Objective of this section
The purpose of this page is to clearly articulate what we mean by “workforce planning” at TeamForm – what organisational problems it solves, who it’s for and our recommended approach to the end to end process.
What is Team-Centric workforce planning?
At TeamForm, we think of team-centric Workforce Planning as the process of analysing an organisation's current and future workforce needs through the lens of the people capabilities available in your workforce (workforce supply) and the teams that deliver value based on the organisation's strategy and goals (workforce demand). Effective workforce planning allows you to have data-informed plan to provision enough of the right people, at the right places, at the right time, and within cost constraints to meet immediate and longer term delivery needs.
There are five elements to successfully embed and uplift team-centric workforce planning capability in your organisation.
Work taxonomy and value assessment - what level of work is used to assess demand, at what stage is work considered committed 
Funding model - what approach to funding are you adopting (e.g. capacity-based) to enable effective cost management discipline whilst continuing to provide a flexible approach 
Continuous workforce planning - how does the plan contribute to the overall goals / objectives of the organisation, are the teams working on the highest value work and do they have the right mix of people
Planning and forecasting - linking the now to longer term plans for training, mobility and potential hiring strategy 
Team / workforce mobility - providing individuals with an opportunity to learn and up skill whilst ensuring cross-functional teams are composed to deliver on their outcomes
Why do large organisations need team-centric workforce planning?
In all likelihood, organisations do not have a clear understanding of who is working to which high level strategic outcome, the labour cost of teams delivering on these outcomes, and whether they have the right mix of staff capabilities working in those teams to deliver them.
All organisations, especially large enterprises, are constantly subjected to constant changes and disruptions to their business and workforce – changing macroeconomic conditions, the need for innovation, changing customer needs, shifting people and team factors (skills, roles, capacity, cost, locations), and staff churn.
To better respond to that change, organisations need to continuously and consistently evaluate what those changes are, and how they best set their organisation up for success (right teams, with the right skills, focused on the prioritised needs of the business).
Large and complex organisations are constantly trying to find the balance among a diverse group of people and needs to effectively plan and deliver on business outcomes:
🏢 Business
Are we delivering on the strategy and goals of the business? Are we investing in the right strategic areas?
🧑🤝🧑 Human resources
Are we effectively utilising the workforce we have today? What types of people and capabilities will we need in the future (talent acquisition)?
🎯 Teams of Teams (and Teams of Teams of Teams)
Are we aligned to the needs of the business? Do we have the people and capabilities we need to deliver effectively?
What challenges are we seeing today with workforce planning?
Some of the common workforce planning challenges we’ve observed across industries are:
Different companies interpret “workforce planning” differently, and seek diverse outcomes from it, so it’s challenging to find a generic framework or one size fits all process solution to it
Workforce planning solves many different problems for different personas, so it’s challenging to build shared understanding within organisations
The move towards cross-functional teams makes workforce planning more challenging because it requires stronger transparency, collaboration, and decision making among the c-suite that is setting strategic direction and investment to it, business leaders who are responsible for delivery outcomes, line managers who are responsible for individual performance/growth, and the enabling capabilities provided by finance, human resources, legal and risk.
How can TeamForm help?
TeamForm provides an enterprise-wide platform to assess current capability profiles against available work, forecast future demands from teams and delivery outcomes, and identify the gaps between the two.
In this way, strategic needs are connected to the operating model capabilities required to deliver on the work.
Use our Team-Centric Workforce Planning Guide to help you kick off your workforce planning journey with us on the recommended end to end process flow and the specifics to how the tool can support you throughout the process.