Workforce planning.” What does it mean to you? For many people, they automatically think of hiring employees. While this is true to a certain extent, workforce planning goes well beyond filling empty seats with full-time employees. It’s a process that can give your company the ability to tap into the power of planning and a network of talent in order to improve both flexibility and productivity.

In this post, we’ll talk more about what workforce planning is. In the next post, we’ll review how to execute a workforce plan at your Northern California company.

So first, let’s define “workforce planning.” In simplest terms, workforce planning is a strategy that helps your company ensure you have the right people with the right skills in the right positions at the right time. And, as we stated above, it’s more than just about full-time employees. We’re also talking about temporary workers, contract staff, and temp-to-hire employees. This is your talent network.

So now that you know what workforce planning is, why should you consider it? There are a host of reasons, including:

  • Workforce planning helps you to ensure that the people you hire are the right fit (in terms of skills, experience, and personality) for your environment.
  • Workforce planning also forces you to take a look at the risks associated with not being able to find the right people, or enough people, when you need them. This involves evaluating your company’s current situation and goals for the future and figuring out which positions are critical to achieving those goals. It also involves facing issues like talent shortages before they happen.
  • In addition, the workforce planning process also makes you take a look at timing. For instance, when do you need talent? Are there times of the year that are slow, and other times that are especially demanding? If so, is there a way to leverage the power of contract or temporary staffing to meet seasonal demands without increasing overhead?

As you can tell, workforce planning is an important tool that goes well beyond filling empty seats. It’s about evaluating your current workforce and staffing needs, forecasting capacity, determining staffing risks, and tapping into the power of a talent network that includes full-time, as well as contract and temporary workers.

If your company would like to know more about workforce planning, please contact Pacific Staffing. As an experienced staffing services firm in Northern California, we can offer you a variety of flexible staffing services to meet your unique workforce planning needs.