How Can We Get A Better Handle On Workforce Planning?

engaging with, with our podcast listeners. So,   we're going to put a link into our show notes  for a short little signup forum. So please,   if this would be even remotely interesting to  you, feel free to click on that and add your   name to it. And we're hoping to kind of be able to  build more sense of community amongst our podcast   listeners by kind of having more opportunities to 

engage with them. So we'll be probably mentioning   this over the next few episodes as kind of a  reminder and probably leave the link in our   show notes, kind of for the seeable future, but  make sure you check it out. With that being said,   now let's get started with the question, how can  we get a better handle on workforce planning?

into workforce planning. for the purposes of our   discussion, though, I think I really want to  focus on the second half of the description,   which is how do you determine what talent  management initiatives are needed to ensure   that the organization has the right people with  the right skills in the right place at the right   time that's going to allow for that organization  to actually accomplish what it's designed to  

accomplish. and then to achieve this, I think  there's really two things that I think would be   helpful to discuss. from a, you know, what are  some workforce planning tools that can actually   be used to help ensure the organization has those,  you know, that laundry list of right skills, blah,   blah, blah. And what is a talent management  initiative that supports workforce planning?

or less. This is something that gets,   briefly mentioned in, like, you know, high level  conversations. But. But it's very rarely a,   strategic priority. Kind of, you know, you know,  for year to year planning, it usually comes up.

we didn't, you know, we. We hit the. We hit a big   growth surge, and we weren't prepared for it.  So we have to react to it or, like, you know,   or we're having trouble with talent retention,  so we're constantly in a reactive phase. And,   I mean, I don't want to say, well, you want to 

solve your reaction problem? Workforce planning   is the answer, but there is a lot of benefit  coming from workforce planning that can help   alleviate a lot of the symptoms that end up  resulting with a lot of retention issues.

team. Right. So everybody's kind of carrying a  lot of different hats, which can be extremely   chaotic. We, we see you, we hear you, we  feel for you. We can't change it for you.

real well thought out, situations. It's  tough when you're in an organization,   especially when you're in HR department,  that is very reactionary. Going back to   our episode about what does HR stand for?  And the highly reactive HR departments have   a really hard time with these kind of  planning processes because they're just   trying to keep the fires kind of at a minimum  every day. So it does require a little bit of  

a mental shift away from that. We're all about  reaction to, we're all about strategic intent.

growth. Right. There's at least a growth  strategy in your organization for how are we   going to improve our market penetration, whatever  that m strategy may be, you're going to require,   skilled people in the right places, in the  right roles at the right time in order to   achieve that. And that can be the linkage  to why we actually need to start looking   at this from a more intentional strategic  standpoint rather than a replacement theory.

move to the next level. This is when workforce  planning should be a major component of that,   because it's also about the idea of what does  the CEO need to be in three years from now? Not   just what are the foundational bottom line, or,  you know, like, you know, the frontline staff,   but what does all people need to be? Because it's  about, you know, do we evolve the skills existing,   the existing skills and the existing people? Are  we about, you know, trying to bring in kind of  

newer ideas, newer talent? Are there new positions  we have to create that we get nobody, you know,   able to do it, that, we can upskill? These are  hard questions that we need to answer, but I, a   lot of it going back to, again, the technical  founder paradox, and making sure that you,   that your leadership team, and if you're listening  to this as an owner or founder, that your,   the evolution of your job is now holding back the 

growth of the organization. So this might be a   very helpful conversation to anybody who might  be dealing with a technical founder paradox.

they grew the company together. None, of them   really having any experience in management or  leadership before all technical experts in how to   build their product. This was a big challenge for  them to overcome in identifying that just being   the founders of the company is not necessarily  enough to ensure that you have the skills to   grow the company and doing this type of workforce  planning of, what, ah, we're not singling out any  

individual position or person. We're looking  at the organization to ensure, where are we   going? What is our, goal over the next three  to five years? How have we articulated that?   How are we going to get there from an external  scalability standpoint, but then linking that to,   do we actually have, what skills are required  to get us there? And do we have those skills in   house? Do we have them in our existing leadership  team? If we don't, how do we actually accommodate  

that? And I think that's where I'd like to kind  of shift our conversation to. How do we identify   those pieces? What are some strategies that we  can use, in that, and where can we actually pull   some good ideas around? What initiatives can we  start building in our organizations to ensure   that we have a bit of a, if not cushion, then at  least a little bit of security, knowing that we   have the skills and people in the right places  to ensure that we can actually continue to grow?

