The London Borough of Havering are a local council in East London, with around 3000 employees - 450 of which are hiring managers – with the recruitment team making around 500-600 hires a year. With the council facing huge budget pressures, and finding the Local Government Authority’s approach to workforce planning falling short, Foresight was introduced to provide a clearer picture of the future of their workforce. We’ve implemented our Workforce Planning Framework with as little resource and time investment as possible, due to an already stretched HR team.

So Dan – why the focus in Workforce Planning recently?

At Havering we believe that workforce planning should be owned by our managers / leaders of people and not be known as an HR initiative, with the burden on HR to collect all the data. With the number of managers that we have within the organisation it is impossible to do this manually. We partnered with Foresight as we wanted to create workforce plans with each manager using a digital exercise that is quick and easy. As we don’t see workforce planning as a ‘one and done’ exercise, but rather a fluid, week to week, month to month evolving thing, the data clearly needs to be refreshed regularly. We have chosen to do this every quarter.

Why does Workforce Planning get knocked down everyones agenda, year after year?

People think it’s really complicated and takes a lot of time. If you’re a line manager, HRBP or work in TA you’re already so busy so Workforce Planning feels like a big task. Where do we start? How do we approach it? It can be overwhelming I think.
However, if you truly want to deliver on your organisational goals then you need a plan in place for your key resource - which is your people. The thing I would say is it shouldn’t be difficult to get started.

And had you tried anything yourself before working with Foresight?

Like many local authorities we have tried to do workforce planning before, we’d engaged the LGA (Local Government Authority) which provide workforce planning support but unfortunately, it’s a big excel driven framework that takes loads of time, it doesn’t target all the levels within the organisation we wanted to, and involves a lot of in person workshops – which is extremely time zapping! Plus, ultimately, it’s a one and done approach. It didn’t give an organisation that changes as fast as we do the opportunity to review, edit, refresh on an ongoing basis that Foresight gives us.

Talk us through your process at Havering:

First, we sat down as an HR team with the Foresight team and selfishly decided what information we wanted to know from our managers that would help us drive the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time. We then engaged every line manager via the platform, to take part in a 10-15 minute exercise whereby we asked them very simple questions about their team. We kept it simple to start off with knowing that we can evolve over time. Our questions to managers were about things like recruitment needs, retirements, maternity / paternity leavers, adoption leave, sabbaticals. This allowed us to have all our known FUTURE recruitment needs in one plan, provided by every manager. This in turn allows for much more proactive recruitment delivery and greater business continuity. We also asked them about flight risks which allows us to support the manager to retain key talent, saving us huge amounts of money in the process. We use all of our data at business unit and organisational level to help create tailored workforce plans for whoever needs it.

What was it like getting your manager data for the first time?

It was exciting, suddenly we’ve got all this information now which allows us as an HR function to really have more targeted conversations and join up all the dots around the different teams involved. It has allowed us to be more aligned on who is involved in respect to which piece of data. So, I’d sum it up as exciting yet daunting, but also once we got the data it was reaffirming that this was the right approach.

What kind of things have you and the team been able to do with your data?

We’ve done quite a bit already. One example would be some of the quick wins with managers. It has flushed out quite a few instances of managers needing to raise a flexible working request for someone in their team. As a result, we worked with the Foresight team to build a simple automated process that gets guidance to managers immediately on what the process is for Flex working. This might just sound like 1 admin task removed but the bigger impact is less work for the manager and, we will have retained what might have been a flight risk in their team due to a manager not acting quickly enough. Multiply this scenario by 20-30 times and suddenly across 1 data point of flexible working requests we’ve saved quite a bit of time, money and effort already. Then multiply this across all the questions asked and data obtained and we’re getting a big return.

Was it hard getting colleagues on board?

