techniques

Discover essential workforce planning strategies to streamline your workforce management, optimize productivity, and drive sustainable growth.

Workforce Planning Strategies: Key Insights and Techniques
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People are essential to any organization’s long-term success and businesses need the right workers with the right skills to drive growth. Taking a proactive approach to workforce planning can help your organization build a team of qualified workers and better respond to evolving priorities in today’s dynamic business and talent landscape.  

While every company has a unique approach to workforce planning depending on their business needs, size, and industry, many of the key elements are the same across organizations. Learn about workforce planning basics, top strategies, and best practices your team can implement.  

If you have an immediate need to develop or improve your workforce planning strategies, consider engaging an independent workforce management specialist on Upwork. Skilled workforce management specialists are available to help you build and implement impactful strategies to support broader business initiatives.    

Table of contents:

Workforce planning basics

Workforce planning is a proactive process that involves analyzing an organization’s existing workforce, identifying current and future talent needs, and outlining strategies to attract, retain, and develop team members.

Top benefits of strategic workforce planning include:

  • Optimized alignment of skills and roles with business needs
  • Increased productivity, efficiency, and performance across the organization
  • Improved recruiting and talent acquisition
  • Enhanced team member engagement and retention
  • Heightened business agility and adaptability
  • Cost savings

Top workforce planning strategies

Successful workforce planning is ongoing and iterative. While the process may seem complex, leveraging proven workforce planning strategies can help set your organization up for success.  

1. Assess current workforce capabilities and future needs

Understanding where your workforce stands from a talent and skills perspective is essential to effective workforce planning. One way to assess current workforce capabilities and future needs is by conducting a talent review, a formal analysis of worker performance and potential across your organization. Talent reviews enable business leaders to identify top performers, make decisions related to promotions, flag potential turnover risks, outline areas for improvement, and uncover skills gaps.

Steps to an effective talent review process include:

  • Create standardized review forms with relevant questions related to soft and hard skills, as well as work achievements or milestones
  • Ask managers to complete review forms for each worker
  • Ask workers to complete self-evaluations
  • Brief leadership on how to facilitate talent review discussions
  • Consider using performance management software like CultureAmp, Gloat, or Mesh to centralize all information related to individual reviews
  • Leverage talent review data to identify strengths, areas for improvement, and workforce trends across the organization
  • Create a skills inventory and use this information to identify skills gaps
  • Evaluate existing team member skills against future job and business requirements
  • Promote high performers or offer new opportunities for top workers to take on more responsibilities
  • Restructure the organizational chart if necessary to ensure all workers are in roles that align with their skill sets
  • Identify areas where additional training or hiring may be necessary

2. Forecast future workforce trends

Given the ever-evolving world of work, forecasting trends and planning for future workforce needs is critical to maintaining business relevance and driving success. However, according to a survey by Boston Consulting Group of 6,893 people leaders, 72% of respondents cited people challenges and talent gaps as the biggest obstacles to future performance.

Tips to help your organization forecast future workforce trends include:

  • Study population trends and workforce demographics to anticipate future labor supply
  • Monitor changes in workforce participation rates and retirement patterns
  • Evaluate the impact of immigration policies on the availability of talent
  • Stay updated on the latest in-demand skills and emerging roles
  • Track team member retention, turnover, and tenure rate to plan for future hiring needs
  • Discover new ways to source and attract talent as workforce needs change

3. Develop flexible staffing models

Rather than relying exclusively on internal, full-time team members and traditional 9-to-5 work models, embracing flexible work arrangements and staffing models as part of your workforce planning process can help you expand your reach to a broader talent pool.  

As more companies have adopted flexible work options in recent years, workers now recognize the benefits of increased flexibility—including improved work-life balance, fewer distractions, and increased trust and autonomy—and actively avoid returning to traditional ways of working.

Some ways to support workplace flexibility include:

  • Implementing remote and hybrid work policies
  • Allowing team members to choose which days they work in the office if your organization has a hybrid work policy
  • Supporting flexible schedules
  • Setting holding to the expectation that workers don’t need to respond to messages or emails outside their personal working hours
  • Leveraging asynchronous communication to streamline collaboration between in-office and remote workers, as well as across time zones
  • Encouraging team members to block “no meeting” time on their calendars for priority work or to handle personal obligations
  • Investing in communication and collaboration tools, including email, video conferencing solutions, messaging apps, project management software, and shared documents
  • Expanding your talent search beyond full-time, in-house workers to include independent professionals

Our 2023 Freelance Forward survey, a representative study of 3,000 professionals, found that 38% of the U.S. workforce, or 64 million Americans, performed freelance work in the previous year. By engaging independent talent as part of your flexible staffing approach, you can address talent shortages and access skilled professionals who desire flexibility and autonomy.

