SWP - The Strategic Workforce Planning Podcast

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 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 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 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! 

Episode 14 of the SWP podcast welcomes Rob Major – Director – Workforce Planning at Raytheon Technologies. Rob graduated his masters with a qualification in executive coaching having developed a passion for connecting psychology with business.  Having developed an interest in people analytics, Rob secured a role with World Vision which propelled his career in workforce planning and analytics. Rob’s role with Raytheon Technologies sees him supporting workforce planning across multiple business units within an organisation with 170,000+ staff and the sheer size of the undertaking is hugely impressive. Interestingly, with a large workforce, the ‘build’ strategy seems to be a real priority for Raytheon with a focus on how they develop and reskill the workforce of the future. The willingness of Rob’s workforce planning function to develop capability across the broader HR team having identified them as key stakeholders in the process is critical.   Loved the phrase ‘making friends with shadows’ to describe finding the right balance between encouraging the pre-existing workforce planning done by various parts of the business and maintaining a degree of consistency, rigor and control over the approach and application.  Super impressive guy who is always incredibly generous with his time.  

Episode 13 of the SWP podcast welcomes Justin Strharsky founder and director of Unearthed Solutions and Humyn.ai. Justin’s early career included time in Silicon Valley at Sun Microsytems  then spending a decade fostering start-ups and innovation hubs before founding Unearthed Solutions, an organisation who connects mining and resources companies with innovators to deliver a unique way of supplementing workforce demand.  Humyn.ai was born out of Unearthed along the way and focuses on tech innovators delivering hard to source capabilities through utilising hack-a-thon style thinking development solutions. One of the things that strikes me the most about Justin is his passion for leveraging communities to solve problems.  This was an incredible discussion that covered so many great topics, none more important than how culture, attitudes, policies and procedures need to change if the thinking behind how workforce demand is to extend beyond the traditional ‘buy’ bucket. Great guy and a thoroughly engaging chat! 

Episode 12 of the SWP podcast welcomes Oksana Jawabreh.  Oksana is an experienced SWP Leader and passionate advocate who has worked across organisations including Westpac, EY, Deloitte and Woolworths.  Oksana brings a wealth of experience and perspective having spent years consulting to the government on major transformations and reform projects prior to her time in the fin services space.  Such a great conversation with an incredibly intelligent and engaging person.  Personal highlights included a discussion around the importance of strategy to the SWP process along with some of the common strategic pitfalls,  referencing our favourite SWP reading material and where SWP can, and should fit in the traditional org structure.  Really interesting person to chat with, great episode!        

Episode 11 of the SWP podcast welcomes Kath Hume, founder and director of Workforce Transformations.  Kath has a long history building strategic workforce planning capability from the inside with NSW Health and is an incredible SWP advocate.  Kath’s insights and thinking about the workforce of the future are highly innovative and have led to the development of her own podcast, The Reimagined Workforce.  Kath’s background combines teaching, economics and HR, the latter two of which make for an interestingly commercial take on the people, data and transformation landscape.  Always an engaging, rich and productive discussion with Kath and this episode is no exception. Really excited to have Kath and the NSW Health crew joining our Asia Pac conference across two highly informative sessions on critical Health related topics. 

Episode 7 of the SWP podcast welcomes Adam Gibson, Director and Strategic Workforce Planning Leader at EY and author of the recognised go-to text for SWP, Agile Workforce Planning. We’ve been dying to pick Adam’s brain on the critical role capability plays in the strategic workforce planning process and the ensuing conversation didn’t disappoint.  You just get the sense that had there not been adjacent calendar appointments, this conversation could have gone for hours.  A wonderful conversation with a true captain of our industry and engaging person.  We loved the chat about the common pitfalls of many organisations strategies – something only too familiar!