7Cs
Context
Configuration & Organisational
capability
Developing a Workforce Strategy
Notes for Agencies
Change
Leadership
Culture
Capability
Capacity
Costs
Being clear on workforce strategy enables agencies to deliver on their strategic
direction by aligning organisational capability development and workforce to
the business results the agency is seeking to achieve.
The 7Cs Workforce Framework developed by the State Services Commission is
designed to assist agencies and sectors to develop workforce strategies and to
support development of Four-year Plans.
The Framework outlines the key areas of enquiry for a workforce strategy. It is
neither a template nor a step-by-step workforce planning guide.
The 7Cs Framework and the supplementary questions on the following pages
are designed to assist agencies to:
•
Consider the overall impact of their business strategy on workforce
requirements;
•
Build a picture of the current status of their workforce;
•
Identify desired future state; and,
•
Develop a strategy to address any gaps between current and future state.
State Services Commission
August 2013
Contact: workforcestrategies@ssc.govt.nz
Workforce Strategy – 7C Framework
How will we match our workforce with our business strategy to achieve our desired future state?
Context
Our Business
Environment
What internal & external environmental factors impact on our business strategy?
What changes do we expect to our future environment?
Business Strategy
What are our business priorities? What are
the results we want to achieve?
What is our desired future
state?
Operating model
What is our operating model(s)?
What will our operating model
look like when we have achieved
our desired future state?
Is our operating model going to change?
Our Organisation
Configuration & Organisational Capability
How well are we organised to deliver on our operating model?
Do our business processes support achievement of our organisational direction?
Information and Analysis
What information do we need to inform our decisions on our workforce?
Culture
Change Leadership
What organisational culture do we need to
support our business strategy?
What is our change strategy?
How does our change strategy take us to our
desired future state?
How will our culture look when we have
achieved our desired future state?
Our People
Capability
Capacity
What is our workforce capability now?
What is our current workforce capacity?
What workforce capability do we need to
achieve our desired future state?
What workforce capacity will we need in the
future? How will we progress any change
that is needed?
How will we get there?
Costs
How will we sustainably manage the costs of our workforce over the four year period?
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Key Questions
Building a workforce strategy is a dynamic process of enquiry. The questions below are
not a template. They are designed as a prompt to assist agencies to do the background
thinking needed to build a workforce strategy. Not every question will be relevant to
every agency. Agencies may also have other questions that are particular to their own
business context and workforce.
Context
Agencies’ work on Four-year Plans will clarify strategic direction, operating model and
intended medium term delivery including planned business change. This work provides the
context and start point for developing a workforce strategy.
The key workforce outcome from this phase of planning is to build a high level picture
(assumptions/hypothesis) of what the workforce needs to look like to enable delivery of the
results the organisation wants to achieve. This high level picture is tested through the
process of enquiry that builds the workforce strategy.
Key questions
•
What is the overall impact of our strategic direction on our workforce requirements? What
will our intended delivery/results and changes in delivery/results over the next four years
mean for our workforce?
•
What does our business strategy mean for how we work together? Will we need the same
or different skills? Is our workforce likely to increase or decrease in size? What is happening
in the external labour market? How might this impact on our business?
•
Given our business strategy, what are our people risks and opportunities? What are the
likely priorities around our workforce?
Information & Analysis
Information and analysis underpins all aspects of workforce strategy development. Identifying the
information that is not available can be equally important as analysing the information that is
available. Understanding information gaps can signal potential risks around the workforce strategy
and point at areas for future development.
Key questions
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
What workforce data/information is available? What information do we need? (For example:
occupational categories, headcount/FTE, turnover, gender, ethnicity, age structure).
What are our workforce strengths and weaknesses? What are the opportunities and threats around
our workforce?
What are the core occupational categories/workforce segments that contribute to our planned
business results? What is the make-up of these groups? (For example: size, mix, demography, etc).
Does this analysis highlight risks/opportunities for our business?
What are our workforce/people capability costs? How are our workforce costs structured? What are
our forecast personnel cost pressures? (See workforce costs section below).
What information do we have on how productive we are and whether or not we are improving?
What external information do we need? (For example: labour market dynamics - domestic and
international, where relevant; supply and demand factors; key metrics e.g. CPI ) Is there value in
benchmarking with others?
Do we have the right measures in place to monitor our business and people performance? How will
we know we are on track to achieve the results we are targeting?
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Configuration & organisational capability
This area of enquiry considers the organisation’s internal environment and how this enables
its workforce to deliver required business results. This could include how work is organised
and the maturity of, for example, service models and business processes, organisational
controls relevant to workforce, and positioning and ownership of workforce strategy.
Key questions
•
How are our business processes or delivery models likely to change over the next four years?
How do we position our workforce to support these changes? How will the changes support
the efficiency and effectiveness of our workforce?
•
Is our organisational structure stable or are recent changes yet to be bedded in? Will our
organisational design remain ‘fit for purpose’ given our planned change?
•
Is the organisation developing/working in a continuous improvement model? What does
this mean for our way of working and for our workforce?
•
What levers do we have to support achievement of our business goals? What are the
priority people strategies we will focus on to achieve our business strategy?
•
Are our HR & ER strategies well positioned to support achievement of the business results
we need?
•
Who leads and who ‘owns’ our organisation development and workforce strategy? Who in
our organisation is involved in developing/maintaining our workforce strategy?
•
Who are the key stakeholders that need to know about our workforce strategy? What is our
communications plan for this?