4. Implement data-driven decision-making

Taking a data-driven approach to understanding what’s working and what’s not with your talent management strategy and workforce planning can help your organization make improvements over time. Regularly tracking critical workforce metrics can also enable your human resources and recruitment teams to share insights related to your workforce planning efforts with stakeholders across the organization.

Many organizations leverage technology solutions to centralize important metrics in user-friendly dashboards and make more informed decisions. Available solutions include human resource information systems (HRIS), applicant tracking systems (ATS), and talent management platforms.

Metrics your team can track to support workforce planning include:

5. Build talent pipelines and succession plans

Once you identify future talent needs as part of your workforce planning roadmap, turning to a mix of external workers and existing team members can help you efficiently fill skills gaps and new roles. Forward-thinking organizations build proactive talent pipelines and succession plans to ensure they have access to qualified talent to meet future business requirements.

A talent pipeline is a pool or network of potential external candidates who are qualified to fill open roles and address skills gaps when the need arises. A survey by Symphony Talent of more than 450 HR and talent acquisition leaders found that 48% of respondents say building a talent pipeline is their top priority in 2024.

Organizations can build talent pipelines by developing an engaging employer brand to attract key talent and building relationships with prospective candidates. If an immediate opening isn’t available, HR and recruitment teams can leverage candidate relationship management (CRM) software to keep talent engaged, share the latest company updates, and match top candidates to relevant roles as they open.

While talent pipelines typically include external candidates, succession planning maps critical roles and skills at the company and identifies and develops existing team members to take on key positions when workers leave the organization or transition internally. Formal succession plans should be created for mission-critical roles across an organization.

Essential details to include in each succession plan include the job title, name of the worker currently in the role, risk of the team member leaving, key skills for the role, a shortlist of internal successors, each individual’s readiness score to take on the role, and a plan to develop high-potential team members.

6. Cultivate a culture of learning and development

As in-demand skills continue to evolve, building a culture of continual learning and talent development is critical to effective workforce planning. An always-learning culture can help your organization keep team members engaged and ensure workers have the skills necessary to adapt to shifting business needs.  

According to a global report published by the World Economic Forum, an estimated 44% of workers’ core skills are expected to change in the next five years. The research also found that only half of workers currently have access to adequate training opportunities.

Because each worker’s learning style is different, consider offering a variety of learning and talent development strategies. Some options include:

  • An impactful onboarding process for new team members
  • Access to online learning platforms such as LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, and Coursera
  • Skill and talent assessments
  • Tuition reimbursements for degrees or certifications
  • Stipends or reimbursements for professional development events and courses
  • Stretch assignments and experiential learning
  • Performance reviews
  • Tailored development and performance improvement plans
  • Online learning platform access
  • Team or company-wide training sessions
  • Knowledge sharing session for team members to highlight recent insights they’ve learned or skills they’ve developed
  • Opportunities to manage other team members or oversee projects with independent talent

Keep in mind that formal training and development options such as performance reviews and development plans are intended for in-house workers. To drive success with independent professionals, provide clear project descriptions, well-defined milestones, and feedback on each deliverable.

7. Embrace diversity and inclusion in workforce planning

Supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) can help companies ensure each team member feels a sense of belonging and is valued. Organizations that prioritize diversity are also more likely to outperform those that don’t place an emphasis on diversity.

According to research from McKinsey, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity and ethnic diversity are 39% more likely to have better-than-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile.

Here are some tips to support diversity and inclusion as part of your workforce planning strategy:

  • Write a formal DEI policy
  • Write job descriptions and other recruitment materials using inclusive language, such as gender-neutral terms versus gendered terms
  • Recruit from diverse candidate sourcing channels, such as Diversity.com, Women for Hire, AbilityJobs.com, and Military.com
  • Standardize the talent acquisition process and leverage AI recruiting tools to automate certain steps and evaluate all candidates on an objective scale  
  • Clearly explain how your company prioritizes building a diverse workforce on your careers page
  • Prepare to answer candidates’ questions about your organization’s commitment to diversity
  • Highlight employee success stories generally, and include diverse workers and skill sets in these on your website and across social media channels
  • Facilitate diversity training sessions to help workers understand different backgrounds and perspectives
  • Support employee resource groups (ERGs) to empower workers to develop connections based on shared interests, communities, or identities—examples include culture or ethnicity-based groups, women, LGBTQIA+, working parents, and veterans and military

Best practices for workforce planning

In addition to the strategies outlined above, following workforce planning best practices can help future-proof your organization from a talent standpoint.

