Strategic Workforce Planning for Business Success
In the evolving landscape of business, strategic planning for hiring and succession is crucial. This narrative explores scenarios in cabinet-making, fishing industry, and legal practice, emphasizing the importance of proactive workforce management to ensure continuity and growth. From deciding between hiring a new cabinet-maker or administrative assistant to succession planning in a fishing crew and reorganizing roles in a legal partnership, the stories highlight the significance of forward-thinking strategies in building a capable and sustainable team.
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Presentation Transcript
Owner Your cabinet-making business has been just you for two years, and you ve been busier than ever. You know it s time to hire someone on.
Manager Employee Your initial thought is to hire another cabinet-maker to take on additional projects and help finish bigger jobs faster. You ve also been wondering if you need an administrative assistant to help with taking phone calls about sales and custom projects, to process payments, do marketing and manage your digital presence. You re wondering if you need an assistant to help with the book-keeping and administration portion of your business, which you don t enjoy; or if you can scale your business more quickly by increasing sales by hiring another cabinet-maker first and having more revenue to hire someone to do administration later. You ve also considered hiring on an apprentice, because you want to give back to the trade you love by encouraging the next generation of cabinet-makers, but you re unsure of your ability to manage and supervise an apprentice, so you re considering that it may be easier to hire and train an administrative assistant, which will give you more confidence to take on the selection and training of an apprentice. Only you can decide what is best for your business and what will help you reach your goals, and it can be worthwhile to look beyond the obvious when hiring.
Your deckhand of 30 years has said he is retiring at the end of this fishing season. You know that your deckhand of 8 years is also experiencing some health problems and you suspect they may not stay in the fishing industry much longer. You re looking to retire in the next 5-6 years, and you want to ensure you have a good team in place for the new captain to continue fishing. Deckhand Deckhand Deckhand Captain
Thinking long-term, you develop a succession plan. Your other deckhand of 8 years has decided next season will be his last one and confirms this to you. This leads to you hiring two additional deckhands, so they can gain training and experience before you lose your second deckhand next year. This also gives you time to ensure the entire crew is well trained and has some experience before you prepare to retire and handover to a new captain, who will be better served with a more experienced crew. Deckhand Deckhand Deckhand Deckhand Captain
You re a lawyer, in a partnership where you each have a paralegal and an assistant. One partner s assistant indicates they will be leaving the practice in two months. You pay high accounting fees and outsource billing which is cutting into your bottom line and cash flow. You re also running out of storage space because it seems both assistants keep duplicating orders for office supplies. Partner Partner Paralegal Paralegal Assistant Assistant
After sitting down to discuss the situation with your partner, you decide to change the roles of your respective assistants slightly. As your assistant is experienced with office management, he will now perform that task for both partners, managing the office, phones, cleaning service, office supplies and technology. You both decide your partner s new assistant should have a background in accounting and that you will end your billing and book-keeping contracts and do that work in house, which will be more efficient and improve your cashflow. Each of your assistants will still be the primary points of contact for your respective clients and will still manage your individual calendars. Partner Partner Paralegal Paralegal Assistant (Office Management) Assistant (Accounting)
Your marketing assistant, Mark, has put in his notice, indicating he has another job offer. After interviewing Mark, you learn he s moving into a sales position with another company to increase his income, and that his background as a marketing assistant appealed to his new employer. Meanwhile, your sales department is quite busy, and you ve received two negative reviews on Google in the past month from customers who had to wait to be served. Owner Marketing Head of Sales Manager Marketing Sales Associate Sales Associate Assistant
After considering your options, you decide to match the income Mark has been offered elsewhere and move him to the sales team. For Ana, your marketing manager, you discuss a more project management role, where she would work more closely with outside companies to do design, SEO and Facebook ads. Ana prefers this approach as she found it stressful to be a supervisor. The overall result of reviewing your organizational chart and considering your processes and how to employ your staff has led to two employees being more satisfied with their roles, and the retention of an employee. This saves on recruitment and training costs, both in terms of time and money. Owner Head of Sales Marketing Sales Associate Sales Associate Sales Associate
