Agile Workforce Planning

Louder for the people at the back 🎤 Many organisations today seem to have shifted from being institutions that develop great talent to those that primarily seek ready-made talent. This trend overlooks the immense value of individuals who, despite lacking experience, possess a great attitude, commitment, and a team-oriented mindset. These qualities often outweigh the drawbacks of hiring experienced individuals with a fixed and toxic mindset. The best organisations attract talent with their best years ahead of them, focusing on potential rather than past achievements. Let’s be clear this is more about mindset and willingness to learn and unlearn as apposed to age. To realise the incredible potential return, organisations must commit to creating an environment where continuous development is possible. This requires a multi-faceted approach: 1. Robust Training Programmes: Employers should invest in comprehensive training programmes that equip employees with the necessary skills for their roles. This includes on-the-job training, mentorship programmes, online courses, and workshops. 2. Redefining Hiring Criteria: Organisations should revise their hiring criteria to focus more on candidates’ potential and willingness to learn rather than solely on prior experience or formal qualifications. Behavioural interviews, aptitude tests, and probationary periods can help assess a candidate's ability to learn and adapt. 3. Partnerships with Educational Institutions: Companies can collaborate with educational institutions to design curricula that align with industry needs. Apprenticeship programmes, internships, and cooperative education can bridge the gap between academic learning and practical job skills. 4. Lifelong Learning Culture: Encouraging a culture of lifelong learning within organisations is crucial. Employers should provide ongoing education opportunities and support for professional development. This includes continuous skills assessment and access to resources for upskilling and reskilling. 5. Inclusive Recruitment Practices: Employers should implement inclusive recruitment practices that remove biases and barriers. Blind recruitment, diversity quotas, and targeted outreach programmes can help ensure that diverse candidates are given a fair chance. By implementing these measures, organisations can develop a workforce that is adaptable, innovative, and resilient, ensuring sustainable success and growth.

Your title doesn't make you a leader. How you choose to treat your employees does. Stop talking. Start listening. That’s real leadership. The moment you stop listening, you stop leading. Leadership Isn't About Talking, It's About Listening. Your team's voices are your most valuable asset. Managers who believe they have all the answers are destined to fail. True leadership isn't about dictating from an ivory tower, it's about creating a culture of open communication, trust, and mutual respect. Good leaders avoid these at any cost: ❌ Don't interrupt or dismiss employees' concerns. Each interruption is a nail in the coffin of team trust. ❌ Don't play favorites or create an environment of fear. Psychological safety is the bedrock of high-performing teams. ❌ Don't micromanage. If you hired talented professionals, trust them to do their job. ❌ Don't communicate only when things go wrong. Positive reinforcement and consistent communication are crucial. ❌ Don't forget that leadership is a privilege, not a right. You're there to serve your team, not the other way around. Here's what leaders should be doing: ✔️ Practice active listening. Put away your phone, make eye contact, and genuinely absorb what your team is saying. ✔️ Create safe spaces for honest feedback. Implement regular one-on-ones, anonymous suggestion boxes, and team forums where people can speak without fear of retribution. ✔️ Acknowledge and act on team suggestions. When your team sees their input driving real change, their engagement and loyalty skyrocket. ✔️ Demonstrate vulnerability. Share your own challenges, admit when you don't know something, and show that learning is a collaborative journey. ✔️ Recognize and celebrate diverse perspectives. Your team's varied backgrounds and experiences are your competitive advantage. Leadership is a continuous journey of - learning, - listening, - growing. The most successful leaders are those who understand that their greatest strength lies not in their own voice, but in the collective wisdom of their team. What was the most transformative moment when a leader truly listened to you? Tag a leader who supports and listens to you  🙏 Be the leader you wish you had. ♻️ Repost to inspire leadership that make people grow 🔔 Follow Jitender Girdhar for more on leadership

