Manage Workforce Planning

37

Requirement

Manage Workforce Planning

Solution

Introduction 

In this paper, we have been evaluated the labor market based on current labor market statistics of the construction industry and ADCO Private Limited. The main purpose of the paper is to gain senior management signoff on the workforce planning strategies. ADCO is a leading construction company in Australia. It is a well-recognized brand and has a lot of competitive advantage in Australian construction industry ("Overview | ADCO," 2017). This paper has been defined the current situation of the Construction industry and ADCO. Apart from this, it is also evaluated the future initiatives of the organization. This has been done to recommend significant changes and effective strategies to manage workforce planning.  

Current Situation of Australian Construction Industry 

Factors affecting supply of labor in Australian Construction Industry 
There are a lot of factors which are influencing the labor supply within construction industry of Australia. The first and foremost factor is wage and non-wage remuneration. It is believed that the labor supply in Australia market expands with the increment in level of benefits. As the labor market of Australia tightens nationally, upward pressure on wages occurs accordingly. This further raises a cause of cost-push inflation within the industry ("Labour Market Research – Construction Trades Australia," 2016). On the other hand, another factor affecting labor supply in Australian Construction industry includes work conditions, skills, qualifications, power, and presence of industrial action to support labor, size of the workforce, the strength of union bargaining power, and unique talents required in construction industry like engineering and leadership skills.

Discussion regarding oversupply and undersupply of labor in Australian Construction industry

Bahn (2012) has been concluded that labor supply in Australian construction industry is coming undersupply. There are a lot of reasons behind shortage and less supply of labor within the construction industry. The supply of labor within construction industry can easily understand with a below-mentioned table:
Positions in Construction Industry
Rating    
 Number of years in shortage over last 3
 Number of years in shortage over last 5
Brick layer
Less
2
4
Roof tiler
Less
3
3
Conntractor
Recruitment difficulty
2
3
Stone mason
less
1
2
From the above-mentioned table, it can evaluate that labor supply within Australian industry is less. It happens because the labor market for the construction industry in Australia was tight from last 3 years. Apart from this, the labor variability is another reason for labor undersupply in Australian construction industry.

Factors effective demand for labor in Australian Construction industry

Apart from this, it can be said that there are other factors also which are influencing the labor demand within the Australian construction industry. The foremost factor is the use of technology to replace labor. Generally, it can observe that most of the construction industries are using the latest technology to complete their project in required timeline. The wide use of technology instead of labor influences their demand within the Australian construction sector ("Labour Market Research – Construction Trades Australia," 2016). On the other hand, other factors are the level of productivity activity requiring certain types of labor, and technology requirements regarding new forms of labor. All these factors collectively determine the labor demand within Construction industry of Australia.  

Government Initiatives that can affect labor demand and supply in Australian Construction Industry

The Australia Federal, state, and local government have developed a lot of labor policies in favor of construction industry. For example, the development of Start-Up year policy has been done to promote the young and college students to utilize their skills in the construction sector of the country. Apart from this, there are also some policies like innovation investment partnership, two new visa classes and various others ("The Issues Facing the Australian Construction Industry | Research Australia," 2015). All of these Australian labor policies influence the labor demand and supply in a high context. The development of new labor policies enforces the company to expand their business and utilize expert skills. This automatically raises the skilled labor demand within Australian construction industry. On the other hand, the labor wage policy is promoted to give equal rights to each individual. This expands the labor supply within the construction industry, and companies can utilize their skills and talent to complete their projects.  

Current Situation of Organization 

Whether Staff diversity meets current Organizational Requirements or not
Lopes (2015) has been told that it is right to say that the staff diversity of ADCO fulfills its current aims and objectives effectively. The main reason behind this success is company focus towards staff diversity inclusion. ADCO revealed that from July 2016 to 2017, half of its new hires in Australia were from underrepresented groups like women, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, and black. These all get equal opportunities to utilize and improve their skills with company support. Due to active training initiatives, the company is effectively managing the staff diversity. This proper management further enforces accomplishment of its determined goals with the support of diverse staff groups. There are a lot of diversity variables which has been considered by ADCO. One of them is knowledge. It hired individuals on the basis of knowledge and their talent which further enforce effective accomplishment of assigned roles and responsibilities (van Hulst, 2017). On the other hand, another diversity variable is education. The company has determined standard education criteria for a particular opening. This enforces effective match of position with the required candidate. With the help of both of this diversity variable, it secures best position among its competitors.

Alignment of organizational strategy and workforce plans

It can be said that a perfect alignment can find in its organizational strategy and workforce plans of ADCO. This has been performed by the organization through adopting appropriate practices. These practices mainly include relationship management, internal and external competition management, expectation fulfillment, and various others ("Overview | ADCO," 2017). The use of these practices helps company to develop a balance between its organizational strategy and workforce plans. This has been performed with the sole motive of complete employee expectations and accomplishes project as per desired quality and timeline.

Staff turnover and its acceptability

It is believed that the quality of its people clearly differentiates ADCO working from its competitors. The annual report of the company has been represented that the more than 40% of ADCO’s employees have tenure in excess of 8 years and staff turnover levels are exceptionally low (http://www.adcoconstruct.com.au/about-us/overview/). Due to the less staff turnover, the organization able to maintain continuity in its relationships with clients and other business members. The staff turnover occurring within the organization is acceptable. It is because the company believes in maintaining healthy relationships with its employees. Therefore, it able to maintain employee's tenure in excess of 8 years.

