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WORKFORCE PLANNINGAND DEVELOPMENT

Workforce planning, sometimes called strategic human resource

management, is an explicit process forsystemically and routinely comparinginformation on the availability offuture employee skills (supply) withthe projected needs (demand) of theorganization.

Successful workforce planning helpsthe organization carry out its missionand introduce policies for improvingthe quality of the workforce.

This report will guide line managersand human resource practitioners inthe public sector in designing orevaluating their own workforce plan-ning and development efforts. It de-fines the workforce planning processin general terms, and then describeshow it has been implemented in twodivisions in Portland, Oregon: emer-gency dispatch and the water utility.Sample planning questions and formsare included.

VOLUME 32 / NUMBER 3 MARCH 2000

VOLUME 32 / NUMBER 3MARCH 2000ITEM NUMBER E-43011

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Workforce Planning andDevelopment

This report was prepared by Lois Martin Bronfman, Ph.D.,workforce planning analyst for the bureau of human resources,city of Portland, Oregon, with the assistance of Tony Tasca,Ph.D., Skopos Consulting, and under the supervision of DavidTaylor, director of training and development of the Portlandbureau of human resources. The authors wish to thank themany managers and human resource analysts in the city ofPortland, especially the water bureau, who shared theirexperiences and have guided us in defining the issues fordiscussion in this report.

In fiscal year 1996-97, the city council of Portland al-located budget funds for a workforce planning anddevelopment project. The purpose of this project wasto introduce new planning tools and developmentstrategies to ensure a skilled and productiveworkforce. FactorÄ@contributing to the need for sucha project were 1) perceived changes in work pro-cesses, 2) increased demands for service, 3) fiscalconstraints, and 4) the age, skills, and experience ofthe workforce. One full-time employee under thesupervision of the training and development direc-tor in the city’s bureau of human resources staffedthe project.

TÑè fundamental values underlay the workforceplanning and development proposal. One is that theskills, knowledge, and abilities of workers are inher-ently linked to productivity and quality service, andthe other is that human resources (i.e., current andfuture employees) are investments, not expenditures,for a business. Given this view, the goal of the projectwas to provide a strategic approach to human re-source management that linked management goalsand objectives directly to policies and practices formanaging people. Hence, major objectives of theproject were to

• Educate and promote within the bureaus and thecentral bureau of human resources the tools thatfacilitate strategic human resource planning.

• Identify current and long-term human resourceneeds for the city.

• Develop strategies to transition the currentworkforce to fill these needs.

• Convene a city-wide task force to develop astrategic plan for workforce planning and devel-opment.

• Rally the community around the concept thathuman resources are an investment, not an ex-penditure.

• Promote strategies to enhance opportunities forcurrent employees to grow with the organization’schanging workforce needs.

These goals and objectives were ambitious forthe city with its relatively large workforce (over 5,000permanent employees and 600 to 1,000 contingencyworkers), 32 semi-autonomous bureaus, and a highlydecentralized human resources system. While thechallenges to implementation have been many—notthe least of which was gaining a common under-standing of the concept of workforce planning—twoyears of work on the project have also yielded manylessons. We have used these lessons to develop thefollowing report.

OVERVIEW

Like private sector businesses, public agencies areexperiencing change both in the skills required to dothe work and in the availability and characteristicsof workers. For the city of Portland, technologicaladvances in work processes, private sector competi-tion, an aging incumbent workforce, and governmentregulations drive some of these changes.1

These changes are occurring concurrently withpublic demands to improve service delivery—and todo so with less money—and private sector interestin competing for service delivery. For each bureau,the mix of these variables is different and the impacton the work and workers uncertain. Some bureausare facing heavy retirements while others are not.Some bureaus are threatened by private sector offersto privatize their functions; others are simply expe-riencing increased demands for productivity. And allbureaus need to respond to the impacts of rapid tech-nological change on their work and workers

Workforce planning is one way to deal withchange and the uncertainty it brings. Increased pro-ductivity, improved service delivery, and competi-

2 Inquiry Service Report

tive advantage are the ultimate goals to be achievedthrough successful planning.

Predicting Future Workforce Needs

The concept of workforce planning is relativelysimple. Workforce planning involves developing for-mal planning strategies that allow you, as manag-ers, to know what you need in the future in the areaof skills and people, and to use this information todevelop appropriate workforce strategies to meetthese needs.

The objectives of workforce planning are to havethe right types or kind of skills

• At the right level or degree• In the needed amount or number• At the right time• In the right places• Performing the right activities.

Clearly, some important questions need to beraised and answered if you are to meet these objec-tives. What time frame is appropriate? How manyworkers is the right number of workers for a specifictask? Can’t this process be done differently?

The workforce planning process provides the op-portunity to address these questions and many others.(See Appendix A for questions generated by managersfrom the Portland water bureau meeting in a focusgroup. Not all questions will be answered within aworkforce planning process, but they should at leastbe on the table.)

Managing Human Resources Strategically

Any organization that employs people to produce aproduct or provide a service engages in some formof workforce planning. However, such planning isoften implicit, short-term, and reactive, with the pro-cess primarily designed to ensure that the legal re-quirements for employment are met. Workforceplanning is distinguished from ordinary human re-source management in that it explicitly

• Focuses on skills, not individuals• Links human resource needs to business goals,

objectives, and values• Relies on quantitative analyses of trends• Focuses on defining futures• Is proactive rather than reactive• Is on-going.

Focusing on Skills, not Numbers

“In postindustrial societies…without relevant humancapital, productivity does not and cannot occur, eventhough people may be fully employed in an energeticperformance of tasks, duties, and responsibilities.”2

Increasingly, local government jobs, as with mostindustries, require workers to possess well-definedsets of knowledge, abilities, or skills in order to en-sure greater productivity. This proposition is truewhether we are speaking about entry level laborers,police officers, accountants, planners, or senior ad-ministration specialists. Compounding the problemis the rapidity with which skill requirements arechanging from year to year. For this reason,workforce planning focuses on the work of the or-ganization, and the skills required to get the workdone now and in the future.

This perspective on human resources requires ashift in focus for many human resource managerswhose time is spent hiring, processing, managing,or letting go individual employees; and doing so ina way that addresses immediate skill needs, is basedon fair practices, or protects the firm or business frombeing sued. Certainly, such tasks remain an impor-tant function of any human resource department.

Definition

Workforce planning is an explicit process for system-atically and routinely comparing information on theavailability of future skills (supply) with the projectedneeds (demand) of the organization. Successfulworkforce planning helps the organization meet itsmultiple objectives. Workforce planning is some-times called strategic human resource manage-ment. Workforce planning is linked to workforcedevelopment in that it provides the basis fordefining policies in the full range of human re-sources strategies that can be used to develop thequality of the workforce.

Workforce planning: as old as thepyramids

One of the theories about the construction of thepyramids is that the Egyptian rulers relied on agri-cultural workers to construct the pyramids duringthe seasonal flooding of the fields. Mark Lehnerand Zahi Hawass, egyptologists, provide evidencethat a skeleton crew of workers labored on thepyramids year round. But during the late summerand early autumn months, when the Nile inun-dated the fields, teams of farm workers rotatedthrough the construction site. These farmers andlocal villagers were not slaves but came to work fortheir god kings, to build monuments to the hereaf-ter and ensure their own afterlife.

Source: PBS Online, “Nova” (March 1999),www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid.

