Creating and Implementing a Strategic Workforce Plan

With the pending retirement of the Baby Boomer generation and the challenge of having more jobs available than people to fill them, Workforce planning is now a more important element in any company’s Strategic Planning process. Knowing the current make-up of the workforce, knowing the current engagement of that workforce, having succession plans and maximizing each person’s productivity is needed for every company regardless of size.

CLCI in partnership with Profile International Inc. offers a proven process for companies to use to:

To discuss how this proven process can be applied to your organization contact CLCI

The Process:

CLCI collects all relevant information on your current workforce / employees. This compilation requires discussions with the client’s management. The compiled data provides a focus for improvement in productivity and increasing individual performance as well as providing the information to identify a means of getting more top performers.

To discuss how to improve to improve productivity and individual performance at your organization contact CLCI.

This also has a direct bearing on people who are top performers in their job. It is, therefore, important to evaluate job fit and job compatibility for as many people as possible.

This can easily be achieved by creating job success patterns for every job title in your organization, starting with the most critical positions, when you use the Profile XT system. Each person who has been assessed can then be compared to the success pattern for their job; this will generate coaching information to improve performance.

Your employees can then be compared to all the other job patterns to see if they have a better fit elsewhere in the company. This same format will be incorporated in Succession Planning to look within to fill pending gaps in the workforce.

This process can also be used for new hires to help assure job fit and top performers. From the list used to rank employee performance, two key areas should be reviewed:

Top Performance – Assess all top performers to use as a basis for developing success patterns. These patterns can be used in hiring to assure expectations of adding more top performers and/or if current employees have strong matches to these patterns but lack trainable skills, training programs can be implemented to prepare people to fill these positions.

Very Marginal Performance – This group should also be assessed as soon as possible. There could very well be opportunities for performance improvement if we can find better job matches and/or information to better coach, manage and motivate this group.

STEP 2 - Understanding Motivation and Stress, Conflict Behaviors and Adapting to Change

All people develop a “style” in interfacing with their supervisor and fellow employees. For many, that style is a natural extension of who they are. For some, role playing is involved and for a few, the style is dictated by the job, the surroundings or the supervisor.

Knowing the style of a person is important in day-to-day job performance. Knowing how a person reacts to stress, both short-term and long-term is needed because often people’s style will change in reaction to stress.

Knowing what motivates and how to motivate an individual is always important and gives a manager individual insight to motivate individually rather than in groups.

Lastly, what is happening in your workplace? Are rapid changes occurring? Do you require people to “change” to keep pace? Are things very comfortable and change is not part of your culture? Knowing who changes more easily and who will need coaching and understanding about change is also essential in today’s workplace.

All of this information can be obtained by assessing each person using the Profiles Performance Indicator. The output is designed for the individual and an individual’s supervisor to get reports to work together better. The input to get these assessments can be applied to team building and team interface.

STEP 3 - Optimizing Working Relationships with Their Direct Supervisor

Job performance tends to have two basic reasons for top performers: Fit with the job and compatibility with one’s supervisor. Too many people today, for a variety of reasons, have some conflicts with their supervisor. Knowing what, why, and how to address these situations will have extraordinary positive effects on job performance.

This particular area may be one of the most important for you to concentrate on. As the workforce is “aging” and with significant differences in generational gaps in the workplace, people need to know more about themselves and in a manager’s case, know more about the people they have in their group.

“Compatibility” is a growing need in your workforce to ensure maximum group productivity in the workplace. The Profiles Workforce Compatibility process will provide this needed information.

STEP 4 - Optimizing Working Relationships with Work Teams

Teamwork may seem like an overused expression, but it tends to be something companies always talk about and need improvement with. Increased synergy among teams and team members always results in greater productivity.

among teams and team members always results in greater productivity.

The Profile Team Analysis will provide all managers with needed information to improve departmental synergy and/or give needed information on team attributes that are lacking.

Where attributes are needed, people can be added to a team (on paper) to see in advance if they bring what is needed for improved overall team performances. This tool is particularly powerful when used in conjunction with the Performance Indicator Assessment.

STEP 5 - Optimizing Leadership Skills

Leadership improvement for current and future leaders and managers is critical both for today and in analyzing future needs. All companies need a process for continuous improvement of their existing leaders and managers as well as the development of people for the future as part of their Succession Planning. Many managers want to know, "How am I doing compared to others at my level?"

The Strategic Workforce Planning methods, particularly as in the use and application of assessments, are facilitated by CLCI. Working together, you can expect significant improvement in the productivity of your workforce.

The Checkpoint 360 Feedback System will address all these needs. It is more than just a report on how a person is perceived as a leader by their boss, peers, and direct reports -- the CheckPoint system helps clearly define skill gaps and often reveals a leader's "blind spots." This system helps build a bridge between where a manager is now to where they need to develop professionally. Individual development can be supported with a built-in online, self-paced training program (SkillBuilder™) that includes coaching modules.

Another process that can be used to aid in strategic business development is the Organizational Management Analysis™. The OMA gives you an overview of the information that is gathered from the completed CheckPoints. This report summarizes the perception of your management group and provides you with information that will help you in prioritizing the training and development needs for your organization.

CLCI’s mission is to help our clients transform their businesses to High Performance Organizations (HPO™).

High Performance Organizations must hire and develop High Performance employees to manage the increased complexity of today’s financial world, changing workforce structure, changing customer demands and new merging technologies.

CLCI offers a detailed recruitment program to help organizations recruit, reward and retain the best people. CLCI will help develop a process of on-going employment evaluation targeting all areas of employment including selection, coaching, training and management performance.

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