The ROI of workforce planning… I will admit it – I used to dread that question.  Either the discussion was so qualitative that it wouldn’t do for an ROI pitch.  Or if you try to quantify improvements, they were so out-size that they would appear ridiculous – millions of dollars of cost improvements and strategic opportunities just for being disciplined about workforce planning.

Then I realized it is the wrong question.  Workforce planning is a diagnostic process that helps uncover the cost savings and opportunities to better align the workforce with organizational strategy.  A diagnostic could yield a clean bill of corporate health.  Or it could yield a few areas of improvement.  Or many.  The point is that you really shouldn’t measure the return on investment of doing a diagnostic process – either your organization thinks it’s a good idea to analyze, plan and forecast, or it does not.

If you are being asked to provide the ROI for workforce planning you should try to transform the question to focus on the premise that workforce intelligence – both looking forwards and backwards – is of inherent value.  Then the ROI discussion is just about whether you have the resources, tools and programs necessary for good workforce planning. Do individual hiring managers make good workforce decisions for the overall organization?  Do we know what type of talent we will hire and develop before we do it – or are we always chasing talent demand?  Do we know which internal talent supply scenario for turnover, retirement and mobility is “most likely” – so we can cut through the type and address something specific?  What would the benefit be of centralizing that effort and applying a consistent discipline to workforce and talent planning processes?  What would the benefit be of having data available pre-decision-making vs. after decisions are already made?