This is the last of four posts outlining a practical framework for addressing critical skill shortages today and in your future workforce.
See my “Talent, Technology & Timing” post to make sure you’re focused on the right problem for your business. Check out “From Cross Training to Collaboratives” to evaluate the range of solutions you’re pursuing. And “Don’t Let These Mistakes Sabotage Your Workforce” detailed three factors – leadership, change, and implementation process – essential for building tomorrow’s workforce.
This post ties everything together in a model to diagnose your current talent strategy and plans for your future workforce.
The “Big Picture”…For Developing Your Future Workforce
When we combine your problem focus, potential workforce solutions and implementation challenges outlined in my previous posts, you now have a “Big Picture” framework (see exhibit below) on all the elements to consider when building future workforce capabilities for your firm, industry or region. Each of these will be addressed in detail in my forthcoming book “Building Tomorrow’s Workforce in Today’s Economy.”
A Path Appears…Next Steps
Use the framework above to drive a discussion with your leadership team. It will help surface logical questions to get focused and to get traction on your most pressing talent needs. (See previous posts for details on each element in the framework.) For starters, you need to explore and get agreement on:
- What problems are we solving? Why is that the priority? What are the costs for our business/region/industry of not addressing it?
- What solutions should we investigate and consider investing in? What will they cost in resources and time?
- Do we have the leadership and change management skills needed to implement the initiatives we’re exploring?
- If not, what are our best action steps for filling in those gaps?
- If this workforce strategy is ideally effective, how will we know it 1-2 years from now? What will be happening?
You now have the Big Picture framework you need to tackle the critical skill shortages and workforce changes you’re facing. Go for it!!!
Contact me if you’d like to talk about how I could bring my latest practical insights to help your organization or audience tackle their most pressing workforce challenges.