Workforce Analysis: A Comprehensive Review

Workforce analysis is a vital business management strategy and will help you in several ways if you incorporate it properly. You must understand your workforce’s weaknesses, strengths, demands, and needs, keeping in view the workload to run a successful business. Conduct a workforce analysis to have a detailed conception of your business requirements. 

This blog will help you explore different ways to consider while conducting a workforce analysis for your organization. Moreover, you will encounter similar terms like workforce analysis, workforce analytics, and workload analysis, but they all have different meanings and purposes. 

Introduction of workforce analysis

Workforce analysis is a strategic method in which you decide on recruitment, staff management, and employee retention based on investment data. You can say that monitoring the existing employees and deciding whether to lay them off or recruit more based on work requirements and investment. The name workforce planning is also known as workforce analysis.

Consider a toy factory where the factory must produce 5000 toys daily, but each worker can only produce 50. The total number of employees in your factory is 80. To determine the number of employees required, divide the total number by the number of toys a worker can make in a day (5000 50 = 100). So, you need 100 employees to complete the work. In this scenario, you must recruit 20 more employees. It is a workforce analysis scenario in a small business. 

Is Workload analysis the first thing to do? 

The foremost thing you do in workforce  planning assesses the workload on your company. When executing the third management function, staffing, you come through a term named “workload analysis.” You can also say manpower planning because you plan to increase or decrease manpower according to work needs. 

What does workforce analytics have to do with workforce planning?

Workforce analytics gives you tools and metrics which you measure, determine and improve workforce performance. Workforce analytics helps in workforce planning through its data-informed methods. It calculates the effect of workforce behavior on business performance. Workplace analysis and analytics are sometimes used interchangeably, but now you know the difference. 

In how many ways can you analyze your workforce?

There are three ways to assess your workforce and have deep insight into workforce planning. 

Supply assessment

It analyzes the company’s current state, considering demographics and employee numbers along with a set of skills. For future workforce, you must consider the number of turnovers, promotions, terminations, and retirement. The responsibility of a workforce analyst is to ensure the condition of the business if action is not taken for training or recruiting. 

Supply assessment analyzes the current condition and understanding its changes with time because of new trends and attrition. It is the first and most common way of analysis. 

For example, if you know your company’s employee turnover rate is increasing and you still need to do something to prevent it, you will lose a lot of good talent. 

Demand assessment 

In this model, you will encounter external and internal factors because of their predictive nature. Demand analysis gives you deeper insight into the future workforce than supply analysis. The basis of the demand assessment model is new product launches, business problems, labor issues, and market conditions that may influence a change in the workforce. 

You may forecast the situation that will help your business or put it in danger. For example, before launching a product, companies predict whether customers need and like their product or prefer the previously running product. 

Gap assessment

In this section, you will find the comparison of demand and supply. Gap analysis monitors present and future needs so you work according to the requirements. As the example described in the supply assessment section, when you do not take necessary measures for turnover prevention, and you got a big project, suddenly your company will be surrounded by crises. 

What are the steps to conduct a workforce analysis?

There are specific steps you might take if you want to conduct a workforce analysis in your company because it is better to work according to the prophecy that workforce planning  gives you rather than regret it later on. 

Here are the steps for the workforce planning process.

• Analyzing The Current State 

You must know the actual status of your company, like what you have and how your work is going. List everything you possess, including projects, products, profit, income, investment, and employees. Then assess where you lack so you can plan to fulfill the deficiency. If you have a low investment that does not cover the product expenses, the workforce analyst should inform the relevant person immediately.

• Identifying a problem

After analyzing the current state of your company, you will know the problems and issues. You must recognize a problem if you want to resolve it. However, if you do not consider something or a situation a threat to your company, you will never know where the loss came from. For example, you ignore the turnover rate and, after a year, get short-staffed. That is why the identification of a problem is necessary.

• Gather Pertinent Information

 Once you have identified the problem, gather the necessary things to fulfill the need. Take the same example to understand this section as written earlier. For turnover ascending issues, you must make a list of who is leaving and why and find people who can replace them immediately. 

• Visioning The Future State

See the list of required things like talent demand, investment needs, and employee retention. Concentrate on what you will require in your workforce in the future. Follow the steps that will help you in reaching your goals. 

• Formulating a Strategy

To achieve your goal, you need to formulate a strategy. The strategy is about steps and things that will lead you to success. 

Analysis and results presentation

The following stage is to do the analysis and then communicate the results to your company executives and stakeholders once you’ve chosen the best analytical methodology. The findings can be presented in a report or as a dashboard, but they must be understandable and straightforward. Here, visual components are helpful, especially when expressing complex concepts.

• Execution and Adjustment

By following all the above steps, you will reach your goal. Implementing a plan is necessary, so this step is about finding your following action. For example, if you analyze that your company’s turnover rate is high and you will get short-staffed in 3 months, now is the time to implement your plan and avoid the difficulties.

The advantages of workforce analysis in human resources

The workforce is beneficial as it saves you from many difficulties in the future. A few benefits are explained in this blog. 

• Getting Ready for the Future

Workforce analysis will inform you about issues beforehand, and you will find solutions to them so your business runs peacefully. Managers and HR are responsible for workforce analysis in routine; for example, if a skilled and experienced person resigns, they must do something to prevent the loss. In business management, workforce planing  is the best technique to save a business before it’s too late to do something. 

• Examining Workforce Inconsistencies

By analyzing the workforce, the management knows who is worthy of promotion and who does not have a place in the company. Moreover, it will realize the management if training and onboarding are required. For workforce planning, the rate of risks and dangers decreases. So, your company will prosper effectively. 

• Enhanced Recruitment Procedures

Knowing the deficiencies in your workforce will guide you better on whom to recruit. Workforce planning highlights the traits, qualifications, experience, and skills you need to discover in a person when hiring. 

• Expect and Prepare for Change

your business will efficiently accomplish the goals and objectives you once needed to reach through workforce planning. Moreover, it will help the management intimate high authorities about the investment and recruitment needs. 

It helps you gear up for the loss before it hits you. For example, when management takes employees’ feedback on the company, they may realize some employees want to leave and post jobs for interviews.

• Cut back on hiring costs

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It positively impacts your employees as management recognizes the issue, so they remain productive. Ultimately, it causes employee retention and hiring cost decreases. 

• Find out talent deficiency.

Talent deficiency identification is possible with workforce planning  because you already know the need to recruit more skilled employees after terminating the slackers.

Monitoring tools help you in workforce analysis. 

Workforce analysis is also possible with the help of employee monitoring app. Identifying and analyzing all the issues in your organization may consume a lot of energy. Therefore, you can use EMS software which will tell you about your employees’ productivity, time, and activity logs. You can quickly determine whether new hires are required by generating reports. Furthermore, its time tracking and productivity monitoring tools will assist you in differentiating between hardworking, productive employees and unproductive idlers. The project management forecasts loss and damage earlier so that you can avoid mistakes in the future. 

Final Thought 

If you effectively use workforce analysis in your business management plan, it will benefit you in several ways. Perform a workforce study to understand your company’s needs thoroughly. You may evaluate your staff and gain a comprehensive insight into workforce planning in one of three methods. 

Analysis of the existing situation and understanding how it evolves due to new trends and attrition constitute supply evaluation. The demand assessment model considers the release of new products, company challenges, labor concerns, and market circumstances. Gap analyses keep track of the condition now and the requirements tomorrow, so you may plan your efforts to fulfill those demands. Moreover, workforce planning is easy with monitoring software and is a quick method, so give it a try.