We know our managers are exceptionally busy but they’re busy in the here and now. We wanted them to stop and for the first time really think about what’s coming next, because thinking about that will help them in the here and now too. However, Managers haven’t done this before, so the other sell was that we needed a way to make it as simple and easy as possible for them. Not via a traditional theoretical exercise or even leaving them to their own devices. Through using Foresight, they are walked through a simple, quick, but effective exercise with lots of guidance and signposting to get them into the right space.
We believe getting managers to think about the future of their team actually helps them in the short, medium and long term. Making the process simple and easy to access, with simple questions to answer really landed well with our managers.

What about the wider HR team?

If felt very collaborative. We don’t have huge amounts of free time and resource within our function. There are a million things going on, but it felt very coordinated, aligned and very collaborative, like I said. Everyone was involved which then allowed everyone to own the data that was relevant for them. It has brought the HR team and department heads very close together. As we’re responsible for our own data sets, we can also do even more great stuff with the automations within Foresight to remove even more tasks from our HR team, by getting information to managers much quicker.

Has having this data created more work for you and the wider team?

No, it’s just made us more efficient and work in a smarter way. We’re no longer trying to find the data. The data comes to us, and we can then action and analyse it. It’s also removed a lot of time from our managers workload. We don’t ask them to spend half a day designing, creating, and maintaining a workforce plan. It’s now done in 10 mins every quarter.

Could you focus on this because the organisation was going through a quiet period?

Absolutely not. There has been so much going on! New target operating models, changes at all levels, things that could easily put the brakes on projects like this. As a local authority we were also under huge budget pressures, a section 114 that effectively means we’ve run out of money. However, we wanted to progress for one main reason, this is the “right” thing to do. If we want to be a successful, efficient, high performing organisation this is where is starts. If we can’t get people to plan, then we’ll never succeed doing the things we want to do.

What was the implementation and launch of Foresight like?

It was so easy! We were done in 3 months start to finish. Not long at all, it was so the right thing to do. Short term pain for long term gain but there was no short-term pain!
It’s a project that we can look back on and be really proud of. It’s now embedded into our BAU. From top to bottom everyone is very engaged.

How did you go about the change management aspect of a project like this?

We’ve created an easy way for managers to tell us what’s going in their team, and keep it refreshed, then action their data. It didn’t need a huge education piece; we didn’t need to bring managers in and train them up. It was almost change management by stealth. Sometimes you can make things bigger than they need to be. This is one of them. We kept managers informed with a clear comms plan but kept the process simple.

What other data did you receive from managers that was interesting?

Managers started to tell us in their droves about learning and development requirements for them but also for their teams. This data will prove pivotal in us moving towards the skills base that we as an organisation need for the future. Suddenly we now have a lens across the organisation on not just what a department needs, but also each individual manager and team. So, we can now administer a laser targeted approach to our L&OD requirements. Again, this is all automated within the platform; instantaneously guiding managers into our new Learning Management System to the relevant modules without the need for another task from HR. So, it showed that managers felt listened to as they received an instant response. Plus, the content in the LMS can be created to match the learning needs of the employee base.
Our data has also driven up our ability to offer apprenticeships dramatically, as we now know what learning requirements we have, we can link that seamlessly into to what apprenticeships we can offer. We’ve had more enquiries about apprenticeships in the last two weeks since having the data than we did for the whole of last year. We have a big goal of becoming a learning organisation and this puts us firmly on that pathway.
Another massive benefit is we also want to be become a data driven, decision making organisation and this approach has allowed us in HR to be that without a lot of effort. It’s all done for us, and we can focus on making the decisions rather than the process and data capture.
Another interesting data point is that we have quite a long tenure within our workforce but what that creates is the potential for knowledge transfer risk. For example, Bob might retire soon, and Bob has info in his head that we need to know about, well now we can stop Bob leaving with organisational critical knowledge in his head, ensuring that their knowledge is transferred well in advance of them leaving.

What would you say to people thinking this isn’t the right time to start Workforce Planning?

Regardless of what’s going on in your organisation there will be data that you’re missing out on and will ultimately cost you. Just because you’re going through a restructure for example, you still might have internal or external hiring needs. There might be flight risks. There might be maternity leavers. Take out the business unit that is going through a restructure if needs be, but there really isn’t an excuse anymore not to do workforce planning.

