What is operational workforce planning?

While operational workforce planning and strategic workforce planning may sound similar, there are notable differences. Strategic workforce planning involves looking at the overall business strategy on a higher level, analysing global workforce trends, service plans and market differentiators. Operational workforce planning, on the other hand, involves tracking the performance and training requirements of individual staff and their teams, assessing how staff efforts contribute to the success of the business’s strategy. Therefore, this type of planning involves assessing:

• Staffing plans
• Rotas
• Responsibilities
• Role titles and specialisations
• Career progression paths
• Employee performance
• Skills gaps
• Supply chains

Why is operational workforce planning important for your business?

Strategic workforce planning involves creating long-term business goals, unique selling points and values. These are all important factors in helping a business to grow.

However, operational workforce planning happens on a more granular level; by streamlining day-to-day operations, businesses can help meet short-term targets which are relevant to business growth and the sustainability of the company. Other reasons for using operational workforce planning may include:

• Helping to cut down on business costs by streamlining operations, improving supply chains and designing more efficient recruitment practices
• Assigning the right employees to tasks they are suitable for, in order to meet short-term and long-term objectives
• Helping teams to respond more flexibly to ad-hoc changes
• Facilitating more efficient resource-sharing among departments, such as through cross-departmental collaboration and meetings
• Gaining greater insight into internship, training or apprenticeship opportunities within teams
• Helping talent managers identify career progression paths
• Facilitating staffing requirements during busy seasonal periods
• Helping to streamline project-based recruitment processes

How to approach operational workforce planning

Operational workforce planning generally falls into two categories: single-use plans and ongoing plans. Here’s a closer look at each and how they can help businesses meet their operational goals.

• Single-use plans: these plans help businesses to achieve one-off targets, such as launching a new product or service. For example, a company may need to create a marketing campaign targeted at both new and existing customers, outlining the required approach to boost sales.
• Ongoing plans: These plans help businesses to achieve repetitive or recurring targets; this could be HR process improvements, where a company regularly adopts new technologies to streamline operations as they become available.

Next, we’ll explore strategies for implementing operational workforce planning effectively. Given this approach’s emphasis on the workforce, it is particularly valuable for human resources teams aiming to support business goals through targeted workforce strategies.

Using people analytics

People analytics enables businesses to make data-driven decisions for operational workforce planning. Key areas where it can provide insights include:

• Skills gaps
• Employee performance
• Culture fit
• Personality fit within teams

In our guide on what is people analytics, we discovered that this approach can drive large-scale transformations, such as:

• Optimising workforce roles and their relationships to workflows
• Setting well-defined performance goals
• Evaluating the financial impact of strategic decisions and initiatives

Using people analytics empowers companies to make evidence-based decisions to reshape their workforce. This could involve identifying valuable upskilling opportunities, adjusting job specifications or the types of skills or qualifications to look for when recruiting new candidates.

However, to implement people analytics at this level, businesses often require an HR analytics team. This could require hiring for data analytics skills, if the team does not already have them.

HR automation

One of the most effective ways to streamline HR processes is through automation. As highlighted in our guide to AI in HR, employees spend an average of 14 hours a week each on manual, repetitive tasks and processes. By automating these tasks, staff can regain this time for more strategic, hands-on activities.

Importantly, automation doesn’t mean replacing staff. Instead, it enables HR professionals to shift their focus away from repetitive tasks and focus on areas requiring a more human touch, such as recruitment, interviewing and managing internal communications strategies. 

Filling skills gaps with skills-based recruitment, assessments and upskilling

Operational workforce planning often includes identifying and bridging skills gaps. Skills planning can help meet the short- and long-term goals of a business. For example, a company aiming to adopt a digital-first approach through organisational change may require employees to take on new, digitally focused responsibilities. By prioritising skills-based hiring, targeted assessments and upskilling initiatives, businesses can ensure they have the right talent to support these evolving operational needs.

Key steps in this process include:

• Conducting skills gap analysis
• Identifying and implementing upskilling training opportunities
• Identifying skills to recruit for as part of a skills-first recruitment strategy, such as digital skills

Effective workforce planning also involves anticipating future business needs — a key strategy for industries that are rapidly evolving or prioritising digital-first and sustainable practices. Gartner found that digital transformation is a priority for 87% of senior business leaders and involves taking a comprehensive look at an organisation’s components, talent and developmental stages. For example, this could mean assessing current technology use within the team and identifying opportunities for upgrades that align with the business’s future goals.

Recruiting for culture add vs culture fit

A business’s short-term goals may involve identifying the right combinations of personalities, skill-sets and values within teams. This could be on an ongoing basis, or to respond to new challenges within their industry context. This is where recruiting for culture add becomes an important part of operational workforce planning. Our article on building an inclusive workplace illustrates how recruiting for culture add, rather than culture fit, means recruiting candidates who provide different perspectives and therefore contribute novel approaches to problems.

Personality assessments can support this process by providing insight into team dynamics, including communication styles and potential leadership gaps. However, it’s important to recognise that these assessments may not capture the full range of a candidate’s personality traits, which could unintentionally narrow the talent pool.

While strategic workforce planning is useful for identifying key workforce trends and long-term aspirations within an industry, operational workforce planning involves taking a closer look at a workforce’s day-to-day operational processes and short-term goals. People analytics, automation, skills-based recruitment and recruiting for culture add can be all part of your operational workforce planning strategy.