Chapter 17. Getting Started: Conducting a One-Day “Kickoff” Session

Do you think your organization might be ready to develop and implement an effective strategic workforce planning process, following the system and suggestions included in this book? In my consulting, I often start an organization down the road to effective workforce planning by conducting an intensive, one-day training seminar that allows that company to:

• Create a common, consistent understanding of what an effective workforce planning process includes (e.g., objectives, process steps, implementation context)
  
  
• Review and understand the workforce planning process in detail, on a step-by-step basis (including an actual example that demonstrates each step)
  
  
• Define how the workforce planning process might be applied within the company for the first time (e.g., identifying actual critical staffing issues, defining staffing model parameters, identifying “next steps” and accountabilities)
  
  

This chapter (and the PowerPoint presentations that I have provided at www.amacombooks.org/go/StrategicStaff2E) will allow you to create, tailor, and conduct your own version of this one-day seminar. Every one of the key points that is made in each of the three presentations is already made in detail somewhere in this book. However, to make it a little easier for you to conduct a seminar like the one I suggest, I have provided a description and a bit of a script for each of the three sessions of the seminar.

Each presentation is intended to tell a logical story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Needless to say, while the main points should be made in the order in which they are presented, you will probably find it necessary to modify or customize the text of the slides for each presentation so that you can:

• Make the points that you want to make, not necessarily those that I think are important.

• “Sell” the concepts and benefits of strategic workforce planning to your audience.

• Identify the critical staffing issues that your organization is facing.

• Tailor the workforce planning process to meet the objectives and address the critical staffing issues of your organization.

• Define the specific next steps that your company should take to develop and implement the workforce planning process

If you are attempting to implement strategic workforce planning in more than one organization or unit, you might consider conducting this one-day seminar for each such unit. One word of caution: You should only conduct this seminar just prior to developing and implementing a workforce planning process. It is not a good idea to conduct the seminar “in advance of need,” so to speak. The concepts of workforce planning are easiest to grasp if they are applied as they are learned. Thus, it is not a good idea to conduct the seminar for a unit and then try to implement the workforce planning process six months or a year later.

For each session, I have also provided a set of objectives and a suggested attendee list. You will see that it is not necessarily a good idea to have the same group attend all three sessions.