Workforce Planning and Development 3

Workforce planning, however, requires thatmanagers also focus on skill groups, critical skills,or knowledge in the organization, and ask questionsabout future changes in skill requirements and avail-ability of these skills. The answers to these questionshelp identify “skill gaps.” In practice, then, the hu-man resource specialists first ask such questions as“will this job exist in the future, what will it be like,and do I need to fill this position?” before answer-ing the question “how will I fill this job?”

Defining Alternative Strategies

Most human resource managers would argue thatthere is a link, however informal, between the exist-ing human resource strategies for recruitment, selec-tion, and development and the stated goals andobjectives of the organization. Workforce planningasks that this connection be made formal. One of theways in which this task is accomplished is bydefining as explicitly as possible what is out thereon the horizon that may affect how the business isrun and by translating this information into alterna-tive workforce strategies to meet business goals, ob-jectives, and values. The alternative scenarios areused to answer the following questions:

• Do you have the skills/people to achieve yourobjectives over the next two years, five years,etc.?

• Are the skills/people truly aligned with the needsof the organization?

• Are there different workforce strategies to ac-complish the same goals and objectives?

• How do different workforce strategies affectoutcomes?

The methods for exploring these futures can bediverse, ranging from informal techniques such asexpert assessment to formal modeling; however, allrely on some mechanism for assessment and integra-tion of data. You will need as much objective infor-mation as you can gather to help define both the needfor and the availability of skills over time.

Because uncertainty is the rule rather than theexception, development of alternative scenarios is anessential, additional activity. Finally, just as scenariosare important for developing a perspective onchange, so benchmarks and ratios are useful tools formeasuring the success of your organization at meet-ing its goals.

Gathering Information

The planning process is designed to help you andthe decision makers in your organization focus onthe workforce strategies that are available. The plan-ning process requires the organization to bring allrelevant information “to the table.” If important in-formation is ignored or left out, projections will not

be particularly accurate and the strategies developedwill not be useful. Some of the most important ques-tions to answer in gathering this information are

• What factors are affecting the demand for theservices or products of your organization?

• What new technologies exist that could changehow the service or product is provided?

• What are your current incumbent workforcetrends: e.g., rates of retirements and turnover,and age?

• What external workforce trends will affect yourlabor supply?

• What are the implicit and explicit values andrules of the organization that structure humanresource decisions?

When the dust clears and your organization hasbegun to define its possible futures and the areas inwhich “skill gaps” may exist, the process of makingbasic choices as to whether to make (train), buy (re-cruit), outplace (layoff or sell off), or re-deploy (trans-fer and retrain) workers begins. Virtually all areasof human resource management need to be taken intoaccount.

THE WORKFORCE PLANNING PROCESS

Managers and human resource professionals oftenbegin asking questions about workforce planningwith some skill gaps already tentatively identified,i.e., there are some identifiable changes in who is orwill be doing the work or in how work is done. Forexample, in the city of Portland, analysts in severalbureaus see the need for more planning because ofthe anticipated retirement of a large number of em-ployees within their bureaus. They are interested inunderstanding the magnitude of the problem, andin identifying who will retire and when. These aregood questions but their answers are not necessar-

Modern workforce planning

As it is described here, workforce planning had itsorigins in the 1960s when computers made theprocess of modeling relatively complex systemsmuch easier. For example, workforce planning isroutinely used to model the deployment of militaryforces. However, industry generally ignored this toolfor a long time. The value of workforce planningbecame more obvious after indiscriminatedownsizing in the 1980s left many companies withsmaller workforces lacking the skill sets necessary toimprove productivity. Public agencies have re-cently looked to this tool to help address change(e.g., retirements, technology) and to meet in-creased demands for efficiencies.


ily all that the organization should know in order tofully address the changes that the organization mayexperience.

By initiating more formal workforce planning,you are building on what you are already doing. Thekind of workforce planning described below shouldgive you and your managers much better informa-tion about what the future will look like, what theorganization’s needs will be, and how best to meetthese needs.

Anticipating Future Needs: Gap Analysis

The major objective of workforce planning is to iden-tify future discrepancies (gaps) between skills re-quired to get the work done productively andefficiently, given the business objectives of the orga-nization, and the skills that will be available in thefuture. As manager, you want to be able to antici-pate these discrepancies in order to plan and imple-ment strategies that will eliminate or mitigate theireffects. The planning methodology to identify thesegaps involves a number of analytical steps and re-quires the use of both quantitative and qualitativeinformation. A description of the analytical processfollows. In a later section, we will address the hu-man resource issues related to the planning process.

At the simplest level the process for analyzingskill gaps involves

• Agreeing on goals, objectives, and interests ofthe organization

• Defining skill groups• Identifying future demand for skills• Identifying future supply of skills• Comparing demand with supply• Identifying the skill “gaps,” i.e., those skills for

which the projected supply does not equal thedemand and qualitative changes expected withina particular skill group.

Beyond this simple set of steps, the process ofdata collection, analysis, and assessment can be con-siderably more elaborate depending on the scope ofthe analysis, the size of the organization, and thenature of the competitive environment in which theorganization exists.

Begin at the beginning: agree on interests, goals,and objectives of the organization. Sometimes or-ganizations assume that everyone is in agreement asto the interests, goals, and objectives of an organiza-tion. The workforce planning process does not makethis assumption. Managers and decision makers be-gin the planning process by revisiting these discus-sions, clarifying their interests, and redefining whatit is that the organization is trying to achieve throughplanning.3

These discussions often illuminate differences ofperspective within the organization. For example,everyone may agree that the organization should becompetitive. One view, however, may hold that thebest approach is to improve the quality of service,while another view is that the organization shouldbecome more efficient. Another view may be that theagency is not a competitor in the market sense butrather a “steward” of community resources (e.g.,water resources). The answers that managers arriveat help to shape the workforce planning process.They are essential for assessing future needs, devel-oping strategies to meet these needs, and evaluatingthe effectiveness of these strategies.

Defining skill groups: as they exist now and as theymay exist in the future. Organizations are composedof people who do the work of the organization, thatis, they perform a set of tasks and activities that pro-duce the goods or services that are the reasons forthe organization’s existence. One of the first tasks inworkforce planning is to gather the information thatdescribes current core skill requirements and futurejob requirements that are necessary to perform thework. The task is to identify skill sets and then gatherinformation on current and future skill requirements.

Initial identification of skill sets. A review of the orga-nizational chart should suggest how the jobs can be

The case for workforce planning

Paul Longanback, of the Federal Aviation Adminis-tration, U.S. Department of Transportation, reviewedthe benefits of workforce planning at a recentworkforce planning conference for public agen-cies:

The organization benefits by

• Generating data to make strategic plans• Involving stakeholders in defining performance

in “people” terms• Improving the likelihood of realizing a true

return on human capital investments.

The employees benefit by

• Partnering to define the future• Receiving information on skills, knowledge, and

abilities needed in the future• Participating in developing a plan for the

organization’s success.

The stakeholders benefit because

• The organization commits to a clear directionfor people, issues, and programs

• The organization completes the strategicanalysis required to make sound investments inhuman capital to achieve the desiredperformance.

Source: Workforce Planning for Government Agencies,conference, March 16-17, 1999, Vienna, Virginia.


clustered into distinct skill sets. A consultant, an in-house committee, or a human resource specialist cando this task.

Once identified, each skill set is arranged hier-archically, from entry-level to senior level, with thepurpose of further organizing the skill sets intospecific job families. Job families are organizedaround a functional or technical unifying principle,e.g., accounting or plant operations. The total skillsin the job families should represent over 90 percentof the work in the organization.

