SWP - The Strategic Workforce Planning Podcast

Episode 24 of the SWP podcast welcomes Jakob Ejlsted - Workforce Planning Specialist to the pod.  Jakob has significant global experience across industries including Oil & Gas, Transport & Logistics, Management Consulting, and Industrial Chemicals. Fantastic discussion with Jakob which focused mainly around how we can better understand and utilise the contingent workforce for superior SWP outcomes. 

Episode 23 of the SWP podcast welcomes AJ Herrmann from Cleveland Clinic.  AJ is the Executive Director Strategic Workforce Planning at Cleveland Clinic and, across his career, has worked with organisations including  BCG, Nestle, Homeland Security, NBC and the Central Intelligence Agency . This long-awaited episode (for us) delivers everything we hoped and more.  AJ is a phenomenal advocate of our profession and we go deep on all things task and role design, war for talent, global people shortages and shifting our thinking and biases around common workforce planning ‘constraints’.  No shortages of laughs in this fantastic episode! 

Episode 22 of the SWP podcast welcomes Antony Ebelle-ebanda, Digital Surgery Integration Lead & Talent Insights at Johnson & Johnson to the Pod.  Antony is an experienced SWP leader who has worked across organisations including Johnson & Johnson, Allianz, Barclay’s and Deutsche bank (to name but a few). Fantastic chat with Antony which explored the potential homes of SWP within the org structure then highlighted the importance of not only considering SWP an enterprise capability but also the cultural understanding and acceptance of strategic workforce planning as ‘the way we work’.  The conversation touched on the potential shift from role-based organisations to skills-based organisations and we looked at whether we’d see a total shift to thinking purely in terms of ‘skills’ as opposed to ‘roles’ in the future.  Finally, the need to think and act differently to our competitors through strategic workforce planning was a fantastic way to wind up this highly engaging chat. 

Episode 21 of the SWP podcast welcomes Gergo Safar, Strategic Workforce Manager at BT to the Pod.  Gergo is an experienced SWP leader who has worked across organisations including BT, Unilever, McKinsey and Vodafone and countries including Hungary, Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and the UK. This was such an important discussion to have with so many new themes raised including the opportunity to utilise the concept of risk far more frequently across SWP methodologies and the increasing importance of using data to tell stories.  Gergo’s session at The SWP Global Online conference took an important look at defining measures for SWP success.  A great chat with a global SWP champion! 

Episode 20 of the SWP podcast welcomes David Edwards of Visier.  Like many of us, David’s introduction to SWP happened through working on a large-scale workforce reduction project.  David has a strong background in resource management and strategic workforce planning in the banking and financial servises sector across Royal Bank of Scotland and Natwest Group ahead of joining Visier as the director of product management in mid 2022.  Currently the Advisory Services Director, David supports clients through ensuring the underlying structures are in place within organisations to enable effective software implementations.  Always a rich and thorough discussion with David highlights during which include exploring the skill-based organisation and looking at the future as far as skills taxonomies and job architectures are concerned.  A true advocate for our profession, one of the inaugural members of The Institute and an absolute pleasure to chat to. 

Episode 18 of the SWP podcast welcomes Emanuele Poletti, Group Workforce Planning and Analytics Manager at Campari. Emanuele found Strategic Workforce Planning originally through his time at GE where he spent a number of years as an analytics specialist, organisation and staffing. Through his time at both Sky and Generali, Emanuele has transitioned his focus from data and analytics into strategic workforce planning, a craft he now plies at Campari in Milan.  The nature of SWP for an organisation with Campari’s complexity is fascinating and I was interested to hear Emanuele discuss the differences between the operational workforce and corporate side of the business coupled with the fact that Campari’s growth is both organic and by acquisition which means integrating new workforces from time to time.  Also of particular interest is the concept of predicting turnover modelling which we discuss during at length. We’re looking forward to having Emanuele join our Global Online event next month to discuss Campari’s approach. 

Episode 19 of the SWP podcast welcomes one of our very own – Jen Allen.  A member of The Institute's GSCC, Jen is the Workforce Planning and Design Manager at Police Scotland.  With a recent career history spanning health and police, Jen has deep insight into the challenges faced by governments of the world across critical workforce segments.  Jen’s insights into stakeholder related challenges when developing a strategic workforce plans serve as an important reminder that SWP is most certainly not just an HR thing.  We love the notion of SWP sitting with strategy as an org chart option given the relative synergies. Jen wowed us at our Launch event in November with her panel discussion on blending data sources for commercial impact and we're very much looking to welcoming her back across multiple events across 2023!  What a delightful, kind and engaging person to chat SWP with!    

Episode 17 of the SWP podcast welcomes Gill Aggus from, Jaguar Land Rover. Originally an economist, Gill found Strategic Workforce Planning following numerous roles working across the JLR business which has helped arm her with deep insights into the challenges faced the JLR leaders. Developing a job architecture is a critical part of any SWP process and Gill’s presentation at The Institute’s Global Launch event provided valuable information around how this can be done. Sadly I wasn’t able to get hold of a loan car while I was in the UK however it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying!

Episode 16 of the SWP podcast welcomes Matt Higgs from Babcock International Group to share his refreshing insights around practical and executable strategic workforce planning.  For us, one of the light bulb moments was Matt’s quote ‘the plan we develop today, is seldom what actually gets implemented’.  Our fascinating conversation was a staunch reminder that SWP is not intended to be a precise tool, we won’t always get it right but we’ll understand the associated risks and have contingency plans in place when the future landscape doesn’t evolve as we initially thought.  An enjoyable, entertaining and informative conversation with an authentic, humble and intelligent thought leader.  

Episode 15 of the SWP podcast welcomes Suzie Custerson – Director of Strategic Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition at Seek. When the recipe starts with business and strategy related study and early career work and branches out into HR, the combination is the perfect tonic for a strategic workforce planner. I loved my conversation with Suzie which provides a unique look at an organisation who as Suzie puts it ‘owns the platform’.  Interestingly, the unique position Seek finds themselves in brings about a whole different set of challenges.  I found the discussion around how difficult organisations find it difficult to articulate their current capability profile as opposed to finding it relatively easy to articulate their future capabilities. The future landscape of technology talent is set to change dramatically moving forward with cyber security, the gig economy and remote working all set to create complexity whilst enabling opportunity.  Great chat with one of SWPs good people!