jump into them one by one. these, can be helpful   things in order for, again, the organization  to, again, have that more strategic approach,   that more proactive planning ahead to putting  some things into place that you might not have   thought about, or that might, again, like you  say, kind of build that framework or the guide   rails to kind of so you know, you're not spinning 

out of control. You've got some security in mind,   that there are some things that you can do,  things you can lean on to make sure that you   know that you're moving out of reactionary  into the kind of the strategic, intent. So   the first consideration we want to talk about 

is what we call a strength based strategy. Now,   the one thing that we hear a lot and is kind  of the cornerstone of a lot of very traditional   kind of management, consulting and organizational  process stuff is the idea of right people in the   right seats. And that's, you know, and there's a  lot of value to that. But the idea of the strength   based strategy is kind of having a bit of a shift  towards not the right people in the right seats,  

but the right strengths in the right seats. And  we'll tell you, we'll get into what that means  

in a minute or two. But the second consideration  we want to talk about is temporary talent that   sometimes there are some interesting options  about that are probably more and more common,   kind of as the workforce has evolving  around things like fractional leadership,   acting executives, interim leadership, those  types of things can be really helpful to kind of,   especially when you're trying to, like, you know,  like, patch, fill some gaps in your organization.

those one by one. so why don't we get started  off James with the strength based strategy?

of taking that strengths based approach. We see  it, ah, time and time again in our work as we are,   coaching organizations and leaders and teams  to really move towards that strength based   approach. This is what has allowed so many to  become very high performing, productive teams,   and allowing people to actually kind of the  byproduct of this also ends up being, general,   better sense of fulfillment in what people are  doing because they're playing to their more  

natural strengths. So this relates specifically  to workforce planning, because you have to have  

the right skills in place. You need to have people  who are playing to their strengths and playing to   their strengths within a role that really requires  that having somebody play to their strength, if   they're, very, administrative, focused, and that  is an absolute core strength that they have, and   they can, produce, that type of work in very short  order with minimal time and effort and energy.  

But the role that they're actually in, that's  not the, skill set that's actually needed in   that position, then you've got that misalignment.  So it's not. It's the strength and the skill,   within the role that they are performing  to ensure that they can actually reach the,   help the organization reach  their mandate and their goals.

there's value to that. But there's also the   idea of having a well rounded team where instead  of everyone having to. Having the same unique,   diverse spectrum of skill sets to accomplish all  the tasks of the job themselves, you have people   that have specialized skill sets, and, you know,  they do kind of like, you know, the majority of   their day are doing things that they're extremely  good at. And their skill sets that are really   good at complement another person's skillset. 

So almost like they kind of pass the work on   where person a does, you know, something they're  very, very good at and accomplishes, you know,   a big chunk of the project or pieces of the pie,  and then, they pass it on to person b, who does   different stuff that they're extremely, extremely  good at. And that idea of a complimentary,   well rounded team can be a very, very high  performing, and it can be a very satisfying  

role. When you're hired to do a job that, you  know, 80% of your job are things that you're   extremely skilled at, it can be. It can be very  satisfying, but it also allows you to, you know,   not having to find, you know, these perfectly,  these are unicorns that can do all aspects of   the job at an extremely high level, and they'd  have no weaknesses, and everything's a strength,   and, you know, those kind of things which are  really, you know, they're. They may be out there,  

but we don't really see them. And if  they're out there, they're really hard to.

nature of the jobs are themselves. but what's   important, I'm going to share the disclaimer that  I always have to share every time we, deliver this   program. This is not an excuse to dump the work  that you don't like onto somebody else. It's about   playing to your strengths and allowing others to 

play to theirs and hope. And, when we do this, we   often naturally allow ourselves to work on roles,  on work that is more naturally attuned to what we   enjoy doing and allows others to do the work  that they are more naturally inclined towards.   And by a byproduct of that is we have less of  the work that just drains us. But please don't   take this as an excuse to say, well, I'm only  going to do this work from now on because this  

is what makes me happy. And, you peons can take,  all the grunt work and, you know, sit in the mud.

in the right place. So, in the program, there's   a psychometric that kind of helps you identify  what are the kind of roles in a team that you're   naturally more inclined to be good at and actually 

more inclined to enjoy. And then it's the idea of   saying that if your skill set, let's say it's very  administrative focused, like I mentioned earlier,   you really like the kind of the task lists and  organization and those kind of pieces that if   the job requires a portion of that, but also  requires a lot of work, with, like, you know,   people and various and, a lot of social connection  and stuff like that, then partnering someone who's   good at the administrative pieces, as we call 

in the program a minder, and partnering them   with, a people focused person, which we call  a binder, to kind of help realize, you know,   that this kind of cooperative approach to the  work could allow both people to perform higher,   higher, quality work that they're doing things  that they're good at and complement each other.   And this is something that. And this is something  that can be a really helpful framework for when   you're trying to think about, okay, strength 

based. Sounds good, but how do I use this to   plan for my work, my m workforce planning? Well,  the program itself can be very, very great. Self   awareness, learning about people's skills and  learning about the things that you're nationally   inclined to do and helping identify kind of  inventory and kind of who you have around you.

