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State of Washington Workforce Planning Guide Note: For printing, use the PDF version of the Guide On-Line Guide:
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| Background Washington State is facing significant challenges in recruiting and retaining a government workforce capable of delivering efficient, quality services to the state’s citizens. The state anticipates significant increases in turnover, intensified competition for qualified employees, and fast-paced changes in how work is accomplished. With more than 50% of state employees at age 45 or older, the state is experiencing higher turnover due to retirement. Depending on the agency, by the year 2005, up to 27% of PERS 1 employees will be retirement-eligible, and up to 38% of PERS 1 and 2 employees will be eligible. This higher retirement turnover, coupled with other attrition, will mean a significant loss in workforce skill and knowledge, with certain occupational areas hit harder than others. At the same time, Washington State government is challenged to compete successfully with other employers for quality employees. Both nationally and in this state, there is a major labor market shortage. State government’s compensation and civil service restrictions pose certain limitations that must be overcome to recruit and retain a productive, competent workforce.To address these challenges before they become problems, agencies should be carefully preparing workforce plans and implementing creative strategies to ensure necessary staff levels and competencies are in place to carry out agency missions. This Workforce Planning Guide is a reference document for that purpose. It offers basic workforce planning steps, issues to consider, resources, and tools. This Guide is written for agency managers, human resource consultants, organizational specialists, and others who have a shared responsibility to ensure successful implementation of the workforce planning process. The processes described in this Guide are derived from considerable research on workforce planning in other jurisdictions and the literature.
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| Return to top of pagex In its simplest terms, workforce planning is getting the right number of people with the right set of competencies in the right jobs at the right time. This is a shorthand definition for a management framework for making staffing decisions and related investments based on an organization’s mission, strategic plan, budgetary resources, and desired workforce competencies. |
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| Many organizations,
both public and private, have developed models for workforce planning. Putting aside
variations in terminology, the processes are all very much alike. All rely on an
identification of staffing levels and competencies needed in the future; an analysis of
the present workforce (demographics, retirement projections, competencies, etc); a
comparison of the present workforce to future needs to identify gaps and surpluses; the
development of strategies for building the workforce needed in the future; and an
evaluation process to assure that the workforce plan remains valid and that objectives are
being met. Why is Workforce Planning Important? The "why" of workforce planning is grounded in the benefits to managers. Workforce planning provides managers with a strategic basis for making human resource decisions. It allows managers to anticipate change rather than being surprised by events, as well as providing strategic methods for addressing present and anticipated workforce issues. Organizational success depends on having the employees with the right competencies at the right time. Workforce planning provides managers the means of identifying the competencies needed in the workforce - not only in the present but also in the future - and then selecting and developing that workforce. |
In summary, some of
the key benefits of workforce planning include:
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| Return to top of page Strategic Planning & Workforce Planning - A Cooperative Effort Strategic planning sets organizational direction and measurable program objectives. These goals and objectives not only provide the basis for determining necessary financial resources, but also provide the basis for workforce needs. If the right people with the right competencies are not in place, it is difficult to effectively achieve the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. The workforce plan highlights the people factor in achieving results. Workforce planning requires strong management leadership and cooperative supportive efforts of staff in several functional areas. Strategic planning, budget, and human resources are key players in workforce planning. Human resources provides tools for identifying needed competencies and for building the future workforce through strategic recruitment, training, development, and retention techniques. |
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The Department of Personnel has designed a four-phase Workforce Planning Model as a suggested approach for agencies to follow. A summary of the model is depicted in the diagram below. It was derived from research of models used in a variety of public and private sector organizations, and adapted for applicability to Washington State government. Each state agency has unique operating cultures and business needs. Therefore, it is fully expected that this model and its associated considerations, strategies, and tools will be modified by each agency to address its unique needs.
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State of Washington
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top of page Workforce Planning Model Phase I - Set Strategic Direction Workforce planning is a natural complement to strategic planning since it is through the workforce that the objectives of the strategic plan will be achieved. Workforce planning cannot be effectively accomplished unless a meaningful strategic plan has been prepared for the organization.
