Public sector workforce planning may be more advanced and long-term than in the private sector, according to research by Dr Peter Samuel of Nottingham University Business School.
‘Regular workforce analysis across a range of indicators can help firms to match their HR strategy to their competitive strategies more effectively,’ he said in an interview with the Human Capital Forum.
‘This may also go some way to identifying the mechanisms that generate observable workforce characteristics, perhaps even leading to improved performance. My own ongoing research demonstrates that this kind of analysis is widespread in the NHS systems of the UK which, for example, has to commission medical and professional staff years ahead of actual demand.’
This can only be achieved, he added, with a high degree of strategic planning, foresight and workforce/labour market intelligence. Effective workforce analysis and planning ‘is far more than a mundane exercise in bean counting and many private sector firms can learn much from public sector practice - the latter operating in a state of near continuous resource scarcity.’
In the private sector, by contrast, workforce analysis is often only undertaken ahead of downsizing, restructuring or to meet compliance requirements such as equal opportunities monitoring.
While most firms possess considerable amounts of data on their employees, this is rarely explored systematically. Too often, staff turnover and absenteeism, for example, are simply regarded as a problem ‘for management’ rather than a problem ‘of management’.