SWP - The Strategic Workforce Planning Podcast

Episode 9 of the SWP podcast welcomes Jess Murphy, Head of Workforce Strategy and Future Workforce Design at Bupa.  Wonderful discussion with Jess who found SWP through a traditional HR career pathway.  What strikes me most about Jess is her relentless focus on capability and the critical role understanding enterprise capabilities plays in the SWP process.  One of the absolute hidden gems in this episode is most certainly the approach towards existing HR strategies and capability frameworks when introducing SWP, an activity which runs the risk of potentially threatening existing plans and frameworks developed prior to any SWP related work – fascinating to hear Jess’s views on how it can be handled! Really looking forward to Jess taking delegates through creating a ‘red thread’ with your critical capabilities at our Asia Pacific SWP conference! 

Episode 10 of the SWP podcast welcomes James McKay, Head of Workforce Strategy and Strategic Workforce Planning and Sravan Rajupalem, Senior Data Scientist from ANZ. Really insightful and engaging conversation with James and Sravan.  James found Strategic Workforce Planning through a large restructure a number of years back which is fairly common for professionals in our space however something we’re seeing less and less of these days. Sravan has a combined Chemical Engineering and Actuarial degree and spent years modelling financial data before moving into the people space.  Interestingly, skills across different areas of data aren't atomically transferrable a it was interesting to chat about the specific nuances with Sravan. Always interesting to chat about stakeholder challenges in large organisations and James’s insights into taking stakeholders along for the SWP journey are a must for listeners. I found it fascinating how Sravan is applying methods which come from outside the people analytics space to provide people data outcomes. Great chat with interesting, engaging humans! 

Episode 5 of the SWP podcast welcomes Philip De Nerve from Talent on Demand insight into the back story of ‘Oxygen’, Talent On Demand’s Strategic Workforce Planning Software tool. The fascinating back story into Philip’s journey into Strategic Workforce Planning along with how Oxygen evolved over time led to the tale of Wipro and how the CEO re-focused parts of the workforce (skilled in declining technologies) on internal projects rather than face redundancy.  Philip’s perspectives on how a robust SWP capability base is important as a pre-curser to a software implementation are refreshing. Philip is set to wrap up the day at our global launch providing a summary and key takeaways before the post conference celebrations commence. 

Episode 3 of the SWP podcast welcomes James Bryce from the Kantar to take an insightful look at the critical intersection of Finance and HR through workforce planning.  James’ journey started out as many workforce planning journeys do in the throws of large-scale workforce downsizing and as is always interesting, we were intrigued to learn James originally studied Geology as an undergraduate course.  Our look at the emerging and critical relationship between Strategic Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition was fascinating and the manner in which Talent Acquisition is evolving as we shift more towards a capability-based approach promises unbound possibilities for the future. James’ philosophy around the granularity with which SWP effectiveness can be measured is a ‘must listen to’ for anyone looking to measure the impact of their SWP efforts whilst his thoughts on all things data (how do we know the answer to that question?) are well worth hearing.  What an enjoyable discussion with an incredibly engaging and kind human being! 

Episode 4 of the SWP podcast welcomes Vanessa Pietrobon from the Roche Pharmaceuticals to provide a critical look at how SWP can, and should, involve a customised approach and methodology across different organisations. The notion that ‘one size’ does not ‘fit all’ is prevalent right throughout this thought-provoking discussion as numerous themes around data and analytics capability, where SWP should and often does live organisationally, and the critical role SWP plays with Learning and Development (in addition to Talent Acquisition) are all raised and explored.  Vanessa’s journey started out in marketing analytics and over time she honed and shifted her analytical capability towards people data.  Interestingly, Vanessa drew inspiration from an SWP focused presentation at Tucana Global’s People Analytics World some 8 years ago and has been well and truly emersed in the SWP world ever since.  We love the perspective and insight Vanessa brings and truly value her support and contribution to the SWP Eco-system. 

Episode 6 of the SWP podcast welcomes Commander Peter Chapman from the Royal Australian Navy to take an insightful look at how career pathways in SWP emerge.  The journey of the contemporary strategic workforce planning professional is seldom a consistent one.  In this deep-dive, we look at the many and varied backgrounds and pathways into the SWP space as well as look at how different capabilities are required across a successful SWP project team. We loved the thought-provocation around the ‘quintessential organisation’ who opts not to adapt traditional approaches to talent acquisition and how organisations must address key issues like policies, mindsets and culture in order to adapt to evolving ways of working.  We’re very much looking forward to Peter’s session at our Asia Pacific SWP conference and are encouraged by his passion and advocacy for both careers and professionals in the space. 

Episode 2 of the SWP Podcast sees world renowned SWP software entrepreneurs Chris Hare and Alicia Roach join The Workforce Planning Institute for an in-depth look at key organisational challenges around SWP ownership as we attempt to answer the age-old question, if not in HR, where does SWP belong in today’s organisation?  We also take a look back at how it all got started for our esteemed guests whilst taking a sneak peek at ‘Trends with benefits’ Chris and Alicia’s upcoming presentation set to drop at SWP APAC in December and EMEA in February. So many wonderful hidden gems uncovered in this session with two amazing individuals so incredibly passionate about strategic workforce planning.  

Join Nick Kennedy as he explores the wonderful world of Strategic Workforce Planning by chatting with a series of guests set to speak at the upcoming SWP conference series.