a lot of the staff knew each other. The,   amalgamating of the people wasn't as much  of an issue because a lot of them knew each   other and a lot of them got along, but there  was really a lot of uncertainty about, okay,   how do we functionally task, bring people together  to actually deliver higher quality services?

roles that were duplicated. There were, skill  sets that were very, very similar, you know,   and uncertainty from people of, well, am I  going to have my job or am I going to be moved   into a different job? So this type of planning  tool to, I mean, before you can plan, you need   to inventory. You need to know what you have at  your disposal to be able to plan with. And that's   one of the strengths of the spectrum program, is  providing you with an inventory of the skills and  

preferences of your team members. And then being  able. What was so fitting with this particular,   client or set of clients was how, because they  were going through this merger upheaval process,   and there were vacant positions and there  were shuffling. There was the opportunity   to actually look at, okay, here are the skills  that we have. Here are the outcomes that we're  

trying to achieve. Let's now take a slightly  different look at how do we arrange our work   in a way that capitalizes on the skills and the  strengths that we have at our disposal now that   we know how to use them. Been a really cool way  of kind of shifting that narrative of, well,   we don't need three people who all do the same  thing. What we need is this minute, whatever the   outcome is, we have this many people, and we're 

allowing them to play to their strengths. We're   allowing people to, work on projects that they  find fulfilling. And yes, there's always still   part of your job that you're not going to enjoy.  You don't get to dump it on somebody else, blah,   blah, blah. Disclaimer, disclaimer. But 

it's been. It's. It was really satisfying,   from my perspective, to watch the shift happen  as people went from uncertainty of what is my   job going to be to starting to identify their  strengths and recognizing that, oh, holy crap,   I'm actually going to be able to do more of  the stuff that I enjoy with this new approach.

but to avoid the layoff they took the job. So you  see, so it's not an uncommon thing for people to   kind of be doing a job that they find, you know,  that takes a lot, that they can do. I mean,   let's be clear. They can do the job, but it  takes a lot more effort and energy to achieve   the outcomes than it would in a different  job that they were more inclined and had more  

natural skill sets to. So looking at this, this  full inventory, what was cool about it was that   the leadership of both organizations kind of got  a fresh perspective of, okay, well, even though   this person's been doing this job for three years,  they're actually, you know, their skill sets are   actually much more in line to do a different job.  So kind of being able to kind of have a fresh take  

on everybody. And again, and this wasn't saying,  you know, well, because you scored this, this is   your job from now on. It was. It was a strategic  approach to opening up dialogue and looking at,   can we do this whole thing? We're changing anyway,  can we do the whole thing better? And then can we   plan for the vacancies around what skill sets we 

need? Right. If we have a lot of really people   focused binders like I mentioned before, then do  we need to hire more of the administrative focused   minders to kind of come in to help flesh out that  skill set of those teams or some of the other   programs around, like, you know, people that find  opportunities, the finders around, like, you know,   grants and stuff like that, or the people that  are more of the grinders that are really about   kind of like the filling out, the documents and 

applications and a lot of these things about,   no, having a more. Again, the idea of that  well rounded team, instead of putting each   person on their own island and expecting them  just to be a perfectly well rounded individual.

Let's see what we have. And how can we, again,   put the right people in the right seats with  the right skills at the right time in order to   help the organization achieve its mandate? That's  what we are trying to do with workforce planning.

so let's move on to the second  consideration around temporary talent.

need to have a much more fleshed out skillset. You   could have somebody that's in charge of finances,  that's really their job while you're small,   is around billing and invoicing and those kinds of  things. But then we start moving into, you know,   bigger investments and bigger collections. You  might need to move into some, into more of a CFO   role rather than someone who's just managing 

your finances. Right. Or your marketing goes   from just like from being a social media and  kind of like, you know, advertising kind of   role. almost like an account manager, just to like  it, to like a CMO. Right. Like there's, there's.

organization forward. And we see it,   far too common that the CEO, whether it's from a  lack, of comfort with their new responsibility,   tend to get into the weeds and micromanage and  cause problems because they are trying to hang   on to what they're comfortable with rather  than what they actually need to be doing now.

