Will falling fertility impact your global plans?

The Economist reports that astonishing falls in the fertility rate are bringing with them big benefits…particularly for the economic situation in developing countries:

And falling fertility is a boon for what it makes possible, which is economic growth. Demography used to be thought of as neutral for growth. But that was because, until the 1990s, there were few developing countries with records of declining fertility and rising incomes. Now there are dozens and they show that as countries move from large families and poverty into wealth and ageing they pass through a Goldilocks period: a generation or two in which fertility is neither too high nor too low and in which there are few dependent children, few dependent grandparents—and a bulge of adults in the middle who, if conditions are right, make the factories hum. For countries in demographic transition, the fall to replacement fertility is a unique and precious opportunity.

It’s fascinating that the reduction in  birthrates from 5 per woman to 2 took 150 years in Great Britain…but took only 20 years in South Korea…and has fallen even faster in Iran.  What this does is increases the earning power and security of people in these countries – and quickly makes them richer, which tends to make them more educated as well as more productive.  This changes the amount and kind of work which can happen in that country…which might have serious impacts on where global organizations choose to have work done, and on the global competitive scene in many industries.  These things, of course, affect our workforce, and so for many organizations also impact our workforce planning.

Have you thought about how it might impact yours?

del.icio.us Tags: workforce planning,aging workforce,demographics

Management skills as a driver of lower turnover and higher productivity

Last week I was attending a round-table consultation on the development of Australia’s National Workforce Development Strategy when the topic of conversation turned to the value of good management. A number of people expressed the view that good management held the key to unlocking productive capacity for organizations, industries, and economies.

Then today I was interested to see that the people responding to this web-poll, “Why Do You Stick With Your Employer?” ranked “Good coaching from and interaction with my boss” as the leading factor in retention, rating it more than twice as important as any other factor.

It’s clear that effective and engaging managers can positively impact the productivity and turnover of their departments – but less clear how you enable best practise management.

The Peter Principle, the principle that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence", is a humorous idea, but still has resonance 40 years after it was originally described. I wonder if this is because there is often no guidance or mentoring for new managers to acquire the types of skills that good managers need, particularly those skills that can’t be taught in a classroom.

I’d be really interested to hear back from anyone who has experience with mentoring or other programs supporting people in the transition into management roles... and any evidence or anecdotes about the resulting long-term turnover and productivity impacts for their organizations.

Research tools for workforce planners

I’ve been rabbiting on about them for a while, but in case you haven’t tried them yet, two very useful research websites were quietly delivered in 2009:

1. Wolfram Alpha, which computes actual answers to questions instead of simply providing a list of sites that may (or may not!) have the answer – we played with unemployment in San Francisco compared to New York City and were instantly provided this:
   
   
   Then we asked the meaning of life, and were instantly provided this:
   
   
   Excellent!
   
2. Google Public Data gives users the ability to search and compared public data such as statistics provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau's Population Division. Asked the same NYC vs SF question, we got this:
   http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=county:PS060900:CN360610
   
   Google was quite a lot harder to get, and has a lot fewer data sources (so far), but it’s still worth a look

For workforce planners, this is a big deal as they make the data needed for environment scanning much more easily accessible in a standardized manner. Instead of navigating your way through complex websites, employment rates, population statistics and other information is available at the click of a button...and in the case of our workforce planning software, automatically integrated!

So, how will you be using these new tools? And what IS the meaning of life?

Scenarios: NOT “best, worst, most likely”!

I presented to a group last week who were a bit sceptical at my assertion that “best, worst, most likely” (BWML) is a really poor substitute for real scenarios. I accept that BWML can be interesting forecasts, but they aren’t effective scenarios Futurist Joseph Coates puts it best:

An odd number with a best case, a worst case, and a most likely case draws the user to prefer or emphasize the middle case. This best, worst, most likely model of the use of scenarios is deficient not only in regard to the tendency to drive toward accepting the middle, but it misses the point that alternative futures are real possibilities

Real scenario planning has very powerful benefits which in strategic workforce planning allow the organization to craft really effective, targeted talent strategies for competitive advantage…usually by enabling managers to suspend disbelief and explore totally different approaches in a non-threatening way. Forecasting from history does not do this. Also, forecasting from history is a lot less fun than scenario planning, and the business value it less. What’s not to love about scenario planning?