As a TA function we were very reactive. We worked hard to provide a good service but were limited in what we could do because we never knew what hiring needs were coming from the business until far too late. This meant no matter how great we were as a team, or what technology we could leverage to source candidates, there was always a lag; resulting in an empty chair and lost productivity. What’s more, managers were often frustrated, thinking TA was to blame for a slow recruiting process.

Did it concern you that you needed to ask managers to take part?

No. We can’t do our jobs without partnering with managers. We just saw Foresight as a way of partnering with them at the right time. The input needed from them up front is minimal, and it stops them feeling the pain later down the line when they have an empty chair, missed deadlines, projects delayed etc. We also needed a way of making managers more accountable for owning the recruiting process (tactical workforce planning), we just had to find a solution that was low impact for them. They need to find a maximum of 10 minutes every 3 months to make everyone’s life easier. It’s really not that big an ask, and our compliance rates have shown managers agree and are engaged.

Did your HRIS offer a solution?

We use Workday at Carrier and of course, it has a Workforce Planning module. However, when we investigated, it was clear that Foresight does very different things to Workday. The module ‘Prism’ in Workday is top down, more of a financial modelling tool really. Foresight does much more for us; from extracting the granular detail of demand for my team to use, to then automatically carrying out multiple actions that my team would have to do based on that data. Once you have your workforce planning data, Foresight becomes more of a TA effectiveness tool and HR enabler.

How much effort was it to get started?

We started off with a pilot area. The results across that were instantly evident and that built the business case to roll out wider. As with anything it does require initial effort but if you don’t want to be delivering the same reactive service year after year then you will need to put some effort in. However, it was only about 2 hours per week for 3-4 weeks for the initial launch, and the team at Foresight are great at taking care of as much of the set up and configuration as possible for us.

Has it produced any ROI yet?

Instantly. The ROI is unlocked in different intervals. The 3 main areas for us are: more efficient recruiting, mitigation of flight risks and earlier manager intervention on performance issues. In year 1 we have already recouped 6X our initial investment with much of the year left to go.
Other than financial benefits it has brought another level of credibility to the function and assisted with the perception change that we’re equal partners to our hiring managers.

What would you say to anyone thinking about using Foresight?

No matter where you’re at in your transformation journey, or how mature you think you are as a function, having a clear picture of your demand and flight risks is critical to better delivery. Don’t be scared that it requires manager participation. Start with one business area, get results and use them as the basis for your business case to adopt further. I really feel that this is game changing innovation at its best. The beauty is in its simplicity. For me this has undoubtedly been a key enabler in further unlocking our HR operating model.

DHU is a 3000 strong Healthcare organisation, delivery services to the NHS front-line, including urgent and emergency care, primary care, out-of-hours services and NHS 111.

Is Talent Acquisition responsible for Workforce Planning in your organisation?

No. Pretty much every function has a responsibility for workforce planning, but because full ownership doesn’t sit within one function it doesn’t get picked up at all. The fact that nobody fully owns it causes a lot of pain for a lot of functions (including me and my team). For example, it didn’t matter how great my team was at recruiting, they were permanently stuck in 'reactive mode'. This then resulted in long Time to Hires, too many unnecessary agency hires and ultimately unhappy hiring managers. Even if we had the budget to throw more recruiters at the problem, it wouldn’t stop the reactive nature that our hiring communities interacted TA.

What was your first step towards driving better Workforce Planning?

Defining what Workforce Planning means to me and my team, and that’s it. Finding the root cause of our issues. This was managers not spending anytime planning their hiring needs for 3,6,9,12 months ahead. We had the full spectrum of manager capability in this respect. Some managers were great at doing this, but then they certainly weren’t sharing it with me and my team until the last minute.
Then at the other end of the spectrum, some managers didn’t know where to start. So, I needed a way to change how managers thought about planning their team requirements, standardise the way they did it and somehow do it all without adding anymore work for my team. Afterall we needed the data, not the extra work of getting hold of it all!

