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There are different aspects of talent management with respect to workforce planning, such as replacement planning, career planning, and succession planning. A workforce planning approach integrates these aspects as one and leverages the talent line for the future.
Workforce Planning is a business process and ensures that an organization has suitable access to talent (Talent means potential candidates who have the ability to undertake required activities including decision making.) to achieve future business success. Access to talent considers potential resources such as employment, contracting out, partnerships, and changing business activities to modify the types of talent required. Workforce planning cycle starts from filling resource requests, followed by analyzing resource utilization and forecasting capacity, and finally managing and identifying the human resources to fill the calculated capacity, and then restarting the cycle again, as required (Rudolf, 2010).
Workforce planning also gives consideration to outsourcing. Outsourcing is used in a variety ways and essentially is the use of external resources considered a third party (contractors or contracted parties).
Replacement planning is a process of identifying emergency backups for key positions. When individuals are listed on replacement charts, they are not guaranteed promotions: rather, they are identified to serve in and acting capacity long enough for the organization’s leaders to conduct a proper search, from inside and outside the organization, to find a qualified candidate (Berger & Berger, 2011).
Career planning helps employees compare their current competencies to what is expected of them in the future. Succession planning helps build strength in organizational talent to meet future needs. The process of identifying key talent, exploring and developing employees’ capabilities for future use, and placing them at appropriate positions is an essential part of succession planning. Succession planning is a road that is traveled; it is not a destination. It is for these reasons that career development and succession planning are linked to each other as they provide an organization with future talent strength necessary for the organization to succeed and grow through training and development.
Therefore, career planning and its relationship to succession planning have become areas of interest for organizations.
Melik, R. (2010). Rise of the project workforce, chapter 9: Workforce planning. Retrieved from http://www.pmhut.com/rise-of-the-project-workforce…
Career planning is a systematic process by which one selects his or her career goals and the path to these goals. From the organization’s viewpoint, career planning helps the employees to plan their career in terms of their capacities within the context of organization’s needs. Career planning involves designing an organizational system of career movement and growth opportunities for employees from the employment stage to the retirement stage. Employees who can fill planned future positions are identified and prepared to take up these positions.
Here are some of the features of career planning:
- It is a process of developing human resources, rather than just an event.
- It is not an end in itself but a means of managing people to obtain optimum results.
- It is a continuous process due to an ever-changing environment.
- It is an individual’s responsibility to make their career plans and work toward them, However, it is also a responsibility of an organization to provide guidance and counseling to its employees to plan their careers and develop and utilize their knowledge and skills. The basic aim of career planning is integration of individual and organizational needs.
Succession planning is a process that drives an organization to employ high-potential individuals for different leading posts with the purpose to maintain a leadership-high quality with the existing constraints (Ali, Ahmadi, & Abbaspalangi, 2012).
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Workforce planning is a process that provides a strategic direction for talent management to ensure that the organization has the right people in the right place at the right time at the right cost to execute the business strategy. Planning and forecasting have been identified as key elements of strategic workforce planning (SWP).
SWP is the most advanced approach to workforce planning; it allows an organization to generate data, analytics, and insight into current and future needs. SWP provides the analytical information needed to optimize the organization’s workforce by integrating decisions around workforce investments and the employee value proposition (EVP) relative to the organization’s strategic need for success.
EVP expresses the employment contract—what the organization expects from the employee and, in turn, what the employee can expect from the organization. EVP is the employee counterpart to talent strategy and a key element of workforce planning. EVP reflects the human capital requirements to achieve organizational goals.
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Succession Planning Process:
Based on the studies made by Newfoundland Laboratory, a framework has been set for succession planning process described as follows:
- Identification of Key Posts or Groupings: For identifying the key posts or groupings, you must focus on two key criteria: critical risk and retention risk.
- Identification of Required Competency: This step involves the identification of a set of knowledge, abilities, and skills for each post required by employees to fulfill their expected responsibilities.
- Identification and Assessment of the Potential Candidates: Main purpose is to create an opportunity for learning and development in favor of future roles of individuals within the organization.
