Published on the 02/12/2009 | Written by Newsdesk
Despite tough economic times, almost half of businesses expect to spend more on WFP next year…
The number of organisations engaged in workforce planning has increased to 60% this year, a rise of 10% over 2008.
Of those not yet conducting workforce planning, one quarter anticipate introducing the practice within the next twelve months while 29% intend to do so within the next one to two years. Only 13% of organisations have no plans to introduce workforce planning.
The findings were released in ‘Workforce Planning – Securing HR’s Role in the Business,’ an annual survey into workplace planning practices conducted by global workforce planning, reporting and analysis solutions firm Infohrm.
This year’s survey involved 780 participating organisations, 60% of which currently have workforce planning processes in place.
The overwhelming majority of respondents believe that workplace planning provides a positive benefit with 81% of respondents suggesting the practice is moderately or highly valuable to the business. Eighteen percent attribute the value mainly to HR while 1% of respondents stated that workforce planning was “not very valuable”. Sixty eight percent also stated that workforce planning provides them with a competitive advantage.
Despite the difficult economic conditions almost half (48%) of survey respondents anticipate their investment in workforce planning will increase within the next 12 months.
This compares with 33% in 2008. The number of organisations expecting a decrease in budget remained the same at 3%.
The report attributes this boost in demand to a number of factors including organisational restructuring, optimism following recent economic forecasts predicting a return to growth, and increased demand following an organisation’s initial workplace planning efforts.
