Top 5 Steps to Implement Skills-Based Workforce Planning in 2024

Courtesy of the latest and advanced technology driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), the business world is undergoing significant transformations, especially in Human Resources (HR). Organizations are choosing skills-based workforce planning over traditional strategies. This way, they’re looking at candidates from a perspective beyond considering them a mere resource.

Their roles are more insightful and strategic. This allows talent managers to understand the skills of their workforces with a more granular point of view and a significant concentration on their current capabilities.

In short, succession planning and talent management are the needs of the future. With this in mind, let’s look at the top 5 steps to implement skills-based workforce planning in this post.

What is Skills-Based Workforce Planning?

In the dynamic workforce, traditional planning methods bring forward a variety of obstacles, including inflexibility, restricted responsiveness to existing industry trends, and a limited capacity to adapt to the latest technological shifts.

Moving away from it, modern companies have realized the importance of a skills-based hiring, upskillsing and redeployment methodology to optimize workforce planning. Unlike traditional methods, a skills-based strategy concentrates on discovering and developing specific skills a company requires to thrive in a competitive market, making organizations flexible enough to handle complicated market scenarios.

Advantages of a Skills-Based Workforce Planning

Skills-based Workforce Planning is increasingly becoming essential to managing employees. It offers a gamut of benefits, such as:

• Making Companies More Agile

‍Organizations that have discovered the available skills of their workforce have an upperhand as they can respond almost instantly to the changes in the market.

• Improved Employee Engagement and Retention

‍By concentrating on necessary skills, companies can provide a better pathway to their employees for growth, enhancing brand loyalty and job satisfaction.

• Informed Decision-Making

‍Data plays a crucial role in skills-based workforce planning to assess skill inventories, allowing authorities to make informed decisions regarding development, training, redeployment, and hiring.

• Better Talent Utilization

‍Skills-based workforce planning helps pinpoint talent that is underutilized by concentrating on employees' skills, allowing organizations to use their capabilities optimally.

5 Easy Steps to Implement Skills-Based Workforce Planning

Here are some significant steps that organizations can follow to implement skills-based workforce planning:

1. Define and Identify Core Competencies

Start by identifying essential competencies and skills, such as technical skills, job-specific skills, problem-solving skills, communication skills, and more, to meet the organization’s objectives. Authorities must make sure that these skills are aligning with long-term business goals, market trends, and industry requirements to create a more focused workforce.‍

2. Assess Current Workforce Skills

‍Once the skills are identified, organizations should use manager reviews, self-evaluations, and skill assessments to catalog the current abilities of their workforce. This process can easily be automated with the help of a skills intelligence platform like iMocha. Companies should also concentrate on discovering strengths and weaknesses of their employees by drawing a comparison between existing skills and the ones required to get the job done effortlessly.

3.Forecast Future Skill Needs

Companies must stay updated with emerging roles, technological changes, and industry trends to finalize future requirements. This helps predict essential skills to be implemented to remain competitive. Authorities should also ensure their forecast aligns with the company's long-term growth strategies and expected market demands.

4. Implementing Learning and Development Programs

Considering the constantly changing business environment, organizations must invest in creating personalized Learning and Development (L&D) programs based on skills analysis. They must provide employees with training that aligns with current skill gaps and future requirements. These programs should be customized for each employee, helping them develop the required skills according to their current roles, and future plans.

5. Measuring and Evaluating

Once the implementation is completed, the time comes to set up essential metrics to track the progress of planning initiatives. The effectiveness of these initiatives can easily be gauged through employee feedback, project results, and performance reviews. Since skills must evolve with changing times, regularly assessing the workforce planning strategies ensures the company stays relevant and necessary adjustments can be made accordingly.

How Can iMocha Help in Skills-Based Workforce Planning?

iMocha is a leading AI-powered skills intelligence platform that provides robust tools to help companies implement functional skills-based workforce planning.

• Skills Assessment and Validation: iMocha offers more than 3000 skills assessments, letting companies accurately evaluate their employees' current skills. With these assessments, organizations can quickly develop a detailed skills inventory.
• Skills Gap Analysis: The platform provides advanced analytics, helping companies identify skill gaps in the workforce. This lets organizations make informed decisions regarding hiring, retaining, upskilling and reskilling the workforce.
• Skills Taxonomy and Matching: This feature of iMocha helps organize and categorize skills, helping companies define essential competencies needed for specific roles. The skills matching feature also helps match employee skills to emerging roles or specific project requirements.
• Personalized Learning Recommendations: iMocha offers personalized learning recommendations based on identified skill gaps. This ensures that employees receive targeted training programs that enhance their skills.
• Continuous Monitoring and Reporting: With AI-powered skills intelligence and robust reporting tools, the platform lets companies track employee progress and assess the effectiveness of workforce planning. This helps monitor improvements, adjust, and stay ahead of industry demands.

Conclusion

‍Skills-based workforce planning is crucial for building a future-ready company. By following the five steps mentioned above, companies can easily ensure they have the correct talent to meet changing demands and evolving objectives. iMocha, an AI-powered skills intelligence platform, streamlines the process through personalized learning recommendations, skills matching, gap analysis, and skills assessments, making it efficient for companies to implement workforce planning.

FAQs

Why is skill-based workforce planning essential for an organization?

‍Skills-based workforce planning allows companies to align their workforce to changing business demands to optimize employee development, fill skill gaps, and improve agility. This ensures employees are future-ready and remain competitive.

How does skills-based workforce planning differ from traditional workforce planning?

‍Traditional workforce planning concentrates on headcount and roles. On the other hand, skills-based workforce planning focuses on the real skills of employees. With this approach, organizations become more flexible in adapting to market changes.

What tools support skills-based workforce planning?

Tools like iMocha support skills-based workforce planning by providing personalized learning recommendations, career pathways, skills assessments, skills matching, and gap analysis, ensuring effective talent development and optimization.