The future of work is changing and it's time to embrace the new world. The workforce, workplace and technology are all undergoing dramatic shifts. And while these changes can be disruptive, they also represent a rich opportunity to reinvent your organization by utilizing new technologies like AI and automation in the workplace.
The good news is that we’re seeing more companies embrace change than ever before. And we don't just mean adopting AI—we're talking about reimagining their entire business model. To get you started on this journey, let's start by reviewing workforce planning, workforce management, and how to use both to prepare for the future of work.
Workforce planning is the process of forecasting future workforce needs, identifying gaps and taking corrective action. It helps an organization to prepare for future challenges and opportunities by ensuring that it has the right skills and capabilities in place to meet its goals.
Workforce management is a subset of workforce planning, which focuses on how people are deployed within an organization. Workforce management involves implementing strategies for optimizing performance, removing barriers to success, creating learning opportunities and providing recognition for both individuals as well as teams throughout your organization.
Scenario planning is a very broad approach that can be used in many different ways, but for workforce planning, it’s about creating a range of possible futures and identifying the best options from those scenarios. The purpose is to plan for the future by identifying risks and opportunities that may impact your business over time so you can proactively respond and execute strategies that will allow you to adapt.
According to a recent survey by PwC and the World Economic Forum, “business resilience” was cited as one of three top priorities for CEOs—the other two being leadership and innovation. This suggests that there is a clear need to ensure that organizations are prepared to deal with the complex challenges they face today. Business resilience is also strategic in nature—it requires an organization-wide view of risk, including both internal and external factors. It includes crisis management as well as cyber security, supply chain risks and even political issues such as sanctions.
It’s also important to note that resiliency involves people: it requires an effective workforce planning process to maintain your talent pipeline so you can respond quickly when needed. And finally—and most importantly!—you need future capabilities in order to be resilient against changing external factors like demographics or climate change.
Faethm is a workforce strategy platform built on advanced analytics that enables companies to make proactive and strategic decisions about their people, work, operations and the skills gap. Faethm's future capabilities model has been designed to enable business leaders to answer the question of how they will future fit their organization in the next decade.