The agency’s vision, mission, and measurable goals and objectives drives the identification of future functional requirements. In turn, those requirements drive the analysis and elements of the workforce plan. When identifying future functional requirements, focus on function, not on the people needed to do the job. The overarching question is: "What key functions need to be performed in order to accomplish the direction set out in the strategic plan?" This may include many of the organization’s current functions, in addition to forecasting important future functions and activities. What is an appropriate organizational level for developing a workforce plan? While there is no single answer, a useful guideline in determining planning levels is to ensure the outcomes of workforce planning will relate directly to the organization’s strategic plan. As such, the level of analysis should be at least equivalent to that of the strategic plan, and preferably carried out at the program-level basis where the front-line effects will be felt. This is only a guide, however. Agencies should adapt the planning model, including level of detail, in a way that makes managerial sense for that organization. The size of the organization, how it is organized, and how programs are managed and budgeted will all impact this determination. Obviously, the larger and more complex the organization is, the more complex the step of determining key functional requirements can get. Conversely, for smaller organizations, only a handful of major functions may be identified and the process may be relatively quick and simple. Agencies with minimal workforce planning experience may want to limit the level of analysis to a higher organizational cut (e.g., division-level only), selected parts of the agency, or certain occupational categories. |
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| Workforce Planning Model Phase II - Workforce Analysis and Strategies There are four key steps to the workforce analysis phase of this model. These steps are summarized below, and are described in greater detail in the following sections. |
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top of page Workforce Planning Model Step 1: Demand Forecast
The Demand Forecast deals with the workforce that will be needed to accomplish future functional requirements and carry out the mission of the organization. Information derived from Phase I - Setting Strategic Direction - forms the basis for this analysis. In this step, a visionary staffing assessment against future functional requirements is conducted. The result is a forecast of the type of competencies, numbers, and locations of employees needed in the future (e.g., 1 to 5 years out). This makes up the future workforce profile, the Demand Forecast. An important part of the demand analysis process is examining not only what work the organization will do in the future, but how that work will be performed. Some possible considerations include:
Once the what and how of future work has been determined, the next step is to identify the competencies employees will need to carry out that work. Competencies are a set of behaviors that encompass skills, knowledge, abilities, and personal attributes that, taken together, are critical to successful work accomplishment. Competencies may be defined organizationally or on an individual basis. Identifying competencies on an organizational basis provides a means for pinpointing the most critical competencies for organizational success. These core competencies are those that are embodied across the organization and between job types. Individual competencies are those that each employee brings to his or her function. Individual and team competencies are critical components of organizational competencies. If the individual competencies in the workforce are not in accord with those needed by the organization, workforce planning will point out these gaps. The future workforce profile created through the Demand Forecast analysis will display a set of competencies that describes the ideal workforce of the future. This set of competencies provides management and staff with a common understanding of the skills and behaviors that are important to the organization. Therefore, it plays a key role in decisions on recruiting, employee development, personal development, and performance management. Agencies should make the Demand Forecast analysis as inclusive as possible. Employees will have a greater understanding and ownership of the competency model if they are involved in the process. It will also give them a clearer idea of what the organization expects of successful employees. In addition, since developing the competency model is a visionary process, organizations should take care to include diverse viewpoints to avoid tunnel vision. |
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| Step 2: Supply Projection The Supply Projection step involves: (1) developing the present workforce profile and, (2) projecting that profile into the future as if either no management action was taken to replace attrition or develop existing staff, or if only the normal course of action continues. The result, at a minimum, should show the projected workforce supply in terms of staff numbers and competencies. There are a host of factors that can be included in the present workforce profile, including:
With the exception of competencies, data for all the factors listed above are available through the Department of Personnel’s Human Resource Data Warehouse. At a minimum, the Supply Projection should reflect numbers of employees and competency profiles. Competency assessment methods are discussed on the following page. Once the present workforce profile has been prepared, project it out into the future as if no special management action was taken to replace attrition or develop existing staff. This projection can be accomplished by determining attrition rates for the organization and/or occupational areas and applying those to the present profile. Retirement eligibility and other turnover statistics and rates are available through the Human Resource Data Warehouse. There are a number of ways to assess competencies. Assessment methods vary in degrees of precision, complexity, and time and effort to administer. One relatively simple assessment method is to infer what the competencies are from the employees’ job class specifications and position descriptions. This would give a very general idea of the number of employees who are presumed to have certain knowledge and skill sets.