not in the business. A really good option to  consider for workforce planning is a fractional,   chief operating officer, someone that  could take over the inward focus look   and kind of help structure things,  while the CEO could start looking   externally and start looking about growing  the business and that sort of thing to it.

temporary talent. Now, if you move from the  c suite, kind of down to middle management,   another great thing to consider is the idea of  the acting executive. And this is about having   we have a manager, often one of the challenge,  or we have a middlemander. Sometimes they have   a hard time moving up because there often is a lot  of expectation, on them that, that if you replace   those people, then it creates too much of a void  to kind of make, to make the kind of frontline  

operations work. So kind of people often get  stuck in that middle level piece but acting exec,   acting executive roles, can be about if, James,  you're the manager and I work beneath you, and I'm   kind of a senior person that works beneath you,  giving someone, like, giving me the opportunity to   become an acting executive to be your placement.  So if you take vacation, then it's just written  

into policy. I step into your role with limited,  authority, temporary limited authority to be your   designate. be able to kind of make sure that the  ball doesn't get dropped in your absence. And to,   fill that gap in during a leadership absence  can be a great way to kind of make sure that   people are not so irreplaceable that they  can't take time off or they can't, you know,   or try out other positions or whatever like that. 

But having those kinds of acting executive kind   of pieces in there, team leads that can step  in temporarily, can be a powerful tool around   trying to kind of plan and groom towards who's  going to be your future kind of core leaders.

you're in charge for two weeks. Great. It exposes   you to, new levels of responsibilities within a  fairly safe environment. It really ties in really   nicely with what we're going to be talking  about, next, which is succession planning,   which is a fundamental, core value that I think  every business needs to engage in. But we'll   get there. but, yeah. The idea of the acting,  role or really just having the foresight to  

recognize that stuff happens. People need to  take breaks, people need to take vacations.   How do we account for the work still being done  when a person leaves? And that type of strategy   can be really, really powerful, not only for  the business, but for your employees, too.

in your standard operating procedure. When   this person is out, this person who has received  probably some leadership training, most coaching,   has been prepared for the responsibility  and authority to be granted to them. Is the,   is the designate when that person's absent.  Like, we've seen this with municipalities.   Like the CAO is away often. Like, the  director of finance is the acting CEO in   their absence. But it's written right into  the bylaws. So that's something that we're  

talking about. A very intentional,  clear process, not just a casual,   I'm just going to name that guy in charge while  I'm gone. You're in charge, buddy. Good luck. No.

we move on to succession planning is the idea  of interim interventions. So sometimes we   use that, we use the word like acting, like acting  manager and interim manager interchangeably,   but they're actually not. An acting person  is someone that's temporarily been given   limited authority, whereas an interim person  has been giving a limited time and scope,   but they have complete authority to 

deliver on a manual role. Yeah. So,   like, I've worked a number of interim jobs where  I was hired from outside to kind of come in,   usually during a transition where I've been given  full, authority, but I've been given a clear,   limited, like, limited time and limited mandate  to achieve. And often part of my expectation was   to find my replacement of the permanent position 

to replace. And there's a lot of power in that,   too, because again, it's the idea of bringing  in somebody who, especially during a transition,   has the skillset to manage that core piece, but,  and then to hire somebody who doesn't need to have   that transitional experience, but can hand, but  can sustain the job once transitions happen long  

term, there's a lot of power in that, too. So this  is why I think the idea around temporary talent,   the fractional leadership, the acting  executive, and the interim interventions   can be great towards your workforce planning,  knowing about growth stages, knowing towards,   you know, in the next year or two, we might  need an interim person, then we can hire a full  

time person or this or that. This gives you more  options to consider instead of being feeling like   you're stuck, which is, I have to hire someone  full time and whether we can afford it or not,   and hopefully it'll work out. There's a lot more  options you have available to you. You just have   to kind of take a step back and rethink about what  your future workforce planning would look like.

leave and go somewhere else. Hear that type of  mentality, quote it all of the time. And yeah,   that can happen. The other worst thing that  can happen is that you don't train them and   they stay. I mean, there's famous quotes  attributed with all of these things and I  

can't remember them all right now. So I'm gonna.. [COBY]: I think it's Richard Branson, but, yeah,   but the idea though is that it becomes a self  fulfilling prophecy when you don't say, well,   I'm not going to bother training them because  they're not going to stick around. Well,   then they leave because they feel like  there's no future at the organization,   so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

