I've been an HR professional for 14 years, and have been specializing in Strategic Workforce Planning for more than 5 years now—first in Healthcare and now in Policing. I got into the world of SWP by being unashamedly geeky and data-curious. Why were we struggling to hire or retain? What people and skills do we think we need, and is there a different approach we might take? What do we need our people to be able to DO, actually?

I'm passionate about SWP because I believe it's the absolute best vehicle for HR to make a tangible, provable difference to our organizations. I’ve seen the difference that following the data and asking questions about alternative ways of working can make—first in my work in healthcare in New Zealand, and recently in creating the first Strategic Workforce Plan in the Scottish Justice sector.

My personal mission is to build the SWP and People Analytics capabilities of my HR colleagues, and to help our crucial public sector organizations move from the cycle of reactive firefighting to the calmer shores of planned, meaningful, evidence-based workforce and workload change.