Footnotes
[i] Creating the path for continuous strategic workforce planning, 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网, 2023.
Rethinking strategic workforce planning with AI agents
Why AI necessitates more holistic and innovative approaches to talent decisions
AI-powered digital workers, including AI agents, are quickly becoming a reality, shaking up traditional approaches to workforce planning. As AI agents integrate into the workforce, organizations must shift their approach to workforce planning that encompasses both human and digital workers and to facilitate their interaction and collaboration. Companies are rethinking the 鈥渉ow鈥� and 鈥渨ho鈥� of work, fundamentally shifting from filling roles to securing skills, whether they are supplied by humans or digital entities. The shift poses significant implications for human resource leaders and their business stakeholders.
Quite simply, organizations can no longer rely on traditional workforce planning methods. A more effective approach is strategic workforce planning, which focuses on determining the most critical tasks, the skills needed to achieve organizational goals, and the most suitable sources鈥攈uman or digital鈥攖o fulfill those needs. And as digital workers become more prevalent, some organizations are adopting an even broader approach that is influenced by broader market data and trends: total workforce planning.
What is Strategic Workforce Planning?
Strategic workforce planning is an organizational process designed to align an organization鈥檚 workforce capabilities with strategic objectives and operational needs. The approach requires collaboration across finance, human resources, and business operations to systematically identify, recruit, develop, and deploy human and digital talent resources to optimize performance and achieve long-term sustainability. Through strategic workforce planning, organizations can access the right capabilities, in the right locations, at the right times, and for the right cost.听
Many organizations report that strategic workforce planning initiatives generate cost savings of an average of 10 percent of their annual labor budget through minimized attrition, optimized staffing, and improved resource听allocation.i
Strategic workforce planning enables organizations to look beyond job descriptions and fill talent gaps based on skills rather than the specific roles employees held previously. Requisite skills should be viewed through the lens of business drivers (e.g., new products and expanded locations), while talent management leaders assess whether they have requisite skills in the human workforce or whether they need to acquire them through external recruitment, upskilling, or augmentation with digital tools such as AI agents.
AI-Driven Workforce Planning: Real-World Examples
- Healthcare: AI agents can help organizations manage staff certifications and make real-time staffing decisions based on evolving patient needs. Automating processes and decisions such as these reduces the burden on human managers while elevating patient care delivery and clinical outcomes.
- Project management: AI can supercharge project management across sectors with more sophisticated mechanisms for forecasting skill requirements and reallocating resources as projects begin and end. These dynamic, nuanced insights prevent costly talent loss and help maximize the use of available skills for higher project efficiency and less downtime.
Build, Buy, Borrow, or Bot Skills?
Following these analyses, an organization can determine how to obtain the skills it needs. Typically, there will be several options鈥攏amely, buy, build, borrow, or bot. In other words, should you hire new talent? Develop current talent? Engage more part-timers or freelancers? Or, increasingly, leverage digital labor either on its own or in conjunction with human labor?
Each option offers its own benefits:
01
Buying talent
allows the company to hire external talent for skills that may be difficult or time consuming to develop, while also gaining fresh perspectives.
02
Building talent
through training and upskilling fosters opportunities for employee career growth, reinforcing organizational loyalty and enhancing engagement.
03
Borrowing talent
such as contractors, allows rapid scaling of the workforce up or down as needed and offers access to specialized skills for short-term needs.
04
Leveraging digital labor, including AI agents
to work both autonomously and in collaboration with human employees on both short-term tasks and complex long-term projects.
The Case for Total Workforce Planning
Traditionally, organizations employing strategic workforce planning have relied primarily on internal data to forecast staffing needs. In light of a tight labor market for certain roles and in certain geographies and sectors, economic and policy fluctuations, and evolving work models that now include digital workers, many organizations are shifting toward a more holistic approach known as Total Workforce Planning.
With the rise of digital workers, many organizations are shifting to this more comprehensive approach that incorporates both internal data and external market insights to help forecast and fulfill skills-based staffing requirements.
In total workforce planning, supply inputs change based on outside-in market data that helps provide insights into expected changes in supply and demand. For example, if external data indicates insufficient talent availability, organizations can use AI agents or look in different locations to fill supply gaps. This shift integrates technology, process, and strategy into one cohesive approach.
AI agents play a role in total workforce planning by analyzing if/then scenarios and presenting human resources and talent management with options and recommendations. Outcomes could include redesigning jobs by offloading certain tasks to AI agents.听 Or taking a process with numerous steps and pushing some of the tasks to an AI agent, with or without a 鈥渉uman in the loop.鈥澨� Still another involves using external data to reveal broader industry trends affecting talent availability, tenure, and demand for critical skills.听 In short, total workforce planning takes traditional HR capabilities and layers on technology to help elevate workforce planning strategies and processes.
Key Factors in Strategic Staffing Decisions
Making talent decisions depends on several factors:
1
Budget
Identify areas where AI agents can take over tasks or automated workflows to reduce operational costs. To cover the remaining work, assess whether hiring people with requisite skills or training/upskilling current employees is more cost-effective.听
2
Timing
Training and upskilling take time. Consider whether there is time to train existing staff or if the skills are needed quickly. An organization that is already understaffed will likely opt to invest in new hires and supplement with contract and/or digital labor. On the other hand, if the organization has a propensity for long tenure and investment in current employees makes sense, it will likely opt for internal training.