Imagine you're the CFO of a global company and someone pitches you a recruitment automation solution that will do the work of 400 recruiters and save you $30M per year. What would you do? When I was at LinkedIn's Talent Connect in October, I attended a workshop with John Vlastelica in which he shared that a global company had decided to implement a recruiting automation solution that would allow them to save $30M in costs by eliminating 400 recruiter positions. They also reduced the time to hire from 11 days down to 3. He shared that another company had used recruitment automation software to hire 300,000 workers with minimal human involvement - people only came into the process after background checks had been performed. They also maintained candidate quality and candidate experience while increasing the speed of hire. These kinds of case studies should not surprise anyone, although it is sobering to anyone in talent acquisition - the rapid advancement of AI and automation in recruiting is both exciting and concerning. On the one hand, the potential for efficiency gains, cost savings, and improved candidate experience is huge and undeniable, as these examples demonstrate. On the other hand, we must also be mindful of the human impact - thousands of recruiters are seeing their roles transformed or eliminated. As talent acquisition professionals, it's important to be thinking about how to adapt and provide value in this changing landscape. Some key questions to consider: -How can we upskill and position ourselves to work alongside AI rather than be replaced by it? -What are the uniquely human elements of recruiting that AI can't replicate, and how do we double down on those? -How might our roles evolve to focus more on passive talent sourcing, talent intelligence/advisory, strategic workforce planning, employer branding, candidate engagement, and employee experience? For companies considering or implementing recruitment automation, I believe it should be a thoughtful, strategic decision - not just a blind cost-cutting measure. Here are some key considerations: -What is the optimal mix of human and automated touchpoints to balance efficiency and candidate experience? -How will the balance of AI and human involvement vary based on the labor market dynamics for each role? Roles with talent scarcity may require more human touch to attract and engage candidates, while high-volume roles with ample supply lend themselves to greater automation. -How will we redeploy or reskill displaced recruiters? -How do we maintain our employer brand and human touch with increased automation? The future of recruiting is undoubtedly both human and machine - but the mix is up to each company and may vary by role/department. I'm curious to hear your thoughts - have you been impacted by AI/automation? How are you and/or your company preparing for the intersection of AI/automation and recruiting? #AI #Recruiting #FutureOfWork

The most frustrating moment in my work is watching a brilliant leader lose their team not because they don’t care, but because they refuse to adapt. “I’ve always led this way.” “I just expect people to step up.” - leaders tell me and they mean well. But people aren’t machines. You can’t plug the same leadership approach into every person and expect power to flow. Just like traveling between countries, you need different adapters. And in leadership, those adapters are built on empathy, flexibility, and science-backed awareness of human behavior. 🔍 In theory, this is what Situational Leadership captures. Introduced by Hersey & Blanchard in 1969 and validated by decades of follow-up research, it showed that matching leadership behavior to the employee's needs leads to better motivation, learning, and performance. But here’s the nuance many miss: ❌ It’s not just about toggling between “directive” and “supportive.” ✅ It’s about building the diagnostic capacity to read people emotionally, contextually, and developmentally. And when combined with psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999), this adaptive leadership creates the conditions where people feel safe to contribute, challenge, and learn. In practice, I see this when leaders learn to carry the right “adapter”: 🔌 Structure: when someone is overwhelmed and needs clarity 🔌 Empathy: when someone is disengaged but no one has asked why 🔌 Challenge: when someone is ready for more but hasn’t been stretched 🔌 Listening: when someone has a voice but not yet a safe space 🔌 Autonomy: when someone is thriving and needs room to fly And in the end, it’s not the "best' leadership style that builds best teams. It’s the most responsive one. And being responsive also means being inclusive. P.S. What “adapter” do you find yourself using most as a leader? --------------------------------- 👋 New here? Welcome! I'm Susanna. I help organizations with high-performing, inclusive leadership and culture by fostering psychological safety.

Leadership isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. It morphs and adapts, shaped by the circumstances and the needs of workers at any given moment. Effective leaders recognize this fluidity and choose their style to match the immediate needs of their teams and projects. To boil each down to its essence: ➡️Transformational: Inspiring, visionary, bold ➡️Servant: Humble, supportive, nurturing ➡️Democratic: Collaborative, inclusive, consensus-building ➡️Charismatic: Persuasive, inspiring, energetic ➡️Autocratic: Decisive, authoritative, commanding ➡️Laissez-Faire: Autonomous, hands-off, permissive ➡️Situational: Adaptive, flexible, responsive ➡️Pacesetter: Motivating, ambitious, high-standard ➡️Coaching: Developmental, patient, empowering ➡️Distributed: Decentralized, collaborative, innovative Are you listening closely enough to discern what your team needs right now? #leadershipdevelopment #leadership #situationalleadership #transformationalleadership #litvakexecutivesolutions #neurocoachinggroup ____________________________ 😀 Hi, I’m Pam Coburn-Litvak. Glad you’re here! As a PhD-trained neuroscientist, I create infographics on brain-based strategies for leadership, career success, emotional intelligence, and preventing burnout/promoting well-being. If you like my posts, ring the 🔔 on my Profile, and share this post with your network!

𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗮𝘆’𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲?    When I first started out in my career, the world of work looked very different.     Most people stayed in the same job – even the same company – for many years, sometimes decades. Roles were clearly defined, often with fixed hierarchies and long paper trails. Teams were almost always co-located, and workforce planning largely meant headcount forecasting based on fixed job descriptions.    Fast forward to today, and work looks nothing like that. AI advancements have reshaped entire industries. New skills are emerging in months, not years. Geopolitical shifts are affecting access to talent and cost in ways business leaders couldn’t have predicted five years ago.     But too often, workforce strategies are still rooted in that old approach, usually accompanied by long hiring cycles or rigid structures.     To truly tackle today’s challenges, strategies should be led by the outcomes the business needs to achieve – whether that’s accelerating digital transformation, expanding into new markets, or delivering complex, high-impact projects at pace.    David Barr, who leads the Robert Walters Outsourcing business, sums it up well:  "The future of workforce planning isn’t about the worker. It’s about the work that needs to be done."    This shift in mindset changes the questions leaders should be asking.     For instance, instead of asking: What roles do we need to fill?  Think about: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿?    And in place of: What qualifications or experience do we need?   Consider: 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀?  That’s where capability-led planning comes in. It can help organisations build on traditional hiring models beyond permanent and temporary by adding more flexible ways to access the skills they need – when and where they need them.      For example, say you’re looking to build a team with in-demand tech skills that are difficult to recruit for. Instead of trying to fill permanent positions, a hire-train-deploy (HTD) model can help you access early-career talent, trained specifically for your needs and ready to deliver from day one.     Or, if your team needs expert support for a critical project but adding to your headcount isn’t an option, a resource augmentation approach is a good solution. It gives you access to experienced, on-demand consultants with specialist skill sets – along with the flexibility to scale up or down as needed.      Yes, this kind of planning may take more thought upfront. But it creates a workforce strategy that can evolve as fast as the world around it.     How are you progressing your workforce strategy to meet what’s next? 

In the early days of Gem, our mighty recruiting team of 1 was drowning—30+ open reqs, hundreds of candidates lost in spreadsheets, three hiring managers pitching the same person. Until our Head of People said, "What if we treated talent like customers?" Here's exactly how we rebuilt our talent strategy: BACKGROUND: We were scaling fast. Talent data lived everywhere: personal inboxes, random spreadsheets, forgotten Slack threads. The breaking point: we lost a staff engineer to our competitor. - Candidate had expressed interest 8 months earlier - Their info was buried in an ex contract recruiter's inbox - By the time we found it, they'd already signed elsewhere Then came the embarrassment: Three different people reached out to the same eng leader candidate. Different messages. Two different comp ranges. The candidate forwarded all three emails back: "You might want to get aligned internally first." That's when we realized: most talent pools aren't pools—they're graveyards where good candidates go to be forgotten. THE SHIFT: Initially, I thought better spreadsheets would fix it. Classic founder mistake :) Our Head of People pushed back: "We spend millions on CRM for sales. Why are we tracking our second-most-important pipeline in Google Sheets?" If candidates are future employees, why weren't we treating them like future customers? We had just launched shared projects in Gem, so here’s the system we built: —— 1. Individual Pools (specific roles): One pool per req. A/B test outreach. Track "silver medalists." Share with hiring managers. 2. Team-Wide Pools (evergreen roles): Frontend. Backend. Data Science. ML. One curator per pool. Clear naming: "TP_Frontend_Senior" 3. Engagement Cadence: Monthly: Blog posts, company wins 1-2x Quarterly: In-person happy hours & meetups Annual: "Where are you now?" check-ins 4. CRM Layer: Filter by location, experience, diversity metrics Search all pools simultaneously Track every interaction —— ↳ Now, what did this actually accomplish? - Time-to-fill dropped significantly. - Response rates improved dramatically. - Duplicate outreach vanished. And here’s how you REALLY knew we were on to something: Candidates we engaged with started reaching out to us first. Not for jobs. Just to stay connected. To refer friends. We'd built a community, not a database. Key lessons: Talent pools without engagement are expensive graveyards. Build relationships before you need them. Treat candidates like customers, not inventory. P.S. This system became what Gem is today. If your team's still losing candidates in spreadsheets, let's talk.

