2. Gather Information

A clear and well-thought-out workforce plan will support your current and future business goals. Workforce information will help you create your workforce plan.

This section will help you identify the information you need and where to find it. For example:

Most of your basic data can be found in the payroll system, though you will need to consider the quality and reliability of that information when using the data to inform decisions on your workforce plan.

Workforce data collection does not have to be complex, and workforce planning can be successful with limited data. If you are lacking confidence in your data quality and reliability at the moment, develop a plan to increase the accuracy and integrity of data collection for the future and use what you have at the moment to make a start.

Checklist 1: Workforce planning: am I ready? (PDF, 115 KB)

This checklist can assist you in determining whether you are ready to commence workforce planning in your business.

Below you can access all the templates required for the Gather Information stage of workforce planning:

Template 2: Knowing your business and workforce (DOCX, 102 KB) This template will help you understand your business direction and workforce considerations.

Template 3: Current workforce data and profile (DOCX, 252 KB) This template will hep you to capture the key data of your current workforce.

Fact Sheet 2: Calculating workforce turnover (PDF, 114 KB) This template will show you how to calculate workforce turnover.

Template 4: Workforce supply, future demand gap analysis (XLSX, 28 KB) This template considers your current workforce supply against future demand and the resulting gap.

What are your business goals?

Consider the timeframe of your plan when setting your goals.

Business goals tend to fall under one of four scenarios:

To be in the best position to have the right combination of people, skills and employment types across your workforce, you should think about your business goals and how you will achieve them.

Each goal has its own challenges and barriers to success. Using the resources, we help you explore them further and plan how you will reach your goals.

What does your workforce look like now?

Using the most recent information you have, Workforce Planning Connect helps you create a picture of what your own workforce supply looks like now.

Workforce supply is the size of your current and future workforce. It takes into consideration employee turnover through resignations and retirements, and how these affect the size of your workforce over time.

It is possible that some of the workforce data may not be available when you start your workforce planning journey. Use what you have and use the planning process to collect more accurate information in the future.

The presentation of workforce data should occur in a way that allows analysis of the information. Different ways to present the data can include graphs to show how information changes over time, i.e. workforce size, workforce age profile, turnover trends. This information is important as it provides your business with a clear view of the current state and the baseline data for your
future workforce analysis.

What does your future workforce need to look like?

The answer to this question may surprise you!

Workforce Planning Connect helps you understand your future workforce needs, estimate the number and types of employees required to deliver on your business strategy goals. Through the workforce planning process you will be able to answer the following key questions:

What types of skills will be required?

How many jobs will be required for the future?
What number of people will be required for each role?
What roles will be hard to fill, central to business capability and can take a long lead-in time to build the required skills?

Now you can compare your current workforce (people) and skills supply to your future demand, and in doing so, identify your workforce and skills gaps. By doing this, you can begin to identify strategies and put actions in place to close your workforce and skills gaps. By doing this, you can begin to identify strategies and put actions in place to close your workforce and/or skills gaps. These strategies and actions will form the basis of your workforce plan that you can prioritise, implement, monitor and review.