Focus on Workforce Analytics In the rapidly shifting global marketplace, more and more businesses rely on their workforce as their primary asset. Hiring and managing highly skilled employees in the most cost-efficient way is a key strategy for gaining a sustained competitive edge. As companies seek to optimize their human capital, there is a growing need for tools to help forecast workforce demand, address skill gaps, project workforce evolution and engage in long-term planning.
IBM Research is working with the Human Capital Management practice in IBM Global Business Services (GBS) to create a set of tools and models that can be used to help clients optimize their workforce by reducing labor costs, retaining critical skills and deploying personnel efficiently.
Workforce demand forecasting and capacity planning To assist companies in improving their workforce management capabilities, IBM is employing a supply chain approach to help characterize human capacity, forecast demand for human resources, and optimize the matching of people to jobs. The first step is to account for existing personnel and their current skills. Next, demand capture tools project the demand for skills and personnel. Research has developed a methodology and tool to analyze the history of past projects (based on the number and length of projects and the staff requirements for each) to create default skill templates for new projects. A related methodology looks at the history of the project pipeline to improve the accuracy of the projected demand.
IBM's resource capacity optimization tool then matches workforce supply against demand, indicating any skill excesses or shortages. The process is supplemented by other IBM Research assets that support resource capacity planning optimization for uncertain demand, using stochastic modeling.
Matching people to jobs Moving from planning to operations, clients can use two matching tools. The first is used for scheduling employees into shifts through an on demand service-based workforce management system. The system's inherent flexibility allows it to be adapted to individual businesses' requirements, predict workloads for different activities and tasks, and match resource and skill requirements while complying with labor regulations and other constraints. For example, it supports worker preferences and shift rotation, helping boost employee morale, and provides scheduling reports for supervisors, team leaders and employees. Clients report a significant reduction in payroll costs after using the tool to fine-tune their shift management.
For project-based work, IBM's batch matching program, a tool using constraint satisfaction techniques, helps clients match personnel to open positions.
Workforce strategic planning A maturing workforce, combined with the complexity of globalization and changing business conditions, is fueling the development of IBM's workforce evolution and long-term planning tool, which uses historical trends in hiring, attrition and other workforce variables, to help businesses look beyond immediate needs and devise optimal business strategies, organizational structures and long-term operational policies. Given forecasts of demand, revenue, supply and cost, the tool allows users to determine the optimal workforce evolution over time to make strategic long-term planning decisions.
Meeting competitive challenges with advanced workforce analytics Developing a highly skilled workforce is one business strategy that competitors have difficulty replicating, and those companies that focus on addressing skill gaps, forecasting staffing demands and fine-tuning hiring practices can gain a significant and sustainable advantage in the global market. Through a set of modeling and forecasting tools and workforce solutions, GBS's Human Capital Management practice is helping businesses hire and maintain their most important and differentiating asset – their people.
For more information on engaging IBM expertise in human capital management and advanced workforce analytics to help improve your corporate environment, contact ODIS today
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