Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP)

Our client the food-assistance branch of the United Nations and the world’s largest humanitarian organization focused on hunger and food security was keen on getting the ball rolling on the adoption of strategic workforce planning practices, moving up the maturity curve
Organization is mandated to offer technical assistance and development aid, such as enhancing capacity for emergency preparedness and response, managing supply chains and logistics, promoting social safety nets, and building resilience against climate change
It is an executive member of the United Nations Development Group, which collectively aims to fulfill the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), with a priority on achieving SDG 2 for “zero hunger” by 2030
Leadership recognized the need for strategic workforce planning, but only had the capabilities to plan at an operational level

Maintaining staffing levels in the face of planned expansion and difficulty recruiting certain positions this agency undertook Workforce Planning with Agile Dynamics’ help
Lack of formal processes and procedures for forecasting long term talent needs created an environment of firefighting that was putting a great deal of pressure and stress on already stretched resources
Misalignment between forecasting and resourcing, combined with labor shortages in both mature and emerging markets made meeting commitments to have resources in place for contract start dates and anticipated budget impact a challenge
All this was further aggravated by the nature of the business environment and inherent volatility induced by geopolitical and climate related challenges

Agile Dynamics developed end-to-end perspective on the operating model of the organization
Created empirical perspective on the workforce drivers as well as external environment scenarios
External environment scenarios accounted for more than 100+ variables impacting the work demand
Our team of experts spent a great deal of time socializing key findings and ideas to ensure necessary business buy-in and understanding of the methodology
Developed the work model and capacity development for the critical business functions
Ultimately Agile Dynamics secured requisite approvals and buy-in of the sponsor and key stakeholders to develop the Strategic Workforce Planning model

5-year SWP accounting for workforce quantity, and location at the global level
As a result the planning process is so effective–and well-communicated–that talent acquisition teams don’t need to wait for requisitions; the headcount targets in the workforce plan already take into account turnover assumptions like resignations and retirements, allowing recruiting teams to predict future hiring needs and budget requirements more accurately
Recruiting and the employment proposition was rebranded to highlight career opportunities for new employees

Please let us know if you have a question, want to leave a comment, or would like further information about Agile Dynamics