Does Your Company Have a Forward-looking Workforce Strategy?

Isn’t it time to future-proof your company's growth plan?

"Plan for a workforce that not only touches but integrates into your evolving business ecosystem."

Here’s what you already know: the ongoing digital transformation and the profound effects of the pandemic have essentially blown up the traditional workplace. Today's big question is: what should vulnerable high-growth businesses be doing in response?

The traditional workforce model was simple and often quite efficient:

• Organizations: retained/internal employees

• Operations: captive

• Locations: relatively low cost

This model has become outdated, and innovative operating models have emerged in response to enormous changes, particularly in the workplace. New workforce management solutions are needed that can support organizations:

• Multichannel operational requirements

• Multi-skill resource needs

• Mixed workforce environment

Refining this workforce strategy and developing a multi-year plan to deliver on this strategy is critical. Here are the most important considerations:

1. Business needs – short-term, medium-term, long-term needs

2. Technology infrastructure – how and where to be acquired

3. Sourcing options – in-house, outsourced options

4. Service delivery – matching evolving stakeholder requirements

5. Investment plan – for each stage in the business lifecycle

6. Transition protection – misstep and failure prevention

For start-ups, having a solid strategy that lays the foundation for a flexible, scalable, and mature operation is crucial since start-ups, by definition, are in an almost constant state of change. As start-ups and early-stage firms move through their business life cycle, their workforce's ability to continually deliver operational viability is severely tested. Organizations need to grow and move forward, but it is highly challenging to sync resources, performance, and cost to achieve optimal results.

As the digital transformation has caused businesses to diverge from the traditional workspace, so has the means of acquiring business talent. It’s now possible to gain new operational expertise and integrate this talent in new and exciting ways. By assembling stronger work teams, companies can better achieve operational maturity.

While some services are best managed and performed by a captive/internal workforce, other services are better delivered virtually by outsourced business process service providers carefully integrated into a combined workforce ecosystem. This is often the most cost-effective way to acquire critically needed domain expertise.

In this new workforce model, internal and external resources become collaborative partners in an environment that maintains the optimal level of operational maturity. Multi-disciplinary teams using proven processes can deliver the critical business functions at each business lifecycle stage. This new workforce model is becoming a primary driver of downstream business value creation.

The secret, of course, is finding a partner that can become an extension of your business by integrating their people and processes into your business by utilizing a proven technology platform. Remember, it is not the tool alone that provides the benefits, but acquiring the tool and experts who know how to use it.