The analyst excludes senior managers and jobsthat have only one person from the analysis duringthis quantitative phase, as they are usually not criti-cal to the performance of the bulk of the work of theorganization. This group becomes more importantwhen the organization addresses more qualitativeissues of ensuring continuity of performance overtime.

Some organizations will have many differentidentifiable skill sets while others will have relativelyfew. For example, an informal review of the 30 or sodifferent job classifications at Portland’s bureau ofemergency service suggests approximately 15 skillssets that in turn can be reduced to 5 or 6 skill fami-lies (e.g., communications, information services, hu-man resources, clerical, and accounting). On theother hand, the study of the water bureau identified100 job classifications that could be organized into75 specific skill areas and reduced to 19 skill fami-lies.4

Acquiring information as to current and future skillrequirements. The next step in the process requiresacquiring information about the actual set of skillsrequired to do the jobs. Workforce planning assumesthat workers know what skills are required to do thework. As a consequence, the process often includesinterviewing workers from the different skill sets inboth the entry and advanced positions and askingthem to describe the skills required to do the job nowand in the future. (See Appendix B for an exampleof a form used by the Portland water bureau to gatherthis information.) This information is supplementedwith information from line managers about antici-pated technological changes or responsibilitychanges, and with industry-wide descriptions andstandards that define many skill areas and indicatefuture requirements.

In the analysis process, the information gatheredis used to reassess the original sets of identified skills.The new skill sets then become the organizing unitsfor data that define the alternative scenarios and foridentifying skill gaps when linked to information onfuture demand.

Developing an estimate of future demand. At firstglance the process of estimating future demandseems straightforward. You know what you have

now in terms of skill requirements and you projectthese into the future given some assumptions aboutchanges in service area or demand for your products.In other words you generate a “business as usual”scenario for some future date.

If, however, your organization wants to ensurethat it will be more productive, more efficient, and,where appropriate, more competitive, you should alsogenerate “improvement in business” scenarios. Thesescenarios are built using information that wouldchange the mix of skills required to do the work. Forexample, the future demand for skills could changequalitatively and quantitatively if the organization isre-engineering some of its work processes, contract-ing out some tasks, or redirecting its strategic goalsand objectives. Benchmarks and ratios that clarifystaffing relationships (e.g., number of draftsman perengineer) in an efficient environment help measureproductivity gains given different demand scenarios.(See sidebar on benchmarking.)

Thus the relatively simple instruction to developa demand scenario turns into a more detailed list ofactivities for developing alternative future staffingscenarios. These activities include

• Assessing factors affecting demand for specificskills over time: e.g., strategic goals and objec-tives, changing service requirements or productdemand, adoption of new technology

• Detailing specific changes in work that will re-sult in addition of skills, the elimination of skills,or other workforce requirements over time

• Selecting measures for evaluating staffing pro-ductivity and efficiency, e.g., ratio of employeesto revenue dollars

• Developing alternative demand scenarios.

Developing an estimate of future supply. You alsoneed to project the future supply of skills availableto meet your projected demand by

Numbers aren’t everything

The workforce planning process helps identify thetype and quantity of skills that are required nowand over time. At the same time, the process alsoleads to information about the readiness of existingworkers to meet current skill requirements. For ex-ample, the organization may have the requiredten accountants with basic accounting skills; how-ever, the skills requirements for the job may havechanged (e.g., because of new accounting soft-ware or new regulations). In this example, thepeople are available but not fully deployable. Thequestion for the organization is how to make theworkers ready. This is a workforce developmentissue for which there are a number of solutions.


• Taking an inventory of current required skillgroups

• Assessing current supply of skills• Calculating net change and availability of skills

over the planning period.

To calculate change over the planning period,you need information concerning

• The number and age of workers• Internal transfer rules• Retirement rules• Turnover rates• Trends in the broader labor market.

This information is used to define the baselineand to make the assumptions necessary to calculatechange. In addition, employee characteristics mayneed to be included for each skill group (e.g., age,sex, and minority status of the individuals withinthese groups) in order to analyze the effects of changeon representation in each skill category. Modeling

this change is a relatively simple task but becomesmore complicated (and may require the assistanceof a computer) when there are many skill groups toreview.Identifying the gaps. Identifying gaps begins withdata collection and continues throughout the plan-ning process. For example, when you are gatheringinformation from employees on the skills requiredfor their jobs, they might report that because of re-cent changes they do not currently have the neces-sary skills. At the same time, the analysis of thesupply data might indicate that most of the peoplein these jobs can retire within six years. What strate-gies will the organization choose to address thesegaps? The answer to this question should depend onthe goals and objectives of the organization, its com-mitment to change, and the managers’ assessmentof the impact of different strategies for change.

There are a variety of categories of skill gaps thatmay be identified:

• Excess skills (skills that the organization will notneed or will need less of)

Benchmarking

In workforce planning, benchmarks are used tomeasure relative productivity and efficiency of thehuman resources, or to compare human resourcemanagement experience. The benchmarks providea means by which the organization can evaluatethe impact of change strategies. Benchmarks canbe associated with a specific industry category, ageographic region, and/or skill categories. Thefollowing examples illustrate the variety of possiblebenchmarks that are useful in workforce planning.

A productivity scorecard compares

• Output per employee with employee output inother organizations producing the same type ofoutput

• Total salary costs to produce a product orservice with salary costs in other organizationsproducing the same type of product or service

• Total hours to produce an output in oneorganization with another in the same industry.

An experience scorecard compares

• Voluntary terminations• Involuntary terminations• Employee attitude norms• Customer satisfaction indices• Direct versus indirect ratios• Accident rates• Scrap rates, etc.

Organizations can use benchmark information todetermine their relative position on any given mea-sure vis-a-vis competitors (internal or external). This

comparison often will show whether the organiza-tion is doing better or worse, on the average, thanothers on a given measure.

Merely comparing oneself against a statisticalaverage can be limiting. The better use ofbenchmarking data is to compare oneself againstbetter performing organizations or using the aver-age as a mere reference point to establish “excel-lence” goals as opposed to “me-too” goals.

The main challenge in benchmarking is to selectmeaningful measures—global measures that focuson the relationship between the inputs (resources)and the outputs (results), or operational measuresthat focus on the relationship between outputs(results) and throughputs (the work).

Operational measures can be misleading. Forexample, comparing how many hours of trainingone organization offers versus how many hoursothers offer can be meaningless since the mea-sure does not indicate how effective the training isor even whether it is needed. To avoid this trap,focus on end-results (at the product or customerlevel) as opposed to intervening results (morehours of training).

Benchmarking can be a useful tool. It providesmanagers with feedback regarding the efficacy oftheir efforts to improve organizational productivityand job satisfaction, and to improve the competi-tive advantage. If benchmarks are updated annu-ally, the manager can assess changes inperformance.

Source: Tony Tasca, Ph.D., Skopos Consulting.


• Deficit skills (additional skills the organizationwill need)

• Emerging skills (newly defined skill areas)• Better quality (changes that require upgrading

existing skill sets).

Understanding the Numbers

The numerical groups that will be identified by com-paring supply with demand will be obvious (e.g.,future demand for mechanics will exceed by 20 theprojected supply, or there will be an oversupply of10 engineers in five years). Certainly the data shouldpoint to some potential areas of need. Generally,however, the numbers generated in a modeling ef-fort are just a small part of the information helpfulin defining future human resource needs and identi-fying strategies for addressing these needs.

First, data are meaningless unless understoodwithin the context of the organization (e.g., pasttrends) or in comparison with other organizations ofsimilar purpose.