And one of the things that I really  like as a comparative tool is talking about   the similarities between the consumer market  and the labor market. And I use this analogy   very frequently, talking about a whole bunch of  different things, whether we're talking about  

branding or value propositions in both. The  other thing that is so in the consumer market,   it is a well established and proven fact that  it is cheaper and easier to get an existing,   customer to make a second purchase than it is to 

have somebody make that first purchase. I firmly,   I don't, there isn't the same level of research  involved here, but I do firmly believe that   it is easier to invest in somebody and bring  them along to fill a identified need in your   organization than it will be to go out to the  marketplace to find that exact skill set that  

you're looking for and pay to bring it in. If  you invest in people, early on and, you know,   if you've done your workforce planning and you  know, what skills and positions you are going   to need, then you can start looking inward and  saying, okay, well, I think these, this cohort   of people are potentials who we can bring along  this chain in this journey. You'll have greater  

employee retention and loyalty. You'll have  greater success in terms of bringing people,   especially as people start to move through the  organization, into higher level positions who have   a clear understanding of every stage and aspect  of the business. It will make for a much stronger   organizational culture and organization as a whole  because of the way that you invest in your people.

Can that happen? And if they're like, well, no,   then we're like, well, then you don't sound  like you're a, more than three to four year   employer for a lot of people. Right. So the idea  of, like, you know, yes, it's definitely a more   transitional piece. We talked about the idea about  job security kind of, you know, needs to be. Maybe   we need to think about it a little bit differently  about job security for almost like wage security  

rather than 30 year career security. But  the idea is that if, you know, you only,   if you don't think employees are worth holding on  to, you won't hold on to them. But if you can try   to figure out that there is support, there is  encouragement, there is a bit of a plan about   moving from the mail room to the boardroom on a  long plan. Obviously, then there's something there   that you can work with that people will recognize  that you will see a bit of a shift in loyalty  

if you're showing it back to them. Loyalty is a  two way street, right? So the idea of succession   planning has to be about the idea of, if there's  a plan behind it, we value the growth of it, and   we value investing in our employees so that they  can reinvest their talents back into our business.

Coby, I see you. I value what you've done so far,   and I think you can do better, and we're going  to help you achieve that. It's a really powerful   tool to drive engagement, to drive a, sense of  belonging, to drive this idea of loyalty, of,   like it's, it can be such a powerful  tool that is so underutilized.

You might have to have some mentoring and some,   and some, maybe some, informing people of the  higher ups. This is going to be the new SoP or  

whatever it is. But that's something that  you could do today if you want to see how   succession planning and temporary talent can  actually improve the organization and start   to build a bit of that little pieces towards a  workforce plan, that's something that a lot of   people who are listening could probably do, you  know, in short order and would actually be able   to see a difference in a lot of these things  just by, within their own authority level.

at once. Pick where. Once you've done a bit   of an assessment, you know, where the biggest  gaps are. Start there, start small, just start.

are three considerations that we recommend. The  first is a strength based strategy where you try   and look at, instead of everybody being amazing at  everything and carrying a whole job on themselves,   could you move towards a strength based team  and talk about having the right skills in the   right place and idea of complementing skill sets  and a bit of a plan and framework to allow you   to actually to know what's going to give people m 

more satisfaction by letting them more, do more of   what they're already good at, and building teams  where people are actually playing their strengths   rather than expected to kind of carry all aspects 

of the job all at once. Number two is, like,   in consideration was temporary talent, looking  at things like fractional leadership, acting   executives, or interim interventions as tools that  you could pull on to kind of have some temporary   resources, in place to help during growth stages  or to help kind of planning for hiring people   down the road, but having that stopgap to kind of  fill those roles and fill those expertise until   you need them. And then the third is succession 

planning. Are you actually trying to move people   up the chain? Are there infrastructures in  place where people are being identified and   kind of given a bit of a journey to help them  find a reason to stay with you in the long term?   Asking yourself the question, could someone go  from the mail room to the boardroom? Is there   processes in place or support or even a desire 

to make that happen? These are, That's a great   question to ask yourself when you're trying to  think about succession planning, because largely,   when it comes to workforce planning, a big part of  it is, do we want workforce planning, our future   to be about growth, innovation, and developing  human capital? Or do we have this kind of limited   idea of workforce planning really being about  something that we have to do as a box to check for  

our strategic pieces. And it's not about strategic  growth, it's about traditional structures,   or it's about putting, again, pen to paper and  checking boxes that we have a bit of a plan,   because it's really important to realize that the  people that you rely on for your organization to   grow are the people that are going to be, ideally,  your future. So you want to make sure that you're   planning for them, investing in them. Good. 

All right, so that does it for us. For a full   archive of the podcast and access to the video  version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit   www.roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.