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Planning Time III

(December 13, 2004) - Unless you work in a particularly odd universe, the results expected by your management are rarely quantified in the units that you produce. A Recruiter rarely faces a goal of making a finite number of placements (although you can observe this occasionally in the staffing industry.) So, the very first problem you have to tackle in planning is getting your arms around the size of the workload.

Let's say, for a moment, that there are three separate horizon lines you need to consider:

• Immediate future (next six months)
• Medium Range (six months to two years)
• Long Term (two to four years)

The trick in getting the plan right is to make sure that the decisions you make about today's workload account for the needs in the medium and long term.

You'll need several data sources:

• Strategic Planning Results (or copies of Strategic Plans) for near term growth forecasts.
• Stock Market Reports (if the company is publicly traded from sources like Hoovers or Edgar) for mid and long term growth forecasts.
• Labor Market Information (from sources like Ersys and the BLS) to assess the potential competitiveness of the market.

You'll also want the current list of most important problems to solve within the HR Department itself.

The idea is to gather enough information to produce a clear picture of the workload volume and problems that you will face over the next several years. That way, you can organize now for the predictable challenges you are going to face.

- John Sumser

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