Second, modeling (formally or informally) is onlyone tool that the workforce planning process uses forunderstanding workforce needs. The process also relieson proposing and comparing alternatives, analyzingtrends, exercising expert judgment, and managementdecision-making. All of these strategies contribute to theidentification of skill gaps.

Third, models are only as good as the assumptions,rules, and data on which they are built. Part of the plan-ning process is to explicitly state the parameters of themodel, challenge them, and present alternative param-eters. This process leads to the development of alter-native scenarios and the identification of contingencies.The process helps the organization gain consensus asto probable futures and assess alternative strategies.Different scenarios may identify different human re-source needs.

Likewise, the process demands that the organi-zation identify and use data about the operation ofthe workforce system and the characteristics of theworkforce. Inadequate data may lead to inappropri-ate conclusions. The workforce planning process al-lows the organization to understand the limits of itsdata and data systems. This information can lead tothe development of better systems and improveddata.

A strategic approach. Human resource profession-als routinely perform “gap analysis” to project re-cruitment needs for the coming months or evenyears. Most integrate informal and formal informa-tion concerning possible retirements, or increasedservice or production requirements. This activity isa form of workforce planning. However, it differsfrom what is described here since its focus is on theshort term and on specific positions as opposed toskill groups. A truly strategic workforce planning

process will integrate the strategic goals and objec-tives of the organization into the planning processand include all the major skill groups that contrib-ute to the meeting of these strategic goals.

The planning process is far moreimportant than the actual plan.

The task of estimating alternative futures is cen-tral to workforce planning. In this respect workforceplanning is different from strategic planning. Stra-tegic planning involves making decisions and tak-ing actions today that define where the organizationwants to go; the organization attempts to define itsimpact.

Workforce planning asks the organization to con-sider alternative futures and determine the relativereadiness of the organization to meet the issues,

Quantitative modeling techniques

The following list of techniques may sound forbid-ding to the person who does not usually use suchtools. However, many individuals who are familiarwith statistics or mathematics have the skill compe-tencies to work with these techniques. Drawing ontheir expertise is critical to the success of your plan-ning effort as you develop more sophisticatedquantitative modeling strategies in your planningeffort.

Demand forecasting

• Trend/percentage estimates• Deterministic relationships based upon other

corporate/organization variables• Regression/correlation analysis (simple, multiple,

step-wise)• Time series analysis• Delhi techniques• Econometric models

Supply forecasting

• Replacement charts/forward planning• Markov models• Renewal models

Integrated models

• Linear programming• Goal programming• Network models• Dynamic programming• Simulation models

Source: Dan Ward et al., Human Resource Forecastingand Modeling (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Academic Press,The Human Resource Planning Society, 1994).


problems, and demand of these futures. From thisperspective, the planning process is far more impor-tant than the actual plan. It is the process that ex-poses and identifies the variety of factors andvariables that affect the availability and readiness ofthe workforce to handle change and provides the or-ganization with the flexibility necessary to deal withuncertainty.

How far into the future the analysis reaches is afunction of the environment to which the organiza-tion must be responsive, or in which it must com-pete. It is also a function of how broadly or narrowlythe functional scope of the planning process isdefined.

For example, the primary purpose of someworkforce planning activities is to determine howmany workers with which skills are required duringa specific shift to meet customer demand. Futureanalysis is defined, in this instance, in terms of daysor weeks. In other instances, the task may be to maxi-mize the productivity and efficiency of an organiza-tion to ensure its competitive position within anindustry. Each example requires a different timeframe for analysis. Whatever the driving factors, theshorter the planning horizon, the greater the prob-ability of accuracy in terms of predicting the futureor anticipating the impact of alternative developmentstrategies.

Tools for analysis. Workforce planning is built ondefining as explicitly as possible the future needs ofthe organization for human resources through thedevelopment of skill data, defining alternative sce-narios, analysis of trends, and comparison. A vari-ety of analytical tools can be used to assist in the task.Some of these tools are quantitative and some arequalitative. Some situations require the aid of a so-phisticated computer model but for other situations,a simple hand calculator will suffice to do the basiccalculations. Sometimes in the absence of reliable

numbers, expert judgment is the tool of choice.The day-to-day activities of human resource data

management depend on systems designed primarilyto maintain information on employment experienceof specific workers (e.g., hire date, job class, compen-sation) as well as some demographic informationnecessary to ensure compliance with specific laborlaws. In workforce planning, data on the individualare less important than information that describestrends in the supply of skills (e.g., number of em-ployees in specific skill groups, age, and minoritystatus) over the planning period.

You may find that such data are not readily avail-able or are in the head of one human resource ana-lyst. For example, within the city of Portland it is verydifficult to acquire basic information on the turnoverin a specific skill category unless the bureau main-tains its own human resource data system with thesecapabilities. An important first step in developing theplanning process is to develop some strategies to dealwith these issues.

Communication. The workforce planning method-ology is built on acquiring objective data about thesupply and demand for skills in the organization.However, workforce planning is not just a numbercrunching activity nor is it just another human re-source task. At every step in the process, manage-ment support combined with involvement ofdifferent groups (e.g., line managers, human resourceprofessionals, labor representatives) in the organiza-tion is critical to the success of the project. Such in-volvement facilitates

• Acquisition and analysis of data• Selection of strategies for change• Implementation of the strategies• Evaluation of the impacts of the plan.

Some groups have more responsibilities thanothers do. Critical to the process of assessing gapsand developing action strategies are the line manag-ers, the individuals whose perspectives are most rel-evant to the process of analyzing and interpretingthe information generated in the process and to thedevelopment of action strategies.

Supporting these individuals are the human re-source professionals who facilitate the planning pro-cess at all stages, help acquire data, lend theirexpertise to the discussion of the issues, and providefollow-through in the implementation of action strat-egies. The human resource professional acts as a stra-tegic partner to the working units of the organizationas they move toward meeting their strategic goals.

Workforce planning raises concerns and issuesrelevant to the working lives of employees. Whenthis planning occurs “behind closed doors,” the am-biguity may result in misunderstandings and inse-curities, as well as resistance to change on the partof employees. On the other hand, involving workers

Managing patrol performance

Some workforce planning focuses on short-termneeds in specific skill areas. These models are oftenused for deployment or staffing of an existingworkforce. One interesting example of this type ofactivity is the “Managing Patrol Performance” com-puter model adopted by the Portland Police Bu-reau several years ago. This model optimizes thedistribution of patrol cars to meet patrol perfor-mance needs in specific geographic areas atspecific times of the day. The model, which waspurchased by the bureau, has been modified toreflect the experience, needs, and characteristicsof the Portland police. For further information, con-tact Captain Pat Nelson, Portland Police Bureau,503/823-0091.


in a meaningful way in the planning process can gen-erate good information and perspectives that contrib-ute to understanding issues as well as the developmentof the organization.

To develop a communication plan, identify thegroups in and out of the organization that shouldhave some awareness of the project and assess whatthey need to know when. For example, in theworkforce planning effort of the Portland water bu-reau, the planning group identified 15 distinct audi-ences for the information on the workforce planningeffort. Their list included

• Management team• Mid-level managers• Union leaders• Labor management teams• Employees• Affected workgroups (once data have been pro-

cessed)• Skill group interviewees• Commissioner’s office• Other members of council• Bureau of human resources• Bureau of environmental services• Public utilities regulatory board• Wholesale customers.

