Workforce Planning in 2022: 4 Trends to Watch

In an ever-evolving business environment, it’s challenging for companies to plan ahead and anticipate their future needs. That said, a strategic workforce plan can ensure you’re prepared for what’s next and that all the right talent and skills are in place to help your company thrive. There are many benefits to effective workforce planning—as well as many reasons why poor workforce planning can stunt your growth. When all is said and done, the key to successful workforce planning is to be proactive and well aware of the trends that are shaping and changing the industry.

Below are four workforce planning trends to watch in 2022.

1. Increasing emphasis on collaboration

Collaboration is invaluable in the workplace. It’s known to increase productivity, offer unique perspectives, improve employee relationships, and solve complex problems. Emerging technologies are introducing simplified ways for dispersed teams to collaborate internally—regardless of where they’re located. As a result, workplaces are becoming more collaborative environments, with an increasing emphasis on taking a shared approach.

As workplaces become increasingly collaborative, legacy forms of communication (such as phone calls and email) will be largely replaced by real-time messaging and project management systems. For example, collaboration tools such as Slack and Dropbox have dramatically changed the way we collaborate at work, making it easier to communicate and share files instantaneously. In future planning efforts, consider how you can arrange teams to build a collaborative workforce.

2. Fast-growing remote workforce

The remote workforce has seen a rapid expansion in recent years—and that momentum is expected to continue in 2019 (and beyond). Currently, around 3.9 million U.S. employees work remotely at least half of the time, and that number is growing fast. As such, employers need to consider the expanding remote workforce when they’re planning for the future. Consider which roles will be fully remote, as they’ll require a completely different prehire and onboarding process.

It’s also important that you arm your remote employees with resources such as an employee directory and a live org chart, which will help prevent them from becoming unengaged. By building a digital company culture, you can engage, motivate, and ultimately retain your remote workforce.

3. Embracing self-service options

Companies are beginning to embrace employee self-service options in an effort to streamline workflows, empower employees, and adapt to increasingly digital work environments. Employees today are accustomed to using self-service platforms to do everything, from banking and shopping to filing their taxes. They expect no less at work, desiring convenient self-service options for scheduling, filling out forms, submitting paperwork and time-off requests, changing personal information, and so on. As you determine your future organizational structure and plan for rounds of hiring, consider how you can utilize employee self-service options to make the planning, hiring, and onboarding processes easier across the board.

4. Making data-driven decisions

An increasing number of companies are relying on analytics to make data-driven decisions regarding their workforce. With access to the right data, you can make hiring decisions based on concrete evidence rather than taking a shot in the dark. Predictive analytics based on HR data can help you determine the talent and skills gaps that you’ll need to fill—well in advance of when you need to do so.

By taking a proactive approach and keeping an eye on current trends, you can ensure your workforce planning efforts are always effective and on point. Of course, strategic workforce planning is an easier process with access to the right technology. Live org chart software like Pingboard provides a highly visual, interactive way to determine your future organizational structure and collaborate privately on multiple org charts with different members of your team.

Need help navigating workforce planning complexities? Download 4 Ways to Find Out If Modern Org Chart Software Makes Sense to learn more about live org chart software and how it can simplify workforce planning at your organization.