Capacity to Capability: a Skills-Based Approach to Workforce Planning

The idea of ‘the right people in the right place’ is tired. Capability, rather than capacity, is at the core of strategic workforce planning.

Businesses are under heightened pressure, as they emerge from the crisis of the pandemic, to ensure they have the right capabilities to achieve their business objectives. To achieve this, we must step away from old-style ‘headcount planning’ and put capability at the heart of strategic workforce planning. This lens enables us to unlock unique insights and pinpoint specific solutions to broader workforce challenges.

• What do we mean by the ‘right workforce’?
• What is capability and how is it understood?
• How do we measure capability? What are the approaches and technologies that help us do this?
• How do we plan with capability? A range of real-life examples of how capability-led workforce planning solves business problems

• Capability is at the core of strategic workforce planning
• Using a capability lens allows us to hone in on solutions to broader problems
• Technology is an enabler, not a silver-bullet. No single technology can do everything, we need a blend of tools.
• Work out what problem we’re trying to solve before we look at technology solutions.