The problem with this approach is its lack of precision. For example, because it doesn’t look at the employee, it will not identify available competencies that are not represented in the existing class specification. As such, the organization could miss some good opportunities for selecting and developing from within. Nonetheless, as a first cut or where the organization has limited workforce planning capability, this may be the approach to take in the beginning. A better, more precise approach is to conduct an actual assessment of employees’ competency levels. An actual assessment will provide much more useful information for determining the number of those available and capable of fulfilling future functional requirements. It will give good information as to what recruitment, training, and other strategies need to be deployed to address workforce gaps and surpluses. One way of determining actual competencies is to conduct a general assessment of employees using a checklist of the future desired competencies that have been identified through the Demand Forecast. The checklist might also include a rating of competency level, such as: advanced, intermediate, beginning or none. This information would be helpful for identifying succession planning or training strategies. It is suggested that each the manager and the employee conduct the assessment, and then collaborate on the results. Competency assessment information can also be obtained through existing tools such as the Employee Development & Performance Plan (EDPP), Management Development & Performance Plan (MDPP), and the META 360 assessment tool for managers. As mentioned previously, conducting an actual assessment can get very complicated depending on what approach is taken. For example, some organizations conduct thorough job analyses and individual employee assessments by multiple sources, including the employee. The degree of precision needed by the organization, its culture, and time and resource availability are some of the key factors influencing which approach to take. |
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| Step 3: Gap Analysis Gap analysis is the process of comparing the workforce Demand Forecast to the workforce Supply Projection. The expected result is the identification of gaps and surpluses in staffing levels and competencies needed to carry out future functional requirements of the organization.
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Step 4: Strategy Development The final step in the workforce analysis phase involves the development of strategies to address future gaps and surpluses. There is a wide range of strategies that agencies might use to attract and develop staff with needed competencies and to deal with excesses in competencies no longer needed in the organization. There is also a myriad of factors that will influence which strategy or, more likely, which combination of strategies that should be used. Some of these factors include, but are by no means limited to, the following:
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The following table lists some of the key strategies that organizations can use to address gaps and surpluses. There are many creative strategies that could be deployed, and consultation from the organization’s human resource staff or the Department of Personnel is encouraged. See Page 14 for DOP resources and contacts. |
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top of page Workforce Planning Model Phase III - Implement Workforce Plan Certain basics of any good project management plan should be addressed when implementing the Workforce Plan strategies developed in Step 4. Some of these basic considerations include:
The Workforce Plan should be implemented in connection with the requirements of the organization’s strategic plan. If the strategic plan timetable changes due to unanticipated customer, leadership, or legislative changes, adjustments to the Workforce Plan strategies may be needed. |
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| Workforce Planning Model Phase IV - Monitor, Evaluate, Revise Evaluation and adjustments are implicit in workforce planning or any good planning and project management process. If an organization does not engage in systematic review of its Workforce Planning efforts, it runs the risk of not responding to changes that occur incrementally from within or unanticipated external impacts. Leaders should ensure that a process and schedule is in place to regularly review Workforce Plan implementation progress in order to:
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Workforce Planning Summary of DOP Resources and Contacts General Workforce Planning Guide (including model);
General information
Consultation and facilitation contractors
Workforce Analysis Information Workforce demographics, staffing levels, turnover statistics and trends, retirement eligibility
Workforce Strategies Job class modifications and salary flexibility
Succession planning
Staffing and hiring strategies
Training and development strategies
Retention & productivity strategies:
Career transition or separation:
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Last Update: 1/10/06 - dlb |
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