Philippa Lamb visits Lowestoft on the east coast, to meet Hazel Stimpson at Harrod UK to see how workforce planning has helped the company become a year-round business. Join them, as they tour the factory.
Then Angela Baron, CIPD Adviser for Organisation and Resourcing, explains the critical nature of workforce planning.
Commander Iain Upton talks about how workforce planning is done in the Royal Navy and Samantha Rich explains how she improved insurance company, Axa’s planning.
Hazel gives her definition of workforce planning and how it has enabled her company to go from being seasonal to a year-round controlled and profitable business, bringing in new and well-regarded clients. For Hazel workforce planning is an annual process and the results are communicated to all the employees. Weather though, is one of her challenges.
Angela Baron discusses the latest CIPD: Workforce planning: right people, right time, right skills, research and its findings. Is your workforce plan smart enough to enable your organisation to keep up with competitors? Are you planning to recruit the right kind of skills given the coming demographic changes? The traditional way of doing things underpins much new theory, but makes the practicalities more involved.
Workforce planning in such a large organisation as the Royal Navy is a huge challenge. Hear Commander Iain Upton tell Philippa how the process works for him. He has to bear in mind the Government's Strategic Defence Review and worries about losing talent which can not be quickly trained.
Axa's Samantha Rich had to try to improve a rather insular recruitment system. She spent a great deal of time looking at computerised systems to develop more accurate predictions of business needs. She still uses her in-house analytical skills, but having the donkey-work done saves hours of time.
Angela says that while the CIPD guide does feature some practical models, the sort information which should be collected and the necessary human input, she emphasises that workforce planning should, by its nature, be constantly changing and always high on the HR agenda.
Back at Harrod, Hazel outlines how she keeps all her staff up to speed to align the planning process with the business needs, ensuring cooperation and the smooth-running of the company.
Useful links to other CIPD resources
Angela Baron will be chairing a session on Workforce Planning at our Annual Conference in November.
The CIPD has a 2-day training course on workforce planning if you think your skills could do with refreshing.
You might want to look at our annual survey report. It provides information and benchmarking data on current and emerging trends in people resourcing practice.
Hazel mentioned that she had introduced flexible working at Harrod UK. If you are thinking about doing this too, you may find our factsheet useful. It contains guidance, outlines the benefits and the law and gives advice for implementation, with a special mention given to homeworking.