Finally, workforce planning must be integratedinto the mainstream activities of the leaders of theorganization. Their leadership and attention is criti-cal to the success of the effort. It is their job to clarifythe goals and objectives of the organization, to cre-ate an organizational climate that values planning,and to develop the institutional structures that sus-tain it. Without their support, workforce planningefforts will struggle and probably fail.

Developing an Action Plan

As you work through the planning process, a betterunderstanding of where the organization is now andwhere its needs to be in the future begins to develop.Quantitative and qualitative information gatheredduring the planning process clarifies the human re-source needs and requirements of your organizationover time and in specific skill areas. This informa-tion is used to structure a strategic and tactical ac-tion plan.Strategic. Strategic workforce initiatives are theorganization’s roadmap for achieving long-rangehuman resource needs and requirements. They ad-dress the organization’s position for specific skillgroups on

• Retention• Sourcing (long-term recruitment)

• Outsourcing• Performance improvement• Re-deployment.

These are the big issues that need to be revis-ited routinely by the organization so that it can movetoward better service, higher productivity, or greaterefficiencies.

Consider the issue of retention. Within the cityof Portland, retention is very high for the city as awhole and in specific bureaus. Generally, manage-ment and employees value this state of affairs. Butindividual bureaus in their efforts to achieve greaterproductivity are questioning some of the rules, as-sumptions, and practices that define the city’s reten-tion policies. This attention is coming not only frommanagement but also from employees. Theworkforce planning process puts these issues on thetable for discussion in the context of business needsand organizational objectives and workforce strate-gies such as outsourcing, performance improvement,and re-deployment.

Tactical. Tactical initiatives describe the specific ac-tions that the organization takes to implement itsstrategic initiatives. These actions are the “nuts andbolts” of day-to-day human resource management.They include

• Outreach efforts• Selection and recruitment strategies• Remuneration strategies, e.g., compensation• Learning and training efforts• Collective bargaining/employee relations• Continuity and succession planning• Outplacement.

Workforce planning makes explicit the connec-tion between the strategic and the tactical initiatives.Once the connection is made between perceived skillgaps and strategic and tactical initiatives, your or-ganization is in a position to develop human resourcepolicies and procedures to meet the goals and objec-tives of the organization. Equally important, the or-ganization is in a better position to make thebudgetary arguments necessary to fund the proposedworkforce strategies.

An abundance of literature on human resourcemanagement discusses the relative merit of differ-ent strategic and tactical human resource approaches.The strength of the workforce planning process isthat it draws on the expertise of those who know thebusiness of the organization best—line managers,human resource specialists, the leadership, and em-ployees—to define the appropriate strategies.

Addressing Constraints

A variety of factors—legal, contractual, moral, orcultural—limit the choices that the employer can


make to address perceived skill gaps. While some ofthese are hard to change (e.g., acts of Congress), oth-ers can be changed to meet the evolving situation.On occasion, both formal and informal rules of op-eration are treated as “sacred cows” even thoughthey do not serve the organization well. As the orga-nization begins to define the actions to be taken, itshould review and assess the constraints that facili-tate or preclude certain efforts. Most important,when there is a perceived need for change, the orga-nization should involve in the planning discussionsthose who have an interest in the change and whoare necessary to facilitate the change.

Implementation and Evaluation

Implementation begins with good communicationabout what is being done and why, indicating the ob-jectives as well as the assumptions, data, and assess-ments that led to the particular strategies chosen. Thisinformation will clarify for the organization, employ-ees, and stakeholders what is being done and whatneeds to be done.

Portland has both centralized and decentralizedhuman resource functions. In organizations of thisnature, action plans shared between different levelsof the organization may contribute to the develop-ment of better communication, greater cooperationand support, and more effective human resourcepolicies. When shared with other stakeholders andemployees, action plans facilitate the discussion ofcritical factors that must be addressed for successfulimplementation. When information is shared, it con-tributes to improved understanding of the strategicissues that drive the workforce decisions of specificunits.

Implementation occurs at different stages in theplanning process. For example, if early in the plan-ning effort, the decision is made to outsource an ac-tivity, planning for this activity should begin rightaway because the organization will need time toidentify issues, assess cost savings, and (if necessary)put in place the process for contracting out the func-tion. On the other hand, your organization may de-cide that it needs to focus initially in its planningefforts on a specific service or production area whileat the same time reviewing the overall needs of theorganization.

Whenever specific actions are taken to addressperceived skill gaps, evaluation of the success ofthese strategies should begin also. This directiveholds whether you are engaging in long-range sourc-ing programs (e.g., police corps), streamlining theselection process, developing new training programs,or implementing early retirement programs. Some ofthe questions that you may wish to answer are

• Did we meet the original criteria for success?• Are we moving in the right direction?

• Did we learn anything that will help us do ourjobs better?

• Are there changes in workforce characteristicsor trends (e.g., improved retention)?

As information is gathered, the organization canreassess its approach. When this occurs, workforceplanning becomes a dynamic perspective on humanresource management that should lead to serviceimprovement, increased productivity, and greaterefficiencies.

CONTINUITY PLANNING

One of the most important reasons to use workforceplanning is to make sure that the loss of key employ-ees does not disrupt operations or interfere with ser-vice delivery. Two strategies in particular can be usedto anticipate and ease transitions in the workplace:succession planning and transferring or capturingcritical knowledge.

The fact is, all employees are going to retiresomeday, have an accident, find a better job, or die.For organizations, these are relatively routine events,if sometimes painful for the individuals and their co-workers. There are instances, however, when the lossof an individual or a group of individuals can be dis-ruptive to the organization and result in a decline inproductivity or in the quality of service.

Historically, human resource analysts focused onthe issues and problems of identifying replacementsfor top executives and the strategies for training andgrooming them. In recent years, however, there isgrowing recognition among human resource manag-ers that continuity of skills and expertise is impor-tant at all levels of the organization. The loomingretirements of baby boomers, increased competitionfor the specialized skills of the technological age, andchanging characteristics of the supply of labor havealerted analysts to the potential risk of losing vet-eran workers. In all city and county governments,there are individuals whose skills, expertise, or ex-perience are critical to the organization, and thereare skill groups that badly need replenishment orsupport.

A long-term effort that an organization canimplement to ensure continuity is strategic workforceplanning as it has been discussed in this report. Aswe have seen, workforce planning identifies andquantifies emerging skill gaps across skill categories.For example, analysis of workforce changes inPortland’s water bureau indicates that differentpeople will hold over 50 percent of the jobs in thenext five years. While most of these people will bepromoted from within, the organization will experi-ence considerable “churning.”

Addressing these areas supports the long-termability of an organization to sustain and increase itslevel of productivity and service. Planning gives the


organization time to pursue a variety of workforcedevelopment strategies (e.g., long-term recruitmentstrategies, and apprenticeship programs) that ad-dress gaps in all areas. Planning also provides theopportunities to explore the effectiveness of currentstrategies in the areas of recruitment, selection, orretention.

Succession Planning

Like other employees, executives are reluctant to letanyone know when they are going to leave an orga-nization, but the organization should still take stepsto protect itself from unexpected gaps in leadership.

Analysis of past trends in leadership recruitmentcan be an important first step in the process of iden-tifying strategies that will be helpful. Within the cityof Portland, leaders in many bureaus are promotedfrom within and in some cases, move across bureaus.Clearly, such a pattern promotes one kind of conti-nuity. On the other hand, a bureau may want to askalso if such continuity also sustains or promotes pro-ductivity or higher levels of service. The answer tothis question will point to specific action strategies.For example, if the answer is “yes,” then the organi-zation needs mechanisms (e.g., training programs)for preparing current workers to take on leadershippositions. If, on the other hand, outside recruitmentis encouraged, then the organization may want toensure that it has strategies for capturing some ofthe institutional knowledge that explains why thingshappen the way they do.