- Learning and Development Program: This program focuses on bridging the gap between the aspects such as employees’ knowledge and information, learning development, and the strategic policy.
- Implementation of assessments every six months to one year.
Ali, A. A., Ahmadi, F., & Abbaspalangi, J. (2012). Talent management and succession planning. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 4(1), 213–224.
Metrics are used in different ways throughout an organization. Metrics are considered as a tool for measuring team and employees’ performance; and examining whether different planning processes are being effectively used within the organization. Therefore, metrics are designed around the organization’s goals and strategies to determine effectiveness.
Metrics are designed in a top-down fashion, starting from the chief executive officer (CEO) or the highest-level executive, cascading down through the organization to an individual employee. An organization must not use too many metrics for measuring performance as performance measured on too many metrics might lose its importance for employees. Employees just want to be measured to the extent that lets them know how they are performing and what needs to be improved.
Metrics that are used for planning proposes (succession planning) are used to demonstrate how a plan evolves and establish a baseline. The metrics development is the second step of a five-step process of succession planning process. These five steps are as follows:
- Step 1: Identify your talent management business goals
- Step 2: Establish metrics and baseline data
- Step 3: Develop your scope, criteria, definitions, and policies
- Step 4: Create tools for assessment and successor tracking
- Step 5: Communicate and launch
“Managing diversity means establishing a heterogeneous workforce to perform to its potential in an equitable work environment where no member or group of members has an advantage or a disadvantage as compared to others (Torres & Bruxelles, 1992). Managing diversity includes a process of creating and maintaining an environment that naturally allows all individuals to reach their full potential in pursuit of organizational objectives (Jenner & Thomas, 1994). Diversity management emphasizes building specific skills, creating policies, and drafting practices that get the best from every employee. It assumes a coherent environment in organizations and aims for effectiveness, productivity, and ultimately competitive advantage. Through effective integration of diversity management principles in the key human resource (HR) functions of recruitment and selection, training and development, performance appraisal and remuneration, an organization can effectively manage workforce diversity” (D’Netto & Sohal, 1999).
When diversity is successfully integrated, the organization is enhanced. Diversity encourages individual thinking and actions along a number of dimensions (race, age, gender, culture, etc.), while encouraging unity and bringing people together. An organization’s commitment to diversity is supported by HR management when building and selecting talent.
“Successful organizations can benefit from workforce diversity by creating an organizational environment which attracts people from diverse labor markets. Managing diversity promotes competitive edge by recruiting the best people for the job, regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, or other individual characteristics (Cornelius, 1999). Since organizations often resort to internal promotions to fill vacancies, so recruiting a diverse workforce at critical entry points also ensures that a diverse pool of talent is available for promotion. To achieve these objectives, recruitment and selection processes must be based on organizational and job-relevant criteria; and managers who run these processes should be skilled in assessing the criteria (Kandola & Fullerton, 1994)” (D’Netto & Sohal, 1999).
Cornelius, N. (1999). Human resource management: A managerial perspective. Cornwall: Thomson Business Press.
D’Netto, B., & Sohal, A. S. (1999). Human resource practices and workforce diversity: An empirical assessment. International Journal of Manpower, 20(8), 530–547.
Jenner, L. (1994). Diversity management: What does it mean? Industrial Management, 36(1), 11.
Kandola, R., & Fullerton, J. (1994). Diversity in action: Managing the mosaic. London, UK: Institute of Personnel and Development.
Torres, C., & Bruxelles, M. (1992). Capitalizing on global diversity. HRMagazine, 37(12), 30–33.
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In this module, you analyzed the importance of talent management, career planning, and succession planning and the need to generate future talent for organizational success and growth. You also studied SWP and its importance for workforce planning. In addition, you discussed the key points to be kept in mind while measuring employee performance through metrics and the need for metrics to be aligned with organizational goals and strategies.
You also learned about the changing workforce and the reasons for managing workforce diversity in an organization.
In this module’s assignments, you will discuss the globalization culture. You will also write a paper on how you would approach and organize a program to address both company and individual employee needs.
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