Archive for category workforce management

The promise of "workforce management and planning systems" in all their various forms is to "put the right people on the right projects at the right time." Ideally–especially in large organizations–these automated systems will help us find the best available person, even from across the globe, to perform the tasks that will ensure a successful project.

But in reality, project teams are too often put together by "rounding up the usual suspects," as Mark E. Mullaly recently wrote on gantthead.com: Managing Resource Capacity: How Do We Know We’re Full? (login required to read full article). As a result of relying on "go-to" people instead of adopting a workforce management process that does not use real data, skill set information and past experience to find and propose the best resources, companies end up creating project teams that do not have the optimal talent or relevant experience.

Mullaly observes:

To manage that budget [of available human effort], however, we have to name it, quantify it and track it. … It’s about being clear about our capacity for work, where we most value expending that capacity, and how to make use of the scarcest resources that we have.

He states that businesses are not tracking and managing their time as diligently as they do their money. I agree–this state of affairs frustrates me because the tools and technology are available today in a variety of options. And I do see that using technology to proactively manage the project workforce is making a positive difference for many, many companies.

Yet, we have a long way to go to manage and budget human capital as well as we budget dollars. Therein lies a tremendous opportunity for companies to gain a competitive edge, and an imperative of Workforce 2.0: don’t let human capital evaporate, the way money tends to evaporate when it isn’t managed or invested wisely.

In a future post, I will comment on a recent blog post about user adoption of workforce management tools, and how some simple tactics can enable good technology to do its job: identify, quantify, track and optimize human capital.

Blogger and author Kevin Meyer has some interesting commentary on his blog about Dell’s recent announcement of layoffs. (Click here for the straight news story on CNet.)

Dell has been a model of a "lean" company, as Meyer describes. But ideally, a truly lean company would never get so "fat" that it would have to shed 10% of its workforce just to keep Wall Street happy. As Meyer points out, letting the company get to this state not only disrespects the employees who must be laid off, but also sacrifices "employee knowledge, creativity, and experience."

Dell has either made some terrible mistakes in letting itself get too "fat" to be "lean," or it is taking a tremendous risk lettting 10% of its human capital be lost forever. Possibly both.

In this highly competitive world, the quality and quantity of internal talent has to be constrantly evaluated — so that it never has to be "corrected" like the price of a stock. Too much value and spirit is lost in the correction. Let’s hope that Dell’s correction is a new start for truly lean operations and higher respect for the value of its current workforce. Companies now have access to new tools such as outsourcing and project-based hiring that reduce if not entirely eliminate mass layoffs which are the root cause of the growing mutual distrust and lack of loyalty between employers and employees.

In the flat world, the function of Human Resource Management is changing from:

Enterprise Talent Management–hiring and filling internal positions by searching and screening candidates … to Global Workforce Planning and Talent Sourcing–working with in-house and remote teams, working with outsourcing partners, and weighing the value/trade-offs of internal vs. external expertise.

For HR to remain relevant, it has to consider:

• Which positions or entire teams can (or may) be outsourced?
• What companies can be good outsourced partners?
• What are the unique specializations and expertise the company needs? And are there companies who have such expertise for hire?
• Which positions should remain internal and why?

The New New HR collaborates with line-of-business managers, not the CEO. More and more, line-of-business managers are the ones who have the authority, the budget, and accountability to meet their business objectives. These managers will outsource if it make sense to streamline or to get things done faster. Therefore, HR’s role has to change to include business partners and other non-traditional sources of specialized talent.

In the next blog entry on this topic I will discuss how HR has also earned a seat at the table for enterprise wide project management, business process improvement and compliance initiatives.