3
The labor market
In high-demand, low-supply industries, organizations might choose contract workers or AI agents to fill gaps, avoiding overtime costs and burnout. The alternative would be to risk overburdening full-time staff, resulting in overtime costs, burnout, and potential turnover. By employing strategic workforce planning, organizations can gain timely insight into workforce requirements and gaps to proactively secure the right coverage at the right time to meet evolving needs.
The Role of AI in Workforce Planning
Organizations are conducting total workforce planning at a critical juncture: AI is both disrupting how work is done and unleashing powerful new ways of optimizing workforce planning processes.
For example, as they deploy AI agents, organizations will need technological staff with advanced AI skills, as well as nontechnical employees who know how to use and collaborate with AI. Of course, as AI agents automating transactional tasks may make some skills obsolete, leading to a mismatch between workers' skills and organizational needs. What do you do with these employees鈥攔etain them despite the cost? Reskill them in other areas more valuable to the business? Or hire AI-savvy talent instead?听
As organizations move toward total workforce planning, they can use AI to make sense of these staffing issues, including predicting future skill requirements, aligning supply and demand, and balancing human and digital labor.
Implementing an Effective Workforce Planning Strategy
Organizations looking to implement total workforce planning should consider three imperatives:
1
Match technology to maturity:
Simply selecting AI agents won鈥檛 solve your workforce needs. Before implementing a solution, ensure you have in place a clean job architecture, robust data, a skills-based ecosystem, and the appropriate workforce strategy to enable a future-ready workforce.听
2
Anticipate organizational changes driven by AI:听
AI has the potential to drive growth and enable groundbreaking creativity and productivity by helping employees create innovative products, personalize customer experiences, automate content creation, among other capabilities. At the same time, rapid organizational changes driven by AI means it will be critical for workforce planning to be conducted in collaboration with finance and business operations. Finance needs to keep an eye on whether workforce changes enabled by AI support the organization鈥檚 growth objectives. Business Unit leader play a role in assessing talent supply against projected demand, using operational plans and financial forecasts to ensure the right capabilities are available at the right time. And HR departments need to adopt a growth mindset as AI plays a larger role in real-time workforce planning.
3
Leadership alignment and education:
Workforce planning should be a continuous process influenced by many variables that require organization-wide buy-in and collaboration. For these strategies to be truly impactful, leaders need to cascade organizational goals and strategic objectives into these processes, ensuring workforce decisions align with their vision.
Embracing AI Agents for a Smarter Workforce
Total workforce planning is essential in today's rapidly changing business environment, with AI as both a driver and a critical tool in the process. Traditional headcount planning is no longer sufficient, as companies must now focus on evolving tasks and skills while digital labor takes on more of the work. To maximize the value of workforce planning, organizations should align with stakeholders from finance, HR, and business operations鈥攁nd secure leadership buy-in鈥攕o workforce decisions support strategic objectives, operational needs, and growth imperatives.
Why 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 is Your Strategic Workforce Planning Partner
乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 helps organizations implement advanced workforce planning strategies by leveraging our proprietary workforce insights model and agentic-AI tools. Our customized AI agents draw on a wide range of datasets to provide valuable insights for organizations. Working with 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 helps ensure that organizations can effectively conduct talent opportunity and deployment assessments, securing the right mix of digital and human skills to help meet strategic needs.
As organizations continue their AI journey, 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 offers a human-centered solution to help address workforce challenges and futureproof your operations. Our tailored approach helps ensure your workforce, operating model, and technological maturity are precisely aligned. From identifying AI-enablement opportunities to integrating digital workers and reshaping roles, we help you achieve sustainable success.
Begin Your Journey Towards Maximizing AI-Driven Workforce Innovation with 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网
As organizations continue their AI journeys, 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 LLP (乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网) offers a human-centered solution to help address workforce challenges and futureproof operations. Our tailored approach helps ensure your workforce, operating model, and technological maturity are precisely aligned. From identifying AI-enablement opportunities to integrating digital workers and reshaping roles, we help you achieve sustainable success.e.
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Our proprietary workforce insights model and agentic-AI tools enable organizations to implement advanced workforce planning strategies effectively. Customized AI agents harness robust datasets to provide actionable intelligence, helping companies conduct talent opportunity and deployment assessments and securing the right mix of digital and human skills to meet their strategic needs.
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Enable your organization with 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 AI Workforce >
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Take a human-centered approach to redesigning jobs, roles, and occupations to help maximize the impact of AI. Our experts help reimagine your workforce structure so that human and digital workers can effectively capitalize on each other's strengths for optimal performance.
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Deliver role-specific AI and Generative AI learning programs, continuously updated to equip your workforce with the latest skills and knowledge. Our tailored training helps ensure your employees stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
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According to senior buyers of consulting services who participated in the Source study, Perceptions of Consulting in the US in 2024, 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 ranked No. 1 for quality in AI advice and implementation services.听
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Managing Director, Human Capital Advisory, 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 LLP
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