- Organizations struggle to implement a strategic workforce plan. While headcount planning is a process most organizations are comfortable with, workforce planning is a more complex undertaking that involves more stakeholders, more quantitative and qualitative data, and longer planning horizons.
- A lack of suitable data and internal expertise on designing and applying workforce planning means that many organizations apply it infrequently, improperly, or not at all.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- It is common practice to continually reassess customers, markets, and products in today’s VUCA environment, but there is often no parallel assessment of workforce composition. Leaders need to be planful and develop a workforce planning strategy that positions their organization to take advantage of change rather than fall victim to it.
Impact and Result
- Start the workforce planning journey by designing the process and planning for the different stakeholders and analyses that will be involved.
- Implement a clear and straightforward workforce planning process aligned with organizational capabilities and maturity to make workforce planning achievable and attain the benefits of this strategic planning process.
Workforce Planning

This program has been approved for continuing professional development (CPD) hours under Section A of the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Log of the Human Resource Professionals Association (HRPA).

McLean & Company is recognized by SHRM and can award Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for the SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP®.

HR Certification Institute’s® official seal confirms that McLean & Company meets the criteria for pre-approved recertification credit(s) for any of HRCI’s eight credentials, including SPHR® and PHR®.
How to complete this course:
Use these videos, along with the Project Blueprint deck above, to gain an understanding of the subject. Start with the Introduction, then move through each of the Course Modules. At the end of each Module, you will be required to complete a short test to demonstrate your understanding. You will complete this course when you have completed all of the course tests.
- Number of Course Modules: 5
- Estimated Completion Time: 1.5 hrs
Learning Outcome
Create a workforce planning process that is aligned with organizational needs and capabilities.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, learners will be able to:
- Determine their approach to workforce planning by setting goals, project scope, and inventorying their resources and relevant data.
- Establish a plan for collaborating with functional leaders to effectively identify requirements for the workforce, such as skills, competencies, roles, locations, demographics, functions, and structure.
- Design a forecast framework to understand their workforce supply, demand, and gaps.
- Understand strategies to address workforce needs and prepare to implement the workforce planning process.
Course Modules

Design and Build a Strategic Workforce Planning Toolkit - Introduction: Create a workforce planning toolkit that will ensure the right talent is available when and where it is needed

Design and Build a Strategic Workforce Planning Toolkit - Module 1: Determine your approach to workforce planning

Design and Build a Strategic Workforce Planning Toolkit - Module 2: Establish a plan for collaborating with functional leaders

Design and Build a Strategic Workforce Planning Toolkit - Module 3: Design your forecast framework to understand workforce supply, demand, and gaps

Design and Build a Strategic Workforce Planning Toolkit - Module 4: Understand strategies to address workforce needs and prepare to implement the workforce planning process
Design and Build a Strategic Workforce Planning Toolkit
Create a workforce planning toolkit that will ensure the right talent is available when and where it is needed.
Executive Summary
McLean & Company
It is common practice to continually reassess customers, markets, and products in today’s VUCA environment, but there is often no parallel assessment of workforce composition. Leaders need to be planful and develop a strategy that positions their organization to take advantage of change rather than fall victim to it.
Situation
- Today’s rapidly changing operating environment is making it increasingly difficult to get the talent needed to execute on organizational strategies using traditional reactive talent management practices.
- 73% of executives predict significant industry disruption in the next three years, which will further transform the skills and roles needed (Mercer, 2019), and workforce planning is the solution: 60% of HR professionals rank strategic workforce planning as critically important to the organization’s ability to achieve business and HR goals (SHRM THRIVE360 HRMG, 2020; N=836).
Complication
- But organizations struggle to implement workforce planning. While headcount planning is a process most organizations are comfortable with, workforce planning is a more complex undertaking that involves more stakeholders, more quantitative and qualitative data, and longer planning horizons.
- A lack of suitable data and internal expertise on designing and applying workforce planning means that many organizations apply it infrequently, improperly, or not at all.
Solution
- Start the workforce planning journey by designing the process and planning for the different stakeholders and analyses that will be involved.
- Implement a clear and straightforward workforce planning process aligned with organizational capabilities and maturity to make workforce planning achievable and attain the benefits of this strategic planning process.
Operating environments are increasingly in flux, and the nature of work is rapidly changing
In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, it can be hard for organizations to keep up. With organizational disruption, shifting talent requirements, and changing workforce demographics, it’s more critical than ever to develop a plan for how to meet the organization’s future talent needs.
Organizational disruption
- 73% of executives predict significant industry disruption in the next three years, which will further transform skills needed in the future (Mercer, 2019).
- 2x The number of mergers and acquisitions worldwide each year has nearly doubled since 2002, resulting in increasingly complex organizations (IMAA, 2020).
Shifting talent requirements
- 42% of core workforce skills are projected to fundamentally change (World Economic Forum, 2018).
- The changing division of work between humans, machines, and algorithms will displace 75 million current jobs while creating 133 million new jobs (World Economic Forum, 2018).
Changing workforce demographics
- Workforce participation of older workers is increasing. By 2028, 1 in 4 employees is expected to be over the age of 55 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020).
- The number of young adults in the global workforce is decreasing, largely due to increasing rates of educational enrolment (ILO, 2019).
McLean & Company Insight
It is common practice to continually reassess customers, markets, and products in today’s VUCA environment, but there is often no parallel assessment of workforce composition. Leaders need to be planful and develop a strategy that positions their organization to take advantage of change rather than fall victim to it.