Transferring and Capturing Critical Knowledge

The organization should also attempt to identify in-dividuals who have critical knowledge, skill, or ex-perience within the organization and developstrategies for capturing or transferring the informa-tion. Below are listed suggested criteria for identify-ing jobs where knowledge, skills, or experience are“critical” to the operation of the organization, andfor identifying individuals whose knowledge or ex-perience needs to be “captured” and transferred toensure continuity of operations.5

Criteria for identifying “critical jobs”

• Normal operations will be hindered severely ifthe individual is not available.

• Skills of a specific individual are needed in anemergency.

Criteria for identifying individuals whose knowl-edge or experience needs to be “captured” to en-sure continuity of operations

• The employee possesses undocumented infor-mation that is necessary for future operations.

• The employee possesses unique training in orhas specialized knowledge or experience of someaspect of operations.

• The employee is in a job family where a highpercentage of retirements are imminent.

Once the specific skills, experience, or knowl-edge have been identified in the different work units,the task is to develop mechanisms for capturing andtransferring the information. Below are listed someof the options.

Ways to capture and transfer information or skills

• Document information in a permanent, comput-erized database

• Develop procedure manuals and quick refer-ences

• Create opportunities for job-shadowing or doublefilling of position prior to a person’s departure

• Develop training programs to increase the num-ber of individuals with specialized skills

• Maintain open files documenting policy deci-sions of the organization

• Develop work-based orientation programs fornew employees

• Conduct exit interviews.

The recent efforts of several Portland bureaus toconvert critical information into a geographic infor-mation system (GIS) are excellent examples of strat-egies to ensure continuity in the operations of theorganization while increasing efficiency. Prior to theuse of GIS technology, much mapping informationand history related to service in different areas of thecommunity was in a paper format and not easily ac-cessible to the field worker. As a consequence, manyindividual field workers carried “critical informa-tion” about infrastructure in their heads. Theefficiency of an field worker was often dependent onthe extent of this “specialized knowledge.” The GIScaptures this information and makes it readily avail-able to all field workers at the push of a button.

As with other matters of interest to the workforce,communication and engagement of workers in thetask of identifying “critical skills” and important in-formation is recommended. Such engagement ensuresthat decision makers have an accurate assessment ofthe issues and areas that need to be addressed. In ad-dition, workers develop a broader understanding ofthe relationship and importance of their skills, knowl-edge, and experience to the operations of the organi-zation. The following chart provides an example ofcritical jobs and individuals identified and ideas pro-posed to ensure continuity.


WORKFORCE PLANNING IN EMERGENCYSERVICES

This case study was written by Judy Olivier, programmanager for workforce planning and development, and LoisMartin Bronfman.

The Bureau of Emergency Communications (BOEC)of the city of Portland provides police, fire, and medi-cal emergency call services for the local governmentsand population of Multnomah, County, Oregon. Itshas approximately 140 employees, of whom 80 aredispatchers. The bureau receives approximately onemillion calls a year. The BOEC has recently been con-fronted with an emerging staffing crisis for dispatch-ers that has a variety of causes.

First, a significant percentage of their supervi-sory and coaching staff are eligible for retirement atthe same time—at least half the supervisors are eli-gible for retirement within four years. Second, thereis an emerging shortage of workers in Portland.BOEC has positioned itself well in its industry mar-ket by offering an above average training wage com-bined with excellent government benefits. In the past,many people applied every time a dispatch positionwas advertised. However, the region is now in a pe-riod of full employment, and the number of inter-ested applicants has dwindled as potentialemployees find work at comparable wages in lessemotionally demanding industries.

Finally, many BOEC trainees drop out beforecompleting the difficult, year-long training program.In the mid 1990s, BOEC was losing 60 to 80 percent

of its basic academy. Each failure was extremelycostly to the bureau and disruptive to other traineesand employees.

After several efforts to redesign the selectionprocess, management hired a staff person with ex-perience in workforce development to implement aworkforce planning process. Present and futureneeds were assessed using a relatively straightfor-ward, “low tech” approach of reviewing some trenddata on supply, recruitment, retention, and retire-ment. The task of assessing future needs was rela-tively easy (compared with other bureaus orbusinesses) because the center has only one primaryskill category.

Strategies to address the various elements con-tributing to the staffing crisis were defined andimplemented. They are described below.

First, a task analysis is underway to determinethe skills and abilities required by critical positionssuch as a 9-1-1 supervisor and a dispatch coach. Si-multaneously, a skills and interest inventory is be-ing developed for distribution to all employees. Theoutcome of these activities should provide sufficientdata to build promotional development plans thattarget the center’s future needs and also considercurrent employee goals.

Second, the human resource staff is identifyingother industries that pay wages and require skillscomparable to those of the retiring supervisors andcoaches. Many of the retiring employees are at anage where they want to remain employed but in aless demanding position. By assisting this group inout-placement efforts, the organization will demon-

Worksheet Example: Critical Jobs and Position

Critical Jobs and Individuals with Criticaland Unique Skills

Water service mechanics—generalists who can workin variety of areas. Main breaks and new services areespecially critical. Problem: pending retirements.

Meter shop—Joe Smith and his procedures for largemeter calibration

Tony Tiger–expertise in decorative fountains, largetaps, core drilling and hydro-stops

Large valve repair—no one currently has the skillbecause of retirements

Line locators—retirements pending

Ideas Proposed to Assure Skills Are AvailableWhen Needed (Skills Transition Plan)

1. Training upgrades2. Develop training program as feeder and support3. Dedicated training trucks and special incentives for

trainers

1. Written procedures documenting the work2. Train replacement staff3. Videotape work on specific types of meters

1. Develop procedure manuals2. Videotape special procedures

1. Bring back retiree to train replacement

1. Double fill for six months or training


strate its interest in its employees and adds to theoverall advantage in working at BOEC.

Third, to remain competitive in the labor mar-ket while presenting a realistic picture of the dispatchjob, an aggressive recruitment plan was developed,which is yielding excellent results. BOEC advertisedopen positions in all the community and minoritynewspapers, attended large job fairs, staffed boothsat small community events, and generally increasedits public image. Today’s public is much more in-formed about the demands and rewards of the 9-1-1dispatcher.

Fourth, BOEC also made its application processavailable online at the city’s Web site, and takes por-tions of its unique testing process into the commu-nity so that interested applicants can practicerequired skills before each recruitment. Recruitmentcampaigns were limited to one spring and one fallcampaign in contrast to an “open recruitment”method. This change helps control the number oftrainees in the basic academy and lets interested ap-plicants know when the job opens so they can pre-pare for the opportunity.

Fifth, more informed about the demands of thejob, each applicant begins his or her career at BOECbetter prepared for the work—and this factor maybe contributing to a decline in the trainee failure rate.(Currently the attrition rate is comparable to othercity bureaus.) The curriculum of the basic academywas also redesigned to include simulation, observa-tion, and other effective adult learning methodolo-gies.

Sixth, the general work environment at BOECwas also addressed. Health and wellness programssuch as critical incident stress management trainingand peer support counseling were developed. Theonsite fitness center was improved and a healthnewsletter is distributed quarterly. All efforts helpto raise the awareness of wellness among the center’semployees, which adds to the competitive quality ofemployment at BOEC.

All of these efforts help to address the need fornew, well-trained workers. Long-range plans to in-crease the supply of qualified applicants include link-ing up with other agencies and colleges in the region.