Are you developing real scenarios, or only BWML-ing?

del.icio.us Tags: workforce planning,scenario planning,best worst most likely

Social Networking Data in Workforce Planning

Steve Boese has an interesting post about some research done inside IBM on internal Social Networking, why people participate and how they behave. Essentially, users are either Caring, Climbing or Campaigning, which really starts to get at how social networking data can indicate all kinds of talent segmentation indicators – take a look at what the research says about what these different user types actually post:

Think about the cool uses for this in analytics, or in segmentation, or in all sorts of other interesting workforce planning software uses? Very, very cool…but also challenging in terms of privacy, stereotyping, etc. I think that this kind of data is essential for “predictive analytics” to be really useful in workforce applications…are you using any of it??

Technorati Tags: workforce planning,predictive analytics

Using historical data to predict the future workforce

Forbes wants us to learn an important history lesson:

History cannot be used to reliably predict the future, and data-driven extrapolation from past trends or 'analysis by analogy'--practices rife in the business and financial sectors--are particularly hazardous because they can give decision makers an unjustified sense of confidence. However, history is vital to understanding present conditions; without such knowledge, strategic policy planning efforts are likely to go awry.

Unfortunately, a lot of workforce planning software does exactly that, which is dangerous.

However, the main part of the article talks about how historical data is very important in making future policy decisions (the article means government policy, but the same applies for HR strategy and policy of course – workforce planning), provided it’s done right.   For me, this means mixing it with other futuring techniques and not using historical data alone…and then measuring progress so you can respond when you are inevitably incorrect in some of your assumptions…

Use historical analysis…with care.  Nice article – thanks to Katherine Jones for sending it over!

 

Technorati Tags: workforce planning,future workforce

Business Techniques Applied to Workforce Planning

With the surge of interest in Strategic Workforce Planning we are seeing, it’s not a surprise that so many models and approaches are being brought into the workforce planning sphere. So I thought it was a good time to do a few notes on how these models are being used…and what the strengths and pitfalls of using each in WFP is.

• Supply Chain. A perennial…slightly bad penny. Yes, I know it’s very trendy in workforce planning to say that optimization and supply chain approaches will provide the most efficient approach to the workforce, but let’s be honest…humans aren’t quite the same as the planning units used in supply chain. David Learmond at The Conference Board said it best, some years ago: “a tonne of pig iron doesn’t tend to have a spouse and children”. Look, there are definitely aspects of supply chain planning which are relevant to workforce planning, but never EVER lose sight of the human aspects…or you will lose relevance and effectiveness. We are not machines, and we should not plan as thought we or the workforce are machines!!! Hmmm, maybe one day I should write an article on this…with David Learmond!
• Prediction Algorithms. OK, I confess, this one moves me a bit (I am a serious nerd deep down), and Aruspex does do quite a lot of stochastic and other predictive modeling. BUT, there’s a limit! Maybe the key here is not to believe that the outcomes of the predictive models are the answer to your problems…rather that they can help lead you to the real question?
• Kano Models. This one was mentioned at the Human Capital Institute Event, and is based on an 80’s customer satisfaction model – essentially the practitioner was using it to determine if the services (which were metrics and reporting services, not really SWP services) were valuable to the business. This model is usually used in product management, and as SWP should be thought of as an internal product (as should all change initiatives), there is some value…but don’t get lost in this model – the other models described on the wikipedia page probably provide as much value, if rather less potential to confuse! Choose the one that resonates with you.

These are just a selection – what “non traditional” approaches are you seeing in use?

del.icio.us Tags: workforce planning,supply chain,hr planning

HR.COM research on workforce planning

You can never know too much about a good thing, and so I’d like to encourage workforce planners to participate in HR.COM’s research on the state of workforce planning in 2009.  Please, take the survey, share your wins and challenges, and look forward to the results of the research soon.