Workforce planning is a mandatory strategic process within institutions that make them guarantee that the working force will be in its better position in regard to numbers, skills, and roles to accommodate any prospective challenge in an organization. This is especially relevant to ImportantParcel, an already established parcel and delivery service that is experiencing serious challenges when attracting, recruiting and retaining staff. It is possible to obtain meaningful insights into resolving these resourcing challenges through workforce planning through a systematic approach. It entails the evaluation of the current workforce, projection of future labor requirement, the detection of gaps in skills and the development of specific interventions, whether it will be the recruitment or training or redeployment to align the capacity of the workforce with the purpose of their operations (Marchington et al., 2020).
The logistics industry is one of the sectors where the provision of services is directly associated with the availability of workforce and performance rates, and good workforce planning is the basis of the continuity and resiliency of the organization. It also provides organizations with the resources to predict changes in employment requirements and action the changes. As pointed out by Gomathy et al. (2022), systematic application of workforce planning goes a long way in terms of making an organization responsive to the market environment, as well as improving enterprise productivity by better utilization of human resources. In the case of ImportantParcel, that has a history of chronic problems with seasonal demand spikes and driver shortages, a more integrated approach to annual workforce planning as part of the HR department may help to take more active and cost-efficient approaches to staffing.
There are two examples that can prove the possible outcomes of successful planning the workforce at ImportantParcel. On the one hand, an increased effectiveness of recruitment becomes an important benefit. With the help of historical data pointing to times of highest delivery activity, HR team is able to prepare staffing plans ahead of time, including hiring and onboarding of parcel handlers and drivers, substantially avoiding the last-minute hiring emergency. This anticipatory measure does not only reduce the need to hire expensive individuals in an agency, but also prevents ceasing the delivery of services that would threaten customer confidence. There is more, and workforce planning has the potential to raise usage of digital platforms to facilitate targeted recruitment to facilitate the screening of the candidates and optimize quality of hires.
Secondly, workforce planning enables directed training and in-house employee training. As an example, in case the data of digitally skilled workers or warehouse supervisors Upskilling possibilities in the warehouse is not sufficient due to the ability to use logistics technology, ImportantParcel can offer to implement upskilling programs pro-actively. These programs can help decrease the expenses incurred in the recruitment process considerably and also help initiate employee engagement with the help of a well-defined career development pattern. According to Gomathy et al., (2022), such an approach to internal development is tightly linked with improved productivity and workforce retention. To sum up, the introduction of workforce planning at ImportantParcel will lead to better results in terms of labor cost, service continuity, and the development of an adaptive, strong-nailed workforce, which will confer the organization an advantage over the competitors in a changing delivery environment.
References
Gomathy, C.K., Reddy, K.V. and Reddy, K.V., 2022. The impact of human resource planning on productivity. International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management, 6(4), pp.1–6. Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R. and Kynighou, A. (2020) Human resource management at work: the definitive guide. 7th ed. London: CIPD Kogan Page.
