Great article in Workforce Management magazine pointing out that many organizations are not really seeing beyond any urgent need to do layoffs…to the bigger, longer term challenges which remain in the global talent market:
Many companies are so consumed with layoffs or with just getting by now that layoffs are behind them, they haven’t begun to address the question of what comes next.
…yet the article goes on to discuss in some detail a wide range of things which are likely to come next, including the increased use of contingent workers, continuing population aging, changing skills needed, etc, etc. Regardless of the length of the recession, this larger demographic and societal changes are taking place – and unfortunately too many organizations are using the excuse of the recession to ignore them! Yet the leading organizations ARE preparing for their post-recession selves, making decisions and proactively recruiting the skills they believe will be critical to their future success. Yes, they might be wrong (nothing is certain, after all), but because they have adaptive workforce plans that have considered other options, they are able to be responsive to future changes.
Accenture recently published quite a bit of research that shows that decisions made during recessions have profound impacts on the difference between winners and losers post-recession. So why are people using the recession as an excuse NOT to make strategic decisions, especially about the workforce? Now is the most important time ever to have a strategic workforce plan in place…because ultimately a strategic workforce plan is the framework which allows you to make better workforce decisions.
How is workforce decision making tracking at your organization?
