How to Develop Staffing Planning (With a Staffing Plan Example)

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In an ever-evolving business landscape, staffing planning is integral for ensuring that an organization has the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles, at the right time.

As an HR professional, you can drive this strategic process by analyzing current staffing resources, predicting future needs, identifying gaps, formulating strategies to fill these gaps, and creating a staffing plan that the organization can follow.

What is a staffing plan?

A staffing plan, often called a staffing model, is a specific roadmap that helps HR professionals align an organization’s talent needs with its business objectives. This ensures successful hiring processes, talent management, and workforce optimization.

Used as a model, a staffing plan is a detailed illustration of the organization’s talent pool. It highlights the roles needed in each business unit, the required skills and competencies, succession planning, staffing budget, and ongoing development.

The importance of staffing planning

With skills shortages impacting most industries worldwide, it’s worth noting that current employees can fill more than 60% of a company’s future roles. But only if the right planning and development programs are in place — which is where HR comes in.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) offers similar advice. HR is evolving, and organizations need to have the right people with the right skill sets if they want to adjust to rapidly changing ways of working. But it’s up to HR to not only ensure that upskilling and reskilling opportunities are happening but that they are happening for the right people within strategic roles aligned to company needs and objectives.

The role of HR in staffing planning and analysis

• Minimizes labor costs
• Maximizes productivity
• Provides a competitive edge in the market
• Improves the quality of new hires
• Reduces turnover
• Drives career and skills development
• Fosters a more engaged and satisfied workforce.

Hiring the right people for the right roles can’t be overstated. According to recent data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), it costs approximately $4,700 per hire. However, soft costs are not always factored into this figure (departmental leaders and managers’ time screening and interviewing candidates).

Once this is included, employers could spend three to four times a role’s salary on hiring. If that’s the case, you certainly want to hire for roles that the company needs and ensure that your top talent stays.

Staffing planning versus workforce planning: The difference

Staffing planning and workforce planning are essential HR tools that are often used interchangeably. However, they are not the same thing.

Workforce planning is a strategic, continuous process that aligns the needs and priorities of an organization with its workforce. It is about making sure that the right people are in the right role at the right moment, and that the business is not overstaffed or understaffed. This involves analyzing the current workforce, assessing the demand for new talent, and implementing recruiting strategies to fill identified vacancies. It also takes a longer-term view, anticipating future labor needs based on business growth projections, strategic goals, and market trends. It also encompasses elements like succession planning, talent development, diversity and inclusion, and organizational culture.

A staffing plan is the roadmap each business unit follows for current hiring needs. Roles are identified, the skills needed are listed, budgets and training are included, as well as succession planning. This process ensures that the business is in agreement with the skills currently needed, and there is a plan of action in place to get there and to support the team’s development.

Ultimately, staffing planning supports workforce planning and is a living document updated as business objectives change or the company experiences growth.

How to develop a staffing planning

Conducting staffing planning is a strategic exercise that gives you the insights and data you need to create an effective staffing plan. The next section will lay out the steps to take when developing a staffing plan.

1. Determine your organization’s goals

Set clear, quantifiable goals that align with your organization’s strategic objectives and workforce planning. This might entail growth targets, productivity benchmarks, or specific project outcomes and address current and future staffing needs and challenges. A clear understanding of what you aim to achieve will guide your subsequent steps.

2. Assess the current workforce

Once your goals are in place, assess your current workforce’s capacity to meet those objectives. Analyze the composition of your existing workforce in terms of roles, skills, performance, and potential.

Conducting a skills gap analysis is crucial to identify the difference between your workforce’s skills and the skills needed to achieve your goals. This snapshot of the competencies your organization lacks can then be captured in your staffing planning and addressed through targeted hiring or employee development.

3. Determine staffing needs

Use your goals and the data from your workforce and skills gap analysis to determine your specific staffing needs. Here, you need to define the number of employees required, the types of roles needed, and the specific skill sets these roles demand.

In this phase, using a roles and responsibilities template can be useful. A well-structured template will help you clearly define the expected responsibilities, skills, and qualifications for each role. This makes it easier to identify your staffing needs and communicate them effectively to potential candidates.

4. Consider external factors

What industry trends, economic conditions, and labor market dynamics could impact your planning? For example, a tight labor market or new regulatory changes might affect the availability of certain skill sets, impacting your staffing strategy.

5. Develop staffing strategies

With a clear understanding of your staffing needs and the external landscape, you can now develop your staffing strategies. Will you meet your staffing needs by hiring new employees, upskilling current employees, or even using contingent labor, for example?

At this stage, you will be identifying the best channels for reaching potential candidates, such as job boards, or professional networking sites. You will need to develop clear and compelling job descriptions based on your roles and responsibilities templates and plan out your interview and selection process.

6. Implement and monitor

Implementing your staffing strategies does not mean the work is over. It’s critical to monitor your staffing plan’s effectiveness. Adjust it as necessary to respond to changing circumstances or unexpected challenges.

Checklist: Conducting a staffing analysis

1. Gather relevant data: Start by gathering all the pertinent data about your current workforce, including the number of employees, their roles, skills, performance ratings, and attrition rates. Collecting information about the broader labor market and industry trends is also valuable.
2. Identify key metrics: These metrics may include employee engagement metrics, like job satisfaction scores or employee net promoter score (eNPS). Also consider employee retention metrics, such as the turnover rate or average tenure.
3. Consider internal factors: Organizational structure, business strategy, technological capability, and corporate culture can influence staffing requirements. For instance, a new strategic focus on digital transformation might require hiring more tech-savvy employees. Or a big growth push based on increased marketing and sales might need more internal marketing resources.
4. Consider external factors: There are many factors outside of an organization that can impact staffing needs and access to talent. These include economic conditions, labor market trends, regulatory changes, or industry advancements. The current acceleration of digitization is a key example of this in action. This is particularly important as businesses across the globe compete for scarce skills in emerging technologies.
5. Conduct a trend analysis: Examine your data over time to identify patterns or trends. This might include trends in hiring, turnover, skill demands, or industry-specific trends. By understanding these trends, you can better anticipate future staffing needs.
6. Apply a ratio analysis: This is a quantitative method often used in staffing analysis. Common ratios include the staff-to-supervisor ratio, staff-to-revenue ratio, or staff-to-client ratio. These ratios provide a quick snapshot of your staffing efficiency and effectiveness. They are an essential tool to avoid overstaffing or understaffing.
7. Conduct a gap analysis: Compare your current and future staffing needs to identify gaps. Your analysis should include both skills gaps and staffing level gaps. By identifying these gaps, you can develop targeted strategies to address them, whether through hiring, training, or restructuring.
8. Interpret your analysis: Finally, interpret your analysis to inform your staffing plan. This involves drawing conclusions from the data and deciding on the best course of action. The interpretation should be strategic, considering immediate needs and long-term organizational goals.

An example of a staffing plan

Key takeaways

• Get the right people in the right roles: Staffing planning ensures that the right talent with the right skills is in the right roles at the appropriate time.
• Plan ahead: Effective staffing plans are based on carefully analyzing current resources, predicting future needs, identifying gaps and formulating strategies to fill these gaps, and aligning talent needs with business objectives.
• Reskill, upskill and hire: Staffing planning provides a roadmap for understanding the required skills and how the business can acquire them.
• Monitor and evolve: Staffing planning is not a once-off exercise. The plan should be reviewed and updated regularly, and HR should ensure it is implemented.