Strategic Workforce Management as a critical source of competitive advantage
Leadership of organisations spend much of their time analysing market trends, customer behaviour and what their competitors are doing. This makes a lot of sense for businesses seeking competitive advantage. However, in seeking competitive advantage, it surprises me that very little time is spent on the greatest source of competitive advantage, namely the organisation’s people or workforce. In a vague, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world of business, strategic workforce management is the greatest differentiating factor between a highly successful and mediocre organisation.
Strategic Workforce Management is the process of proactively identifying the capabilities (skills and competencies) required to achieve the organization’s goals. It looks at allocating and deploying these capabilities in the form of its workforce, in anticipation of the organisations’ strategic objectives and needs. It is the longer-term plan and process which looks at aligning the business strategy of an organisation with its human capital or people strategy.
A key component of being a leader involves understanding the future direction of the organisation and its strategic objectives, translating, and cascading these objectives into action plans and measurable goals for your team, the ability to track, monitor, evaluate and readjust accordingly to ensure that the performance of your team, is geared towards achieving business improvement. Leaders need to look at the critical roles that make up their organisation and determine if they have the right people in the right place doing the right thing, at the right time. This determination can be made through the Strategic Workforce Management process.
Using the strategic objectives of the organisation as a framework, strategic workforce management identifies the critical roles that make up the organisational structure and breaks down the capabilities required for each of these roles. It determines what capabilities the organisation has currently, what it is missing, what it needs right now and what capabilities it needs to have in the future. It is the dynamic between what we have today, what we need tomorrow and the decisions that need to be made, to get these capabilities in place to create maximum value for the organisation.
Article written by:
Tani Moodley
Tani is a trusted HR Advisor with a career spanning over 20 years in mining, exploration, online marketing and financial services. She provides an HR advisory service that covers the full spectrum of the human resource lifecycle and creates environments that balance legal requirements, business functionality and company culture. She holds Bachelor of Arts, Honours Social Science and Master’s in Commerce (Industrial Relations – Cum Laude) Degrees from the then University of Natal in Durban, South Africa. She also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Personnel Management. As CEO and Owner of Human Capital Matters (HCM), she specialises in end-to-end human resources consulting and solutions tailor made towards customer specific needs.
Ravi Moodley
Ravi holds the position of Executive Head of Strategic Management and Governance at National Parliament. He is also Non-Executive Director of both HCM and konektd. Ravi’s expertise is in Strategy and Business Planning, Change Management and Business Transformation, Innovation, Risk Management, Project and Programme Management, Business Intelligence and Market Research. He has a track record of success in turnaround, step-change in business performance and transformation in both the Private and Public Sectors.
Najen Naidoo
Najen, the Managing Director of konektd, is a social entrepreneur with a background in Investment and Corporate Finance, Technology and Mathematics which has seen him working across Africa, America, Asia and Europe designing businesses for multi-nationals across multiple industries from banking, retail and supply chains to improve their profitability by using technology to support their people in their operations. His latest ventures are konektd and City-Zen. konektd, is a business empowerment platform that aims to optimise and uplift businesses. City-Zen is an urban active citizenry project aimed at inspiring and empowering city dwellers to take pride and take part in creating a better community.