Get The Answers: Staffing needs call for careful planning

Marcus Morrison. Photo / Supplied

Small businesses may benefit from external advisers, says Marcus Morrison, manager at Grafton Assist, in-sourced and out-sourced HR Services.

Strategic workforce planning may seem like a luxury for large corporates. But if you want your business to go far, leaders of small, growing businesses should be preparing for expansion just as much as their larger counterparts.

Sometimes young businesses can have quite explosive growth which can lead to taking on more staff. How do you strategically plan for this?

Ideally, looking at future staffing needs should be part of your ongoing business planning process. A good first step is to identify the internal and external factors that will influence your business in the next three to five years.

External factors may include acquiring new businesses, expanding your market, technological changes and legislative changes. Internal factors may include a change in the way you deliver your products and services or an expansion of products and services.

Will you have the right people in the right place with the right skills to deliver services and products at the right time - especially when growing rapidly? If the answer is no, you need a plan to start getting yourself ready now. This may mean short-term solutions such as contract staff while the company looks to hire permanent employees with needed skills, or plans to upskill existing team members.

For businesses wanting to expand internationally, they will take on board advisers who are experienced in relevant countries. How can these people help with workforce planning?

It is very helpful to engage the services of in-country workforce experts who can advise on what skills are available and how plentiful they will be in that particular market place. They can also provide information on retention levels and advise lead times needed to get staff on board.

One organisation I worked with found that the country they planned to expand into simply didn't have the skills they needed. So, having weighed up the risks of ploughing ahead without the workforce versus delaying their entry, they opted to carry the costs of delaying.

They then invested time and resources into training an expatriate workforce who could enter the market with a longer-term plan and, once in market, to upskill a local workforce.

Most small businesses don't have HR departments. Who should be making the decision about workforce planning, and what kind of consultants can help with this?

Strategic workforce planning takes skill and effort, and most organisations don't have the internal resources to commit to it. External advisers can be very useful. However, it is a specialised skill, so businesses should take time to ensure they partner with a consultant who has extensive experience in a range of industries and businesses.

Workforce planning initially needs to be driven by the senior leader/s in the business and should become part of the annual business planning-cycle.

A number of examples exist of smaller businesses collaborating within an industry to pool their resources to gain information on workforce planning. Engaging the services of a third party to facilitate the gathering of information can reduce any concerns over competitive advantage the businesses may have.

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