Chapter 14. Engaging and Involving Managers in the Strategic Staffing/Workforce Planning Process

For any workforce planning efforts to be successful, line managers must fully embrace, support, and participate willingly in the process. Yet many organizations try to implement workforce planning processes in which managers participate reluctantly, or perhaps even not at all. What can an organization do to ensure that managers will be active players in workforce planning? How can we get managers to value the process and enthusiastically implement the staffing strategies and plans that result?

Clearly, the active involvement of line managers is critical to the success of any workforce planning process. But before managers will become actively involved in workforce planning, they must be fully engaged in the process. This chapter describes how you can gain that engagement and, building on that engagement, ensure the active involvement of your line managers.