In today’s ever-changing business environment, it’s critical for Human Resources (HR) leaders to be able to understand and plan their workforce using internal and external labor data and trends. But many organizations aren’t as effective at analyzing data and trends as they’d like to be. In fact, a recent survey showed that less than half (33%) of HR executives believe their organizations are able to do this well. 

 

It’s also common for many organizations to only take an inward-focused approach to data analysis — doing what needs to be done within the organization to fill open roles but failing to track the external factors that also impact their employees and business. 

 

To help your HR team take a more strategic and comprehensive approach to workforce planning, here are five key stats and trends to think about this year.

 

Employee Turnover

In the U.S., the average rate of turnover among all businesses remains at 57.3 percent.

 

During periods of high employee turnover, reducing it is a top priority. But there’s another, more immediate problem that comes with turnover: The impact it has on the rest of the organization. Internal promotions cause a reshuffling of team members. New hires need time for onboarding and training. When an employee leaves, HR has to complete an offboarding process that involves delivering final paychecks, ending benefits, and updating the organizational chart. Many people across teams have to deal with the added pressure and increased workload caused by turnover.

 

To ease the change that accompanies turnover, it’s important to be proactive rather than reactive. Getting rid of time-consuming, manual HR processes, single-use software tools, and spreadsheets and instead adopting a comprehensive human capital management (HCM) system with built-in position management is key. With all employee data, forms, and records accessible in a centralized HCM system, you can onboard and offboard employees quickly and easily. You can also analyze position data from all angles to know with greater certainty and communicate with greater transparency what the impact of any turnover will be so you can better prepare for it. 

 

Job Growth

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, total employment will grow by 153.5 million to 165.4 million between 2020 and 2030, an increase of 11.9 million jobs.

 

Job growth is generally considered a good thing, but it can also present some major difficulties for employers. With so many new jobs being created, many businesses are losing qualified job candidates and their best-performing employees to other companies, leaving them without an adequate workforce. Understaffed businesses risk additional employee turnover when remaining staff who have to shoulder the extra burden for too long start to burn out. 

 

To combat talent shortages while also preparing for business growth, it’s important to understand the types of roles and how many employees are needed in each role to adequately staff your organization — both today and down the road. There may be a need for new skills or the creation of new roles to make your business more competitive. Or there could be an increased demand for certain existing roles. Whatever the case, now is the perfect time to survey your current organizational structure and future needs so you can make strategic staffing decisions.  

 

Business Alignment

The majority of corporate executives (73%) say that poor workforce planning leads to talent shortages, making it virtually impossible to accomplish business goals.

 

Whether your organization wants to earn more profit, gain an edge over competitors, or boost innovation, without the right staff in place — and enough staff — these goals are much harder to achieve. But hiring new employees and promoting from within is often tied to available budgets — budgets that get determined outside of HR and don’t necessarily take into account the changing needs of the organization. This mismatch results in talent gaps and shortages that stunt your organization’s progress. 

 

To plan your workforce effectively, you need a way to connect applicant, position, budget, payroll, and other HR data to forecast and model your workforce — all in a single system. This helps you paint an accurate picture of staffing needs at any point in time and match it with available budgets, helping to avoid the staff shortages that can have a detrimental effect on the rest of your workforce, such as employee turnover and burnout. But even more importantly, you ensure that teams across the organization are staffed in the right way so they can align to business objectives. 

 

Position Management

57% of corporate executives say they need data on what positions or talents are required to meet business objectives.

 

Sometimes HR hires for positions that only meet short-term needs, for example, but won’t serve your organization in the long run. Yet it’s hard to know which skills and positions are critical if you’re still using manual data entry, spreadsheets, or disparate software systems to manage and develop your workforce. These older methods and tools create information silos and visibility gaps that don’t allow you to see your organization in full, and where and when it makes the most sense to hire or hold off. 

 

To fully know who and what comprises your workforce at any given time, you need position-level data that gives you a comprehensive understanding of the current state of your organization. A position management system supports you in strategic workforce planning by helping you avoid creating or filling roles that don’t serve a clear purpose, and hiring instead those with the necessary skills to help the organization meet its business objectives. 

 

Technology

By 2025, 45% of large businesses with hourly paid employees and dynamic labor demand will rely on automation to manage workforce scheduling decisions.

 

Manual systems and processes feel familiar, even if they’re cumbersome, and end up creating more work. But continuing to rely on old methods to manage and develop your employees no longer makes sense. With so much change happening across industries, it’s imperative that you find faster, more agile, and more predictive tools that can keep up with your own evolving workforce.

 

To update your processes, you need HR technology like an HCM solution or position management platform that gives you the up-to-date view you need into your organization, automates many common workflows, and helps you track historical trends to better predict future needs. Adopting the right technology now can help you respond and adapt quickly to new changes in the market and within your organization, and position your business competitively to attract and hire top talent.

 

Planning for the Future Made Easy

Strategic workforce planning is a necessity in these dynamic times. If you’re looking for ways to improve your workforce planning, consider investing in a technology solution that can replace slow, manual processes with automated workflows and connect and store organizational, employee, and role-based data to gain key business insights. The best solutions are built with a position-based architecture and include a centralized database, granular financial reporting, and integrated training and skills assessments.

 

Stop reacting and start leading with strategic, data-based decision-making.

 

SyncHR’s cloud-based HCM eliminates data and operational silos provides robust real-time insights and enables agile data-based decision making so you can lead with confidence.

 

Learn more about SyncHR’s strategic workforce management capabilities.

 

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