The most effective leaders aren't constantly planning the next quarter. Not because they lack vision or strategic thinking... Because they understand something most executives miss: Presence creates performance. 🔹 When leaders stay grounded in the moment: → Team dynamics shift from reactive to responsive → Problems get solved faster with full attention → Growth opportunities emerge that rushed leaders miss → Trust builds through authentic engagement 🔹 The compound effect of present leadership: → Your team feels heard, not hurried → Decisions improve when you process all available data → Innovation happens in the spaces between meetings → Culture strengthens through consistent attention The irony? Leaders obsessing over future efficiency often miss the efficiency available right now. 🔹 Three ways to lead from presence this week: → Start meetings by asking how people actually are → Listen to complete thoughts before responding   → Notice team energy shifts and address them immediately Leaders: What current moment in your team's growth deserves more of your attention? ♻️ Share if this resonates ➕ Follow (David Parsons) for more leadership insights 📬 Newsletter: bit.ly/43YQ8xR

What’s the #1 thing teams borrow from their leader? Not strategy. Not intelligence. Not vision. It’s their emotional state. A client came to me last year in the middle of a high-stakes transition. He was brilliant — strategic, visionary, results-driven. But under pressure? His team felt his stress. Meetings were rushed, feedback was sharp, and people walked on eggshells. He didn’t realize that his own fight-or-flight response was setting the emotional tone for everyone else. When leaders are reactive, teams shrink. When leaders regulate, teams expand. This is the hidden superpower of great leaders: emotional regulation. It’s not about suppressing emotion. It’s about choosing your response instead of being hijacked by it. Here are 5 practical ways to start: 1️⃣ Notice your triggers. Ask: What just set me off? 2️⃣ Name the feeling. Anger, fear, frustration—naming lowers intensity. 3️⃣ Pause before acting. Breathe. Contain. Don’t fire off the email just yet. 4️⃣ Reframe the situation. Is it a crisis or just a challenge? 5️⃣ Model composure. Calm is contagious. So is chaos. Back to my client: within months of practicing these shifts, his team noticed the difference. Meetings became less tense, creativity went up, and deadlines stopped feeling like fire drills. Same team. Same pressures. Different energy. That’s the ripple effect of a regulated leader. You don’t just change yourself. You change the system. You create a holding environment for your team — a space where innovation, problem-solving, and resilience can thrive. If you’re leading through change and want to master the art of calm, contained leadership — I’d love to help you build that capacity.

The first thing that hit me when I joined this mid-sized engineering company as a CHRO was the lack of structured #SuccessionPlanning. At an organizational growth rate as steep as it was, the importance of a robust #SuccessionStrategy to keep our growth momentum on track and ensure continuity in leadership was very clear. To this end, I initiated my work with a critical review of our current leadership structure, #TalentPools, and future organizational requirements. I met senior leaders and key #stakeholders to identify critical roles for which #SuccessionPlans should be developed. This review identified several gaps and potential risks. Some of the huge barriers were #ResistanceToChange. To many senior leaders, succession planning was an unnecessary complication rather than a strategic necessity. Secondly, our #TalentManagementSystem lacked the necessary analytics to effectively predict and plan for the #leadership needs of the future. The next challenge in the process was to make the process inclusive and unbiased. We did not only need a system that would identify the #FutureLeaders, but one that would also be fair and transparent in the development of their capacity. Knowing these challenges, we established a comprehensive #SuccessionPlanningFramework that includes both quantitative and qualitative tools. #TalentAssessmentTools: We used #PsychometricAssessments, performance reviews, and 360-degree feedback to assess the current leader in finding a successor. Tools like #HoganAssessments and #GallupStrengthsFinder helped us truly understand individual capabilities and suitability for future roles. #LeadershipDevelopmentPrograms: Based on assessment results, customized development programs for potential successors have been designed. This includes #mentorship, #coaching, and focused training sessions to get over the shortcomings in competencies and groom them for the leadership role. #SuccessionPlanningSoftware: We implemented succession planning software in the HR system— #SAPSuccessFactors and #CornerstoneOnDemand. These tools enabled us to track potential successors, review development progress, and evaluate succession readiness. It runs scenario planning and #SuccessionModeling to simulate organizational changes and what would be affected in such scenarios. Our succession planning strategy, therefore, bore its first benefit: a strong #LeadershipPipeline ready for the challenges ahead and improved employee engagement through clear career pathways. It also enhanced the organizational agility required for smoother transitions. Our organization is more resilient, with a strategic approach toward developing leaders that places us in good stead for the future. #CHRODiaries #SuccessionPlanning #LeadershipPipeline #HighPotentialEmployees #PerformanceAssessment #360DegreeFeedback #ChangeManagement #CareerProgression #EmployeeEngagement #StakeholderBuyIn #OrganizationalGrowth