This step is associated with the efficient execution of planned work… Remembering that the aggregate operational cost of executing each of the business processes is essential to ensure the sustained profitability of the business.

People are important. People are what make an organization successful… Or unsuccessful.

It has never been more important to create an effective and efficient workforce, able to execute the organization’s operations strategy, and at the right cost to the organization. At the same time, it’s also never been harder to find the right people, given the global need for talented people. This is where strategic workforce management can be deployed to ensure the fulfillment of organizational objectives and strategic goals. This is additionally important because the cost of the workforce is also a significant line item in your organization’s operational budget. There are far too many considerations for strategic workforce management to cover in this paper, however, Deloitte^[1] summed it up well…

Organizations increasingly rely on nontraditional workers for skills and activities that are high value and strategically important. Yet, their workforce strategies and practices are still designed for traditional workers. To unlock the full benefits of the entire workforce - which include improved business agility and scalability, expanded access to talent, and improved worker productivity and performance - you need to think of your workforce as an all-inclusive, boundaryless ecosystem, where different types of workers have different needs and make valuable contributions in different ways. This requires workforce strategies, processes, systems, and programs that maximize the unique contributions of different worker types while supporting them all in a more consistent way.

Workforce management isn’t easy because people are not machines. That is also why we must be constantly vigilant to monitor and address the ever-changing employee (traditional and nontraditional) expectations are necessary to engage and motivate people to do good work.

“You can buy a man’s time. You can buy a man’s physical presence at a given place. You can even buy a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour or day. But…you cannot buy enthusiasm. You cannot buy initiative. You cannot buy loyalty. You cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls… You must earn these things.”  

 - Clarence Francis, Chairman of General Foods (1954)

A culture of ‘quality’ is achieved when responsible leadership utilizes a predictable system that ensures organizational control over the operational execution of the ‘standard work’ done by the workforce.

[1] Deloitte, Unlocking the workforce ecosystem, January 2023; https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/our-thinking/insights/topics/talent/human-capital-trends/2023/contingent-talent-management.html