Did you think you were stepping on finances toes by taking the lead?

No, because as I described, I focussed on fixing what Workforce Planning meant for me in TA. My colleagues in Finance will absolutely be included once we have a plan to collaborate on. I didn’t want managers to be confused in the first instance and link what we were doing into budgeting or headcount planning. That will all take care of itself once I have a demand plan to work with.
Just because managers create a hiring demand plan for their team, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will all get hired. My first step was to find out what demand was out there in the business and coming down the line to my team. From there I could link it in with budget, headcount etc. and control the priority of demand and pre-approval of critical roles. I wanted to be in control of the demand plan, much like my CTO, CIO, CMO all control their functions roadmaps.

Why did you choose Foresight?

We aligned with their ethos and framework that managers and leaders of teams should be accountable for the Workforce Planninging of their teams. We also needed a way to educate managers on the importance of this and a way to extract the data from them simply and intuitively. Plus, as I said, I needed a way of running the process without adding work to either my team or any of my colleagues. Technology was the only way and Foresight ticked all of our boxes!

How did you get managers onboard?

The key thing was that we didn’t make this a Workforce Planning initiative. Foresight actually gave us a way to communicate what’s in it for the managers themselves, and help “sell” the manager the need to take part. Essentially by them spending 10 minutes of their time once every quarter, we could ensure their teams were fuller, recruitment would be on time, project delays would be avoided and most importantly patient outcomes would be improved.
Once they do take part, Foresight has automated processes to make sure that the data they tell us gets actioned in the quickest and most efficient way possible. This creates a self-fulfilling virtuous circle of managers wanting to provide us this data. All this with very little work from our side.

What was the feedback like from your Exec teams?

Firstly, from my perspective, this is single handedly the best investment in technology I’ve made in years as a TA leader. Our Exec team absolutely love the process, the data and the results. They all take part in it as managers too, so they get the full experience. What surprised me is that they see this as much more than a Workforce Planning tool or process. They told me that they see it as a way to drive people and culture revolution here at DHU. It gives us all an insight into almost every strategic initiative we need to do from an HR perspective.

Has Foresight produced ROI yet?

Instantly, but interestingly the ROI is also unlocked in different intervals. The 3 main areas for us are more efficient recruiting, mitigating flight risks and reacting and redeploying our talent. So improvements in my teams recruiting KPIs for sure, but significant cost reduction from reducing the unnecessary recruitment of regrettable leavers that could have been saved (if we had previously had the knowledge of who to target). In the first year we are on course to recoup £1.5-2m in cost benefit, which is many, many times more than the investment in the technology and process. Outside of the financial returns it has brought another level of credibility to the TA function, and a topic that the Exec are actively engaging with me about, such as I’ve never seen before.

How much effort was it to get started?

From day one it has been a breeze! If we factor how much ‘work’ I needed to do, it was about 10 minutes running off a report, 20 minutes of reviewing the automations and communications scripts and 15 minutes of writing decent comms out to the business explaining what we are doing (and I’m fairly sure Foresight gave me templates for that anyway!). Every other aspect of the heavy lifting was owned by our Customer Success lead. This could easily have been up and running in a matter of days.
No SaaS product on the market can boast that in my opinion. Outside of work, most of the support came from the clear drive for customer success. From day one, the Foresight CS team drove such a buzz around the benefit to DHU and how it ultimately leads to better planning and patient safety – there was no Foresight agenda, purely how they could support our evolution.

Would you recommend Foresight to your peers in TA?

This isn’t a sales pitch to anyone. I hope this is a real, valuable piece of insight that starts somebody else on a journey of truly owning workforce planning and demand data. Personally, and in my time in TA, Foresight is in a league of its own. I don’t see this as a shiny new toy, I see this as the number one tool that should have always been in place. Foresight has, in an incredibly short space of time, taken us 100 steps forward in fixing our understanding of our workforce at the end of 2023 and I cannot wait to evolve this further in 2024. I can’t now imagine having to run a TA function without this insight, so yes I’d recommend everyone takes the time to see if it can work for them!

