What’s a Sustainable Workforce Look Like?

HR has the opportunity to shine or be replaced by some other function as it is asked to ensure the availability and quality of talent.  Recruiters are central to that effort and many changes are underfoot.  Recruiting as a profession is challenged to embrace a broader scope of work and to take responsibility for more sophisticated and complex talent analysis and development.

There are several approaches to developing a sustainable talent management process and philosophy. Some of these mirror the methods used by manufacturing, finance and other corporate functions that have undergone transformations over the past decades. We can all learn from each other and draw inferences where they are appropriate.
 
What people policies will lead to a sustainable workforce model over economic cycles and changes in skills?  This is the central issue that must be solved.  Binging and purging people is a zero sum game; neither you, the employees, the candidates, or the organization gain anything.  What each gets are anger, frustration, and fear.

HR needs to learn how to use modeling techniques to determine whether it is more efficient to hire a replacement for a position or to train someone internally.  The decision needs to be made on data, not on the opinions of HR or managers. Finance has developed models to help guide investment decisions, and over the next few years HR will be developing similar models for talent planning.

Some possible areas for investigation and research include:

1. Calculating the impact one person or a team of people has on profits based on a skills profile versus another person or team with a different profile. 

2. Looking at the attributes of successful performers and tying your findings back into the recruitment assessment and the development processes.

3. Using search techniques to scan emails for employees’ thoughts about the organization and to hunt for clues to engagement and reasons why people might be looking for new positions.

What are your thoughts, ideas, concepts?

Tagged as: development, HR, retention, workforce