•
How will we engage with other agencies in our sector/result area/cluster? Who do we need
to collaborate with to achieve our workforce strategy?
Culture
Organisational culture is a key aspect of workforce strategy due to its influence on
organisational capability and performance.
Key questions
•
What people and organisational behaviours do we need to achieve our business results?
How would we describe our current culture?
•
Does our current culture support the ways of working we need for the future? What culture
do we want for the future? What is our strategy to achieve the culture we need?
•
Does our current culture foster the environment and levels of workforce engagement
needed to support our business strategy?
•
How will we maintain/develop the workforce engagement we need?
•
How will organisational change impact on organisational culture? Who will manage this
impact?
4
Change Leadership
Change leadership refers to the organisation’s approach to change and how it intends to
lead and manage change to achieve the results it is seeking to achieve.
Key questions
•
What is our change strategy? What organisational development strategies do we have in place?
What major change initiatives are coming up? How will this impact on our workforce?
•
How ready is our agency/sector for change? What is our change leadership capability now?
What kind of leaders do we want/need to deliver the change? How will we grow our leadership
capability?
•
How will we work with other agencies in the future? What does this mean for our workforce
and our workforce strategy?
•
What resources are needed to ensure the success of our change programme?
•
What is our strategy to engage our people around change? How will we enable employees to
contribute their expert knowledge to the change?
•
What’s our strategy for stakeholder communication around the change required? How will we
engage unions with the organisation’s direction and in the change as it occurs?
Capability
Workforce capability refers to the mix of people knowledge, skills, attributes and behaviours the
organisation requires to deliver its business results.
Key questions
•
What workforce capability do we have/need to meet our current business requirements
(e.g. occupational groups /competencies and mix of competencies - generalists/specialists;
beginner/proficient/expert)?
•
Based on our future business strategy & operating model do we need to grow/change our
workforce capability/mix and level of capability? What is the gap? Are there particular skill
sets that we need to give higher priority than others to achieve our business strategy?
•
How will we achieve the capabilities we need
(develop/recruit/share/second/outsource/contract in)? What are the possible risks around
this? How will we grow our leadership capability? Do we need to develop our capability
for leading change? Do we need a different capability set to deliver the change?
•
How can working with other agencies help us with our future capability? Are there
opportunities to borrow, grow and/or share capability?
•
What are the cost impacts of the capability shifts we are seeking?
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Capacity
Workforce capacity refers to the total available workforce (or subsets of this), typically people
numbers by hours of work.
Key questions
•
What is the workforce capacity required to deliver our core business (i.e. numbers;
categories, mix)? How do we know our capacity is set at the right level? Which parts of our
workforce support those who deliver our core business?
•
How many people, and which occupational categories and mix will we need in the future?
What are the risks and opportunities around our key workforces/occupational groups?
How will we meet our ongoing capacity requirements (employ/share/contract
in/outsource)?
•
How does our approach to capacity support our business to be effective and efficient?
What do we know about the productivity of our workforce?
•
How will we source, attract, engage and/or grow the people we need? Are we confident
that we will be able to source the people we need when we need them? Are we competing
with other agencies/sectors for the same skills? Are there skills that are in short supply?
•
How will we keep the people we need? Are there ‘mission critical’ roles we need to be
aware of? Do we have organised succession planning? How should we position ourselves
in the recruitment market?
•
What are risks and opportunities around capacity? For example, how does/will our
workforce demography impact on our future capacity? What does our turnover look like?
•
How do we look after the health & safety of our workforce?
•
What are our strategies to make our capacity as flexible as possible? How do we match our
workforce to peaks and troughs in service demand?
•
How can working with other agencies help us achieve the capacity we need for the future?
•
How do we know our approach to capacity is affordable? Within FTE cap? What are our
organisational controls around assuring our capacity is at the right level?
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Costs
Workforce costs include all people related costs and cost drivers including direct employee
costs, contractors, recruitment costs, learning & development etc.
Key questions
•
What are our workforce costs? What are the cost drivers for our workforce? Do our
remuneration & bargaining approaches support our management of workforce cost
pressures? How do our workforce costs track against baselines over the planning period?
•
How could demand across our services impact on workforce costs? How do we intend to
manage service demand to ensure our capacity is sustainable?
•
Are we planning changes to our operating model that will impact on workforce costs - for
example, geographical location, roster systems, workforce numbers and mix; workforce
capability, outsourcing etc.
•
Are we planning changes to the size of our workforce? What will be the capacity and dollar
impact? Over what timeframe?
•
If we are not yet able to (accurately) estimate cost impacts of business change/
transformation initiatives what are the likely scenarios and related workforce cost impacts?
•
How does our ER strategy support our workforce and business direction? What role do
collective agreements play in our workforce costs? How many people are employed on
collective agreements? Do collectives include incremental movement through pay scales?
What is the impact of this on workforce costs over the planning period? What is the cost
impact of employment conditions and allowances in collective agreements? How would
any new settlements impact on our workforce costs? How are we managing expectations
around wages? How does our current strategy line up with the results of previous
negotiation rounds?
•
What is our approach to remuneration? What component of our workforce costs is driven
by (automatic) progression through pay scales and/or discretionary performance based pay
increases? How does this impact on our workforce costs over the planning cycle? What
organisational controls do we have in place to manage and monitor the impact of
remuneration changes? How do we know that they are effective?
•
How do our management systems support efficiency and business improvement and
productivity? For example how do we intend to manage vacancies and recruitment? Do
we have the right organisational controls in place to maintain capacity and productivity at
the right levels?
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