Consider the following best practices to enhance your workforce planning.

1. Align with business strategy

Aligning workforce management and planning with strategic business objectives can help ensure your organization has the talent needed to meet short- and long-term goals. Effective alignment requires conducting an in-depth analysis of your organization’s operational and strategic objectives and identifying ways to tie workforce planning goals to your broader business goals and strategy.

As an example, if your business plans to expand to a new industry or geographic region, outline steps to take from a workforce planning perspective to ensure you have the qualified talent in place to support key growth initiatives.

2. Solicit input from key stakeholders

Workforce planning typically falls under an HR or talent team’s core responsibilities. However, taking a collaborative approach by gathering feedback and buy-in from stakeholders across the organization is equally important. As part of your workforce planning strategy, reach out to department and team leaders to learn more about their specific staffing needs or any skills gaps and emerging in-demand skills they’ve noticed on their teams.

Also align with decision-makers on your legal, finance, IT, and other relevant teams to ensure you have the resources to support workforce planning initiatives.

3. Leverage the latest technology

Integrating the latest technology across your human resources, recruitment, talent management, and related functions can help you drive efficiencies in your workforce planning. Many technology solutions and workforce planning tools are available to automate routine tasks and free up time for HR teams to work more strategically.  

HR technology solutions include:

Keep in mind, while technology can streamline certain HR and talent management tasks, a human element is essential for successful workforce planning. Members of your team should always make final decisions related to hiring and other critical workforce initiatives.

4. Collect feedback from workers

While leadership team members and other decision makers will likely be involved in shaping your workforce planning strategies, also collect feedback from all workers on their overall employee experience. Asking for feedback will help workers feel valued and can help your team identify key trends and insights to improve the employee experience, which can also strengthen your overall workforce planning.

Consider distributing regular worker feedback surveys, such as annually or quarterly, to standardize the employee feedback process. Questions to ask may include:

  • How satisfied are you with your overall work experience?
  • Do you feel as though your work positively contributes to business success?
  • Do your current skills align with the requirements of your role?
  • Which additional skills are you interested in developing to improve or grow in your career?
  • What kind of training or professional development opportunities are you most interested in?  
  • Do you feel as though you have opportunities to advance at the company?
  • Do you have the resources needed to succeed in your role?
  • Which additional resources would help you improve in your role?
  • How effectively does your manager provide feedback and support?
  • How well does the company promote diversity, equity, and inclusion?
  • How likely are you to recommend the company to a friend or member of your professional network?

5. Be prepared to pivot

A key lesson HR and talent leaders have learned in recent years is the importance of embracing disruption. At the onset of the global pandemic in early 2020, many organizations had to quickly transition to remote work environments. And when AI started to see widespread adoption in early 2023, HR leaders had to embrace AI for hiring and identify ways to attract talent with AI skills.

Successful workforce planning efforts are agile and able to respond to changes in the business environment, labor market dynamics, emerging technology, and workforce trends. Regularly review and update your workforce planning strategies and consider proactively identifying potential business shifts, such as economic fluctuations or rapid business growth, that may require you to pivot your plan.    

Plan your workforce with Upwork

Workforce planning is an in-depth, collaborative, and continual effort and while the process may seem complicated, it doesn’t have to be. Upwork can be a valuable resource for your workforce planning.

Human resources consultants, recruiting assistants, and other experienced professionals are available on Talent Marketplace™ to help identify and implement effective workforce planning strategies. Also access  professionals with more than 10,000 skills across specialties, including artificial intelligence, digital marketing, development, accounting, and more, to fill skills gaps identified through your workforce planning initiatives. Create an Upwork account or log in to get started.

Upwork is not affiliated with and does not sponsor or endorse any of the tools or services discussed in this article. These tools and services are provided only as potential options, and each reader and company should take the time needed to adequately analyze and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation.

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Author Spotlight

Workforce Planning Strategies: Key Insights and Techniques
Beth Kempton
Content Writer

Beth Kempton is a B2B writer with a passion for storytelling and more than a decade of content marketing experience. She specializes in writing engaging long-form content, including blog posts, thought leadership pieces, SEO articles, case studies, ebooks and guides, for HR technology and B2B SaaS companies. In her free time, you can find Beth reading or running.

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