1 Workforce planning

National Occupational Standards help you identify the activities that must be carried out to achieve your strategic objectives and plan the numbers of staff and the competences they need to carry out these activities.

Steps to take:

Step 1 Be clear about your objectives
Clearly establish the strategic objectives your team, organisation or partnership has to meet.

Ensure these are SMART

  • Specific - precisely what must be achieved?
  • Measurable - how will you be able to tell if it has been achieved?
  • Agreed - do all the stakeholders involved agree on the objective?
  • Realistic - is the objective achievable?
  • Time-bound - by when must the objective be achieved?

Step 2 Identify relevant National Occupational Standards

Identify from the National Occupational Standards which activities must be carried out in order to meet these objectives. You may need to look at other sets of standards, such as those of administration, customer service, e-skills, management and leadership, trusteeship and volunteer management, as well as the Legal Advice Standards.

Step 3 Estimate the number of people required

Using information about current and future workloads, estimate how many people are required to carry out each activity.

In a small team, for example, you may need three or four staff and/or volunteers to carry out unit LA3 Develop and manage interviews with clients in order to match the workload at different times, but only one person to carry out unit LA21 Evaluate the quality of client service.

Step 4 Identify the personnel available and the competences they have

Be clear about who is available to carry out the work and what functions they are competent to perform.

Step 5 Allocate work within the team

Allocate activities fairly to individual workers on the basis of their competence, capacity and opportunities for development.

Step 6 Develop the team’s capacity and competence

Where personnel and/or their competences are inadequate to carry out all the activities to achieve your strategic objectives, make the case for the recruitment of additional personnel or the development of personnel within the existing team.

Step 7 Review your strategic objectives, if necessary

Where you are unable to obtain and/or develop adequate numbers of personnel and/or their competences, renegotiate your strategic objectives so that they are achievable.

Checklist

  • Do you have SMART objectives for your area of responsibility?
  • Do you identify the units of National Occupational Standards needed to meet your objectives?
  • Do you know the competences of the people in your team and allocate work accordingly?
  • Do you use National Occupational Standards to make the case for recruiting new people or developing the competences of your existing team?