WORKFORCE PLANNING IN THE BUREAU OFWATER WORKS

This case study was written by Susan Bailey, programmanager for workforce planning and development, and LoisMartin Bronfman.

Portland’s Bureau of Water Works is a rate-financed,city-owned utility. The bureau operates the watersupply system that delivers drinking water to morethan 840,000 people who live in the Portland metro-politan region.

The bureau administration is progressive and

innovative, and it has considerably greater latitudethan other city bureaus in spending its resources be-cause of its independent revenue base

Origin of Workforce Planning

In the summer of 1995, the bureau held a strategicissues conference for its managers. Among the issuesdiscussed was the need for long-term workforceplanning and development due to the projected num-ber of retirements over the next 10 years and thechanging nature of work within the bureau result-ing from new technology and changing regulations.Specifically, the strategic document that resultedfrom the conference called for forecasting and ana-lyzing future needs and for the development of aworkforce strategy to address the needs.

The director of the bureau and his managementteam initiated the workforce planning project. Thisgroup decided to find outside consultants to facili-tate the development of the process with the aim ofestablishing over several years the in-house capabili-ties necessary to sustain a workforce planning pro-cess. In addition, the bureau hired on a temporarybasis an experienced staff person to act as a liaisonbetween the bureau and the consultants and to fa-cilitate communication. In September of 1997, thebureau issued a request for proposals for itsworkforce planning project. The award was given totwo consultants who offered not only a strategy forfacilitating the planning process that involved work-ers and managers, but also a computer-supportedmodel with the capability of projecting long-termworkforce needs.

From the beginning management made it clearto the consultants and the employees that theworkforce planning process should operate with twomajor assumptions: 1) that the bureau would con-tinue its no layoff policy, and 2) that the bureauwould continue to promote a diverse workforce.

The Initial Process

The workforce planning process began with six ma-jor steps that provided both quantitative and quali-tative information for understanding needs anddeveloping future actions.Step 1. Developing project support and understand-ing within the bureau. A project team composed ofworkers (represented and non-represented) as wellas middle managers was recruited. The responsibil-ity of the project team was to develop with a con-sultant the communication plan for the bureau andto assist in the collection of data from workers onthe current and future critical competencies requiredto do the work of the bureau. In this first step, theconsultants also briefed the management team on theproject and worked with them to establish criticalcommunication links.


Implementation of this task was very success-ful. The advisory committee selected by managementconsisted of approximately 15 represented and non-represented employees. A representative from thecity’s bureau of human resources observed the meet-ings. All regularly attended the monthly meetingsorganized by the consultants and bureau staff. As agroup they developed and implemented a commu-nication plan for the bureau about the project, andthen trained for and carried out the assessments ofcurrent and future skills for the different skill groupsidentified by the consultants. In addition, throughtheir questions about the process, they oftenidentified areas of confusion or miscommunicationthat needed clarification before the process couldproceed. Most important, the advisory group pro-moted the concept of workforce planning within thebureau among the employees.Step 2. Collecting data to customize the planningmodel. Bureau management provided a range ofmaterials for the consultants to review on strategicobjectives and goals for the bureau; union contracts;city rules governing transfers, layoffs, etc.; and jobclassification and compensation information. In ad-dition, the consultants brought to the task consider-able information and expertise concerning the trendsin industry, changing skill requirements, and humanresource issues and strategies.

A first step in customizing the model requiredidentifying the list of critical competencies within thebureau. The consultants used three criteria for selec-tion of the list of job categories to include in themodel. These three criteria were 1) job categories inwhich there are many people, 2) job categories inwhich the skills are changing, and 3) categories thatare unique to the bureau. The list of job categoriesthat emerged from this process was then reviewedby the advisory committee and further refined.

The final list of critical competencies providedthe basis for forecasting specific changes in theworkforce (number, age, etc.) over time. This listwould also be used to identify groups of employeesto interview about the requirements now and in thefuture in specific skill areas.

The advisory group spent considerable time dis-cussing which were the critical skill categories. Whatbecame clear early in the process was that criticalskill areas were not synonymous with jobclassification. Some critical skill areas included in-dividuals each of whom had a different job title. Asthe consultant noted, one task for the bureau was toalign job classifications with skills. Fortunately, thebureau of human resources for the whole city wasjust beginning that task.Step 3. Gathering data relevant to interpreting theoutput of the model. The advisory team conductedinterviews with the groups of employees from thedifferent job classifications. Each group includedemployees at the entry level and the advanced level

of the classification. Employees were asked to iden-tify 1) knowledge required for the job, 2) skills andresponsibilities, 3) certificates or licenses, 4) years ofexperience required, and 5) educational level, for thepresent and for the future (see Appendix C). Thisinformation was summarized by the consultants intonotebooks as an inventory of skills required for thenext five years.

In addition to the data on jobs, census data andhistorical data on workforce demographics were alsocollected to determine trends. And finally an effortwas made to identify business ratios (e.g., revenuesto workers, total budget to workers, workers to citi-zens served) in order to establish the ratios desiredby management for evaluation of current and futureworkforce trends. The management team resistedidentifying business ratios that could be used forcomparison with other utilities. The team felt that itwas difficult to come up with comparable water utili-ties for comparison. The consultant urged the teamin the absence of external comparisons to identifysome internal ratios for evaluating change.Step 4. Determining yearly input and outflow ofemployees in specific skill areas. The consultantworked closely with the human resource supportstaff in the bureau to determine yearly input andoutflow factors (e.g., present level of staff in each skillcategory, historical turnover, filled and unfilled po-sitions, etc.) for use in the model. The model reliedon relatively limited historical information on flowsof employees. It was discovered early in the processthat much of the information on recruitment trendsand turnover was in the head of one employee in thebureau. In addition, as with many bureaus, positionswere deliberately left vacant to provide a buffer inhard fiscal times.

For these reasons, even the apparently simpletask of identifying the actual number of real posi-tions was not easy. As the consultant noted, one ofthe first tasks emerging from this planning processwas to improve the human resource data system.Step 5. Forecasting. Using a computer-generatedmodel, a five-year forecast was developed with sum-maries of net changes identified. All of the data pro-vided by the bureau on numbers, age, and race ofemployees were sent to the consultants’ office wherethey were put into the model’s database. For thisforecast, the assumption made was that businesswould continue as usual, i.e., revenues would changeat about the same rate as service demand, and therewould be no major changes in work processes.

A progress report was prepared for the projectteam and the management team. This report dis-cussed aggregated changes (i.e., total change in num-ber of workers and total turnover within the bureau)as well as reporting on specific changes withinspecific job categories.

The results of the report were not startling. Thetotal size of the bureau’s workforce would under a


“business as usual” scenario change by approxi-mately 50 employees at the end of five years. Theprojected retirements combined with other separa-tions would result in considerable movement aspeople changed jobs to fill the emerging vacancies.This “churning” was substantial for the water bu-reau but relatively small compared to other types ofbusinesses. The report also identified two skill areaswithin the maintenance section of the bureau forwhich the projected supply was questionable: util-ity worker and water service mechanics.Step 6. Developing preliminary action plan. Usingtheir assumptions about future demand, the manage-ment team developed a preliminary action plan toclose the perceived gaps. The team chose to focus ontwo workforce areas: 1) reviewing the future staffingneeds and job structure in maintenance; and 2) con-tinuity planning in job areas filled by people withunique and critical skills and knowledge.

