About Course

Introduction to Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) / Strategic Resource Planning (SRP)

Strategic workforce planning enables WFM / RM Professionals and business leaders to identify and anticipate their workforce needs and challenges and take action to ensure the organization is prepared to succeed not only today but in the future.

The goal of a workforce planning strategy is to have a workforce with the right people, skills, shape, size, time, place, and cost: Right people. New hires that are beneficial to the company and work well with the company’s culture, values, and needs.

Strategic Resource Planning (SRP) or Strategic workforce planning (SWP) in the IT services industry is critical for ensuring optimal utilization of resources, aligning workforce capabilities with business goals, and maintaining a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving market. This summary outlines key aspects of SRP or SWP including long-term and short-term planning, project-based and skill-based resource planning, managing bench resources, roll-off processes, deployment strategies, changeability, billability, skill-based organization, and continuous skill building.

Post pandemic most industries witnessed a surge in huge hiring demands across the IT skills for immediate billable slots in the projects,

Most of the organizations hired and fulfilled the demands through multiple channels of FTEs (Full-time Employees), Contractors, GIG techies/part-timers and trained freshers with very high salaries by paying notice periods but out and Just -In -Time Hiring.

Even average resources were hired with high salary ranges thinking that they could be upskilled on the job learning  by the end of the year, in the process most of these companies didn’t follow any of the  Strategic Resource Planning (SRP) or Strategic workforce planning (SWP).

In the global IT industry, layoffs have become a recurring issue due to unplanned hiring and a lack of effective Strategic Resource Planning (SRP) or Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP). These layoffs often result from overestimating project demands, misalignment of workforce skills with market needs, and inadequate forecasting of business growth.

Learning objectives

• What is strategic workforce planning (SWP)?
• How does SWP deliver value?
• Building a talent inventory
• Forecasting the internal and external workforce supply
• Succession planning
• Evaluating the usefulness of SWP systems
• Who owns talent development?
• Strategic Workforce Planning: IBM Business Case