Warm Regards,
Chris Rowe

Workforce Forecasting aims to estimate current and future trends, historical patterns, and external events and their impact on an organisation. There is no method of forecasting that can predict the future with 100% accuracy/ However, the more sources of data, the more accurate forecasts will be.

What is Workforce Planning?

Workforce Planning takes Forecasting a step further and uses the Forecast, along with other detailed analysis methods, to design a course of action to ensure the organisation has the resources to achieve their business goals and priorities. This way, the organisation doesn’t suffer due to lack of talent or skills.

Who is responsible for Workforce Planning and Forecasting?

Strategic forecasts are usually made by Senior Leaders, the Finance department, Analysts, or even outsourced specialists.
Workforce Planning is typically implemented and carried out by HR and Talent Acquisition, as they are responsible for hiring, retaining and training employees.

Planning is goal-driven, while Forecasting is data-driven.

What’s the difference between Workforce Planning and Workforce Forecasting?

Workforce Forecasting is a top-down approach that is based on assumptions from several departments across an organisation. These assumptions are made based on historical data, such as attrition, as well as current trends and business performance. The forecast may be made based on facts, but it is still an estimate and relies on a certain degree of guesswork.
Workforce Planning uses assessment tools to figure out the current state of the workforce, and then creates plans to address these issues in the short- and long-term. Workforce Planning is a holistic approach that considers Workforce Forecasting as one element of the process, as well as skills gap analysis, succession planning, and retention.
When you run a Workforce Planning and Forecasting process, the outcome should be actionable data to work with and create plans from. Forecasting may be able to tell you what your competitors are up to and how much budget is available next year, but with a robust assessment Workforce Planning can tell you:

• The exact number of roles that will need to be backfilled due to attrition, or bought/redeployed due to growth and new projects, as well as the details of each role, like location and salary information.
• Any existing skill gaps that are currently an issue, or may become an issue in the future, along with their urgency level and timeframes.
• A list of every flight risk in your organisation, including the reason why they want to leave the business.

This data can only be collected using a bottom-up approach, ie. Assessing each team individually. This is because managers at a line manager level are more in tune with the needs of their team compared to higher-level managers who have a more strategic role.
By using a Workforce Planning assessment tool, all the data you need is quickly and easily collected from line managers. You can then use this information in conjunction with business/workforce forecasts to create actionable plans. For example:

• Knowing what (and when) recruitment demand is coming up, as well as the specific details of these roles helps Recruitment and Talent Acquisition teams by allowing them to start working on vacancies well ahead of the required date, meaning less time with an empty seat in the business.
• Any skill gaps identified can be used to inform training and development courses and build up skills within the existing workforce.
• Flight risk profiles can be used to assess individual employee’s needs, and give extra support to both the individual and their manager with the aim of mitigating the risk of them leaving.

Why does Workforce Planning and Forecasting Matter?

Every business, regardless of size, benefits from Workforce Planning. Organisations are constantly in a war for talent, and building and maintaining a robust skilled workforce in a sea of competitors is no easy task. Especially in harder to fill roles where there’s a lot of competition for a small pool of talent, not having the right people in the right roles at the right time can mean a huge loss of productivity, affecting the bottom line. Competition will only get fiercer as time goes on, so the earlier organisations start workforce planning, the more of an advantage they’ll have over their competitors.

A crucial aspect of workforce planning involves gauging the requisite talent level for an organization's envisioned future state. For instance, if a company currently heavily relies on individual contributors, there might be a necessity to bolster the number of team leaders in anticipation of a larger, more intricate organization with an expanded portfolio of products and services two years down the road.
Effective workforce planning encompasses a forward-looking perspective that considers ongoing and future training needs for existing staff while also forecasting potential skill additions through new hires. In contrast, inadequate workforce planning neglects to account for the forthcoming skills and knowledge required by employees, resulting in rapid obsolescence of existing skills, diminishing their value to the organization over time. In the absence of a well-crafted workforce plan that anticipates employee training needs, employees may find it challenging to work smartly and efficiently due to a lack of the requisite skills and knowledge.

