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What Is Strategic Staffing? (And How To Develop A Staffing Plan)

By Di Doherty - Mar. 23, 2023
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Summary: Strategic staffing is treating talent acquisition in the same way that most other resources are – as something that needs to be proactively sought out. If you’re using strategic staffing, then not only are you looking at your current staffing needs but your future ones.

While many businesses will order supplies or raw materials far out into the future, not everyone takes the same view of personnel. But certain skills and traits are in high demand and harder to come across. What these skills are can shift over time, which means that you also need to try to anticipate how the labor market is going to change and how to stay ahead of it.

Key Takeaways:

  • Strategic staffing is considering what your current staffing needs are, as well as how they might change and develop in the future. It takes all aspects of talent acquisition into account: hiring, retention, promotions, firings, and retirements.

  • There are four primary types of staffing plans: short-term, long-term, strategic, and succession.

  • When employing strategic staffing, it’s important to be aware of your current workforce’s skills, how your company and employees may change over time, as well as how the talent pool may change in the future.

What Is Strategic Staffing?

Strategic staffing, sometimes also called strategic workforce planning, considers the strategic aspects of getting the qualified staff needed. While most everyone is familiar with the idea of supply and demand in terms of raw materials and processed goods, it also applies to labor.

If you commit to strategic staffing, then not only are you looking at what positions you currently have that need to be altered or filled, but you’re looking ahead to what you might need in the future. This can be in response to expansion, where the labor market is tightening, and what specialized skill sets you’ll need from your employees in the future.

How to Develop a Staffing Plan

Creating a staffing plan involves most of the same steps that creating any other business plan does. However, as staffing plans focus entirely on personnel, it requires being knowledgeable about the labor market and what skilled employees you’ll need – both now and in the future.

Here are the steps for formulating a staffing plan.

  • Consider your goals. When ironing out a plan, it’s important to know what you want to accomplish. There are several different types of staffing plans, depending on what your ultimate goal is. Here are some of the most common ones.

    • Strategic staffing. This is, of course, the primary focus of this article. A plan for strategic staffing would include all of these steps, while some of the others wouldn’t, as they’re more focused on a particular aspect. This takes both current and future staffing needs into account.

    • Succession planning. Retirements and promotions are part of your staffing considerations. Focusing on succession planning prepares for when positions will become open, who might be best to fill them, and when you need to start looking into finding qualified candidates.

      A lot of succession planning should consider promoting personnel that you already have, as this promotes retention. It should take training, mentorship, and expectations into account. Even when you hire from outside, you should consider how long the training takes and emphasize a smooth transition.

    • Short-term staffing. As the name implies, this focuses on present staffing needs. A plan of this sort usually only covers current gaps and the best way to get who you need for the position – be it via promotion, hiring, or transfer.

    • Long-term staffing. Long-term is relative, as this can cover only a year. That being said, there isn’t an upper limit on the term length of long-term staffing. As with part of strategic staffing, you look ahead to what staff shortages you’re likely to have and how to prepare for them.

  • Analyze your current workers. In order to know where you may be lacking, you first need to know what your current staff capabilities are. That means that you need to be aware if there are any skills that your employees are missing, as well as what everyone’s job description is – and whether or not they actually fit it.

    Going through and laying out every job’s roles and responsibilities allow you to make sure that there aren’t any gaps in terms of your staff’s duties. If someone isn’t fulfilling their job or is doing more than one job – or parts of another job – you may need to update your job descriptions or hire more staff.

  • Find out if there are any staffing patterns. This will vary depending on the industry your organization works in. Some industries have busy seasons and slow seasons, which means you’ll have a larger staff at certain times of the year. Others will vary in different ways.

    This can also take employee retention into account. If members of your staff keep leaving certain positions or departments but not others, then it may be time to look into why that is and see if it can be rectified.

  • Take skill gaps into account. A skill gap is a disparity between the skills that your employees have and the skills that you want them to have or need them to have. In some cases, this can be a matter of hiring someone who needs to be trained. In other cases, it can mean that your staff is generally underqualified for their roles.

    If you find that there are a lot of skill gaps, then it may be time to spend extra time and money on training. However, in some cases, you’ll find out that your employees have skills or experience that are languishing and may be able to be put to use in a different role or situation.

  • Prioritize training. Training your employees is extremely important. All employees will need some training, no matter how qualified they are. But being able to train your current staff to take on other roles in the organization can end up saving you a lot of time and money, as well as knowing that you already have a good employee.

    Training is also important for employee retention in the sense that most workers report higher levels of satisfaction with their jobs if they’ve had a training period. Making sure that your employees know everything they need to do their jobs – and granting them access to further training – helps with both retention and productivity.

  • Look to future staffing needs. Strategic planning also looks ahead. Depending on how far out you’re looking, it may not be possible to anticipate every change. But it can help with preparing for retirements, promotions, and changes in the structure or focus of your business.

  • Focus on retention. Talent retention is one of the most important aspects of staffing planning. Keeping your staff with you is both cost-effective and a way to attract other excellent employees. Hiring and training are expensive, so only having to train an employee once is much more economical.

    Also, if you have talented and dedicated employees, they can be very difficult to replace. It’s generally an advantage to keep the people you know performing well, even if you have to retrain or move them to different positions to keep them on their preferred career path.

What Is Strategic Staffing (And How to Develop a Staffing Plan) FAQ

  1. What is a staffing analysis?

    A staffing analysis is doing an analysis of your employees and staffing history. Many staffing analyses will poll job satisfaction, measure turnover, analyze how many people are needed to manage the current workload, and the nature of the candidates that apply for positions at your organization.

  2. How often should you update your staffing plan?

    While there are no hard and fast rules as to how often you should update your staffing plan, it’s important to revise it every time your company goes through a major shift. If your organization changes in a way that may alter its staffing needs, then you need to revisit your staffing plan and see what needs to change.

  3. Who’s responsible for creating staffing plans?

    As a general rule, staffing plans are the purview and responsibility of the HR department. Their specialty is staffing and taking care of the current employees, which is why staffing plans are under their jurisdiction.

References

  1. National Institute of Health – Workforce Planning

  2. The Free Library – Developing a Strategic Staffing Plan

Author

Di Doherty

Di has been a writer for more than half her life. Most of her writing so far has been fiction, and she’s gotten short stories published in online magazines Kzine and Silver Blade, as well as a flash fiction piece in the Bookends review. Di graduated from Mary Baldwin College (now University) with a degree in Psychology and Sociology.

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