UNIT TWO

The Framework for the Organization

WHEN BUILDING THE FRAMEWORK FOR Workforce Asset Management (WAM), the workforce management office (WMO) serves as the structural support beams for WAM objectives and goals. The WMO is responsible for upholding WAM principles and sketching out the solution blueprints. An important preliminary step in developing the framework for WAM is gaining executive level support. To introduce WAM issues and gain initial support, the WMO and/or the WAM-Pro first express their vision through a formalized business plan, outlining an identified problem and connecting it to measurable solutions. For example, the WMO and/or WAM-Pro acknowledges where organizational stakeholders have identified a problem related to rising costs and are interested in solving it. However, when some stakeholders express concern that the organization “just does not have enough time or resources to solve this problem,” the organization looks to the WMO and WAM-Pros to illuminate how this may be affecting the day-to-day operations as well as ways to measure the impact on the bottom line. The WMO or WAM-Pro could suggest investing in an intelligent timekeeping system to reduce payroll leakage. Then, they can demonstrate how it aligns with solving the problem of rising costs and operational issues.

The WMO is positioned to break the opportunity down into actionable and measurable steps. The WAM-Pro can set a course for evaluating how the organization can assess and implement a potential solution. WAM-Pros do this by adhering to a set of guiding principles, such as A.C.T.I.V.E., and relying on their competency to perform a meaningful assessment and evaluation of: vision, return on investment (ROI), technology requirements, corporate culture, and so on. The WAM-Pro and the WMO continue to serve the organization even as it evolves. They keep the organization on course toward workforce management (WFM) maturity by:

• Evaluating organizational readiness and alignment by assessing if executive management is supportive of the overall aims and goals, but also if operational management sees the implementation as valuable and workable within their daily routine.
• Acquiring the appropriate funding for WFM projects by investigating different options and comparing them to needs specific to the organization.
• Planning ahead for ROI and using requirements and careful financial analysis to guide the budget and priorities.
• Helping the organization identify and appropriate sources of funding.
• Leading the negotiation discussion with vendors and focusing on win-win deals.
• Benchmarking stages of business development by providing meaningful data analytics that establish checkpoints and measure progress.
• Managing the corporate culture by having a visible presence (WMO) among the workforce that supports integrity and has the objectives of the entire organization in mind.
• Keeping people engaged by prioritizing a dynamic yet standardized company-wide training and performance evaluation program.