Underdeveloped Leadership Pipeline

As organizations expand, the need arises for a well-structured alignment of employees based on their specific roles and responsibilities, whether categorized by function, location or project. As businesses mature and teams demand more day-to-day management, the demand for leadership talent grows. When the business fails to recruit and train a sufficient number of individuals for leadership roles, the issue can rapidly escalate as the organisation’s needs surpass the capabilities of its current managers.
Effective workforce planning moves beyond predicting the requirement for individual contributors and frontline staff; it also includes identifying the required number of leaders, their skill levels, and where they should be deployed as the business evolves. Nurturing a leadership pipeline as an essential element of workforce planning. Some consequences of a weak leadership pipeline due to poor planning are:

• Managers struggle to establish connections with employees and build trust in their team.
• Leaders lack the necessary skills and training to set expectations and provide effective feedback for guiding employee performance.
• Newer leaders may find themselves in management roles before they’re ready to lead, due to a scarcity of leadership talent elsewhere in the organization.
• The organization may need to recruit executive leaders externally because an insufficient number have been cultivated internally.

Low Employee Engagement

Employee engagement has persistently hovered at low levels for a considerable period. Ineffectual workforce planning can exacerbate this already challenging situation, as it may engender feelings of undervaluation and neglect among employees. Indeed, it's a daunting task for employees to sustain high levels of engagement when their organization appears to be reactively structuring its staffing plan to accommodate growth.
A lack of transparency about workforce staffing plans contributes to employees feeling uninformed about company decision-making, which can also lead to poor employee engagement. If company leaders fail to plan (or don’t at least send clear signals that there is a plan), employee commitment can wane over time. Poor transparency can have a particularly negative impact on the engagement of leaders outside the C-suite. When department and division leaders feel left out of key staffing decisions they’re expected to implement, they can become disengaged and unmotivated.

Underproductive Employees

The efficiency and speed with which employees operate significantly contribute to a company's ability to meet its growth objectives. Nevertheless, inadequate workforce planning can divert attention away from the critical elements such as technology, training, and resource allocation that can amplify employee productivity. In the absence of comprehensive workforce strategies, employee productivity can suffer, unable to surmount challenges associated with workloads and skill levels.
Subpar workforce planning also hinders an organization from honing in on the most value-added employee activities and from optimally aligning talent with the fundamental drivers of company growth. Workforce planning transcends mere staffing considerations; it also ensures that teams and individuals are engaged in tasks that align with the company's core objectives. A case in point is a company that experienced a 6 percent boost in productivity when it implemented a workforce plan that strategically realigned work responsibilities across various functions.

Higher Turnover

Inadequate workforce planning can result in reactive hiring decisions that come too late to effectively address evolving business requirements. Prolonged talent shortages in rapidly expanding sectors can lead to excessive reliance on current employees to compensate, ultimately causing heightened stress, burnout, and increased turnover.
Failure to proactively plan for and manage turnover hinders company growth, as it incurs both time and financial costs to replace departing employees. Estimates suggest that replacing an employee can cost anywhere from 50 percent to 200 percent of their salary. When workforce planning falls short, the Human Resources department and company managers end up dedicating more time and resources to devising solutions for talent gaps and recruiting replacements. This leaves them with fewer resources and less time to focus on activities essential for fostering growth, such as training and developing the existing workforce.

Less Collaboration Across Teams

Company growth and innovation are closely intertwined, but achieving innovation becomes a challenge when teams operate disjointedly, and lack an organizational structure that encourages open communication and collaboration. Workforce planning should extend beyond recruitment, emphasizing the creation of an organizational structure that aligns teams effectively, enabling them to work together and share insights across the various departments and functions. Neglecting a well-structured workforce plan can lead to isolated, inward-focused teams that hinder innovation, and therefore business growth.