The maintenance section of the water bureau waschosen as this was the area in which most of retire-ments were going to occur and in which the jobs werecritical to assuring supply of water to the customers.The team reorganized the maintenance section andgave priority to establishing a water utility workerapprenticeship program to ensure a supply of utilityworkers. The team also strengthened the water ser-vice mechanic apprenticeship program, and providedon-going training to journey-level mechanics.

The team also launched a continuity planningproject to put into place strategies for capturing theinformation from or for providing backup supportto those individuals with unique and critical skillsand knowledge. Finally, the management team calledfor an updating of the data to the computer model.

Assessment

The most positive and apparently long-lasting im-pact of the workforce planning process has been therecognition that workforce planning is appropriateand needed. Overall, the project was successful infocusing the attention of both management andworkers on the work and workers of the organiza-tion. It began the process of transferring knowledgeabout skills and knowledge required for specific jobsto others in the organization. In addition, the datagathering process as well as the forecasting of futuresupply under a “business as usual” scenario wasvaluable, because the data supported what manymanagers suspected were emerging issues. The useof quantitative information to better understand hu-man resources was also a valuable exercise.

The process has also received some criticism,however. Some of the participants feel that there ismore work to be done. As several have noted, “theretirements are happening and we don’t seem anybetter prepared than before.” Below are listed someof the issues that have been raised.

• The newly instituted apprenticeship programfor utility workers (that was recommended inthe preliminary plan) was a late response toproblems already apparent. With the new pro-gram there are restrictions on hiring journeyutility workers—as the bureau waits for the ap-prentices to finish their training—that have madefilling the vacancies difficult.

• The modeling effort restricted its analysis to the“business as usual” scenario. It did not providemuch new information. The value of the model-ing is to have the opportunity to look at thehuman resource effects of different scenarios(the “what if” options) for running the business.

• Too little attention was given to what may bechanging skill requirements. For example, littleattention was given by managers in this initialplanning effort to the future effects of the capitalimprovements identified in the water bureau’scapital improvement plan for the next 20 years.This plan could have been used to define thealternative scenarios.

• Supervisors of work groups were not sufficientlyinvolved in discussions about the meaning of thedata and they were not involved in developingfuture strategies. Communication and involve-ment of supervisors was limited to gatheringdata on skill groups.

• Management has yet to demonstrate to workersthe value of workforce planning to their workinglives. The expectation raised was that there wouldbe some tangible benefits.

While these criticisms are substantial, they alsoreflect a level of interest that can propel theworkforce planning process forward. No one has in-dicated that workforce planning is “dead.” The con-cern is how to move it forward and how toaccomplish some of the original goals of the plan-ning process.

1. At the beginning of the workforce planning project in the fallof 1996, the bureau of human resources conducted interviewswith bureau managers to determine what factors will affecthow work will be done in the city, what skills will be required,and who will be available to do it.

2. Eugene McGregor, Strategic Management of Human Knowledge,Skills, and Abilities: Workforce Decision-Making in the Post-In-dustrial Era (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1991), p. 33.

3. In some instances, the process of workforce planning beginswith a competitiveness study that assesses the competitive po-sition of an organization with respect to other organizations.These studies often evaluate the performance of the organi-zation using ratios or benchmarks, e.g., revenues to numberof workers.

4. Skopos Consulting, “Workforce Planning 1997–2002: A Pre-liminary Report to the Portland Water Bureau,” January 11,1998.

5. An advisory group in the Portland water bureau developedthis list as part of their workforce planning effort.


APPENDIX A—WORKFORCE PLANNING QUESTIONS(PORTLAND BUREAU OF WATER WORKS)

The questions listed below are some of the questions gen-erated by the management team of the Portland waterbureau at the beginning of their workforce planning pro-cess. The questions cover a range of workforce issues andstrategies.

How Will Jobs Change?

Questions to be addressed by the consultantsHow are the jobs going to change in the future?

• What are the new critical skills we will need?• What are the industry trends that will shape our job

changes and the workforce?

What are the gaps between current and future skills?

• How many jobs are there which will have majorchanges?

• How many employees will be affected by these majorchanges?

Questions that will involve developing bureau policies,using the data developed by the consultantsWhat criteria should be used for determining whether tohire for needed skills, contract out, or retrain current em-ployees?How do we determine which jobs lend themselves to re-training?What does the “no layoff” policy mean in practice?What criteria should be used to decide what trainingshould be provided by the bureau, and what trainingwould be better provided by others, such as the commu-nity colleges?What training is the bureau’s responsibility to provide(and pay for); what responsibility should employees takeon their own?

Operational questionsHow do we fill the skill gaps?

• What are the opportunities for retraining employeeswhose jobs may disappear?

• In what classifications are there opportunities forcross-training and sharing of responsibilities (“multi-tasking”)?

• How do we identify people who can be crossed-trained?

How Will the Numbers Change?

Questions to be addressed by the consultantsWould like accurate forecasting of retirements and attri-tion by workgroups, job families, and job titles if possible.How can we most accurately know when employees willreally retire, not just when they are eligible? Can we addany bureau-specific information that will make the fore-cast more accurate (e.g., those eligible for the new oppor-tunity to apply military service for earlier retirement).

Questions that will involve developing bureau policies,using the data developed by the consultantsWhat policies need to be developed to ensure our employ-ees reflect the diversity of the community? (Related ques-tions will be: how do we define the “community” fordifferent types of jobs; how do we ensure diversity at ev-ery organizational level?)

How Will Staffing Levels Be Affected?

Questions to be addressed by the consultantsComparison of staff ratios to other utilities. For example,ratio of GIS staff to users.

Questions that will involve developing bureau policies,using the data developed by the consultantsWhat service standards do we want to set? How do we needto be staffed to provide that level of service?Are we preparing enough project managers?How will we use the industry ratios in our own decisionmaking? (This helps us know how to use the industrybenchmarking information: if the staffing ratios at othercompanies are different from ours, we need to know why.Are their business needs different? Are their service stan-dards different, and if so, why? Would like the names ofcompanies/people to contact to find out about the ratio-nale behind the ratios of other companies.)Are there other criteria besides cost-effectiveness that thebureau should consider in making its contracting-out de-cision?What analysis could be used to determine the cost-effec-tiveness of contracting out vs doing the work in-house(e.g., engineering)?

Operational questionsBureau needs to very accurately determine its computertechnology support needs—solid ratios from the indus-try. (We have seriously underestimated our GIS needs.)How will the changes in demographics within the bureauaffect redeployment?

Other Questions

Questions to be addressed by the consultantsWhat are the key elements of succession planning? (E.g.,how to provide opportunities and select people formentoring. This includes training people for leadershiproles, which may take several years.)What have other companies done? What literaturesearches can we do to find out general and specific “do’sand don’ts” from other companies that have undergonethese types of shifts?

Questions that will involve developing bureau policies,using the data developed by the consultantsWhat policies and procedures will be needed to best man-age the transition of an employee from a job that goes awayinto another within the bureau?

Operational questions

Where does the responsibility for long-term workforcedevelopment lie in the bureau?

What organizational development or human resource re-sources are needed and budgeted for to help the manage-ment team focus its analysis and support decision makingfor the workforce development? Is there a need for a moreformal human resources office within the bureau thatwould consolidate and manage some of the existing per-sonnel, training, organizational development, andworkforce planning activities?

Vulnerability assessment: Are there service or skill gapsin areas of our operation that would make us vulnerableto suggestions of privatization?

Where are there going to be the biggest areas of resistanceto change?

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Volume 32 / Number 3March 2000

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Workforce Planning andDevelopment: Portland,

Oregon

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