This page has been written to summarize the answers of some of the most common questions people ask directly, or search for when looking for this site.

 What is Strategic Workforce Planning?
Every organization is heading towards a future determined by its current trends and practices in areas such as recruitment, resignation, and promotion, and by social trends that determine what the available workforce will look like, and how they will respond as employees.  An aging population, changing education trends and the increased focus on work/life balance mean that this path will often not be the one that leads the organization to future success.  Many organizations sense this, but do not have a framework or tools to understand and analyse it - let alone to make the changes necessary to alter that future.  That framework, and those tools, are Strategic Workforce Planning.

How valuable is historic data when predicting the future?
Forecasting current hiring and retention trends to build a profile of your future workforce is a valuable exercise.  It helps to show trends that are unsustainable, and gives you insights into your current and future challenges, and helps to inform workforce strategies you may want to consider.  But to effectively forecast the future, it's only a starting point.  Environment Scanning and Scenario Planning are excellent complements to data analysis and predictive analytics.  To learn more about the limitations of using historic data to predict the future, please see the post The Future isn't what it used to be.

Can I use images / content from this blog in my presentation?
Absolutely!  Please just provide a credit / link to this blog somewhere in the presentation.

Have a question?
If you have any questions you'd like answered on this blog, or topics you'd like covered, please connect on LinkedIn or ask me on twitter.