Strategies to address staff turnover

In case the company identifies this issue in its near future, the management need to offer desirable benefits and effective working conditions to its employees. Apart from this, it can also use the strategy of offering job security and enhancement in existing pay structure (van Hulst, 2017).
Strategies to find skilled labor from external sources
ADCO management needs to utilize the external recruitment sources effectively to find skilled labor. There are a lot of strategies that can follow by HR department of ADCO. The first and foremost strategy is to automate job board processes. The company should recommend job boards to its external sources. This enhances the chances of attracting qualified talent and skilled individuals. On the other hand, another important strategy is transparency and appropriate tracking (Oostveen, 2016). Both of these strategies have a significant potential for using the external sources effectively. Both of these strategies will focus on maintaining transparency and control which will further enhance the chances of hiring skilled labor.

Contingency plan to deal with extreme situations

The below-mentioned table will represent the contingency plan prepared for ADCO to deal with extreme situations:

       Risk category
           Risk 
         Mitigation
Retirement
 Loss of human resources due to early retirement
The Proper planning of retirement time-period
Health epidemic 
Unwanted occurrence of health problems
Effective use of health and safety practices at workplace
Remote Location
Presence of project at remote location where replacement workers are hard to attract
Development of a talent pool to replace on an immediate basis (Squires, 2017). 

Future Analysis 
Organizational strategy in near future and Changes required for the retention and modification of the Workforce
ADCO believes in the effective use of available human resources to gain success. It will develop its organizational strategy in favor of employees to avoid an unnecessary break up among project initiatives. In its near future, it is planning to use a large variety of organizational strategies. These include; promising career progression, talent management through development and training program, and economic reward to facilitate employee retention. The company is engaged in working on the implementation of these organizational strategies (Larkins, 2014). Most of its employees want that the company has a strategy regarding equal growth opportunity. Therefore, with the help of this change the company can promote employees satisfaction which further proves beneficial in planning retention.

Workforce requirements in next two years

ADCO operates in both day and night. Therefore, it is right to say that the company needs to plan its workforces requirements as per own working. The below-mentioned figure will represent the workforce requirement for ADCO:
Occupational Category                                               2017 Jobs               2018 Jobs          2019 Jobs               Change 017-18         Change 018-19
Transportation and Material Moving                                 49                           49                        55                              0.00%                          12.20%
Supply chain management                                             677                         622                      551                             -8.10%                          -11.40%
Maintenance, implementation, and repair                    3432                        3286                    3513                            -4.30%                            6.90%
Workplace Healthcare, and technical                              93                          102                       113                             9.70%                            10.80%
Architecture and Engineering                                     5,069                         4848                    5226                            -3.80%                             7.10%
Business and Financial Operations                             6207                         6968                    7758                           12.30%                            11.30%
Management                                                                6348                         6437                    7081                             1.40%                            10.00%
Computer and Mathematical Science                         4,518                        4,921                    5,697                            8.90%                            15.80%                                               
Strategies to address oversupply and gaps of future required staff

De Bruecker (2015) defines the gap analysis a method of bringing together the data generated from future and current workforce requirements. ADCO management can address oversupply and gaps of future required staff by adopting a large number of strategies. The first and foremost strategy is the implementation of hiring freeze. Each company can predict a bit of churn on their labor force simply because of their employee's life situations leaving for retiring or other positions. By not filling the positions left by departures, managers can let workforce attrition balance labor oversupply without having to resort to layoffs. On the other hand, the company can also develop furlough system, and reduce worker’s hours or pay across the board. 

Communication options

Generally, it can be said that change influences the existing strategies in a big context. Therefore, in that situation, it becomes essential for management to disclose new strategies in front of other employees to avoid misunderstanding. In that situation, the ADCO can use a large variety of communication options. Some of the popular communication options include E-mail, formal letter, and telephonic contact (Goodman, 2015). These can successfully use by the organization to transmit information from an individual to another.

Recommendations

On the basis of above-mentioned information, it can be recommended to the company that it should concentrate more on the development of equal growth opportunity facility in favor of employees. With the help of this policy, the employees will feel secure, and they get the motivation to move ahead. Apart from this, another recommendation is that it should use the formal communication option to inform the employees about ongoing changes. This may facilitate appropriate accomplishment of project goals and objectives.

References 

• Bahn, S., & Cameron, R. (2012). Skilled labour supply and demand in resource rich regions in Australia. Ro.ecu.edu.au. Retrieved 12 January 2018, from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1170&context=ecuworks2012

• De Bruecker, P., Van den Bergh, J., Beliën, J., & Demeulemeester, E. (2015). Workforce planning incorporating skills: State of the art. European Journal of Operational Research, 243(1), 1-16.

• Goodman, D., French, P. E., & Battaglio Jr, R. P. (2015). Determinants of local government workforce planning. The American Review of Public Administration, 45(2), 135-152.

• Larkins, S., Panzera, A., Beaton, N., Murray, R., Mills, J., Coulter, K., ... & Baird, D. (2014). Regional health workforce planning in north Queensland: starting with the end in mind.

• Ltd, A. (2017). ADCO Constructions Pty Ltd: Private Company Information - Bloomberg. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 12 January 2018, from https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=27147136

• Labour Market Research – Construction Trades Australia. (2016). Docs.jobs.gov.au. Retrieved 12 January 2018, from https://docs.jobs.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/ausconstructiontrades_0.pdf

• Lopes, M. A., Almeida, Á. S., & Almada-Lobo, B. (2015). Handling healthcare workforce planning with care: where do we stand?. Human resources for health, 13(1), 38.

• Overview | ADCO. (2017). Adcoconstruct.com.au. Retrieved 12 January 2018, from http://www.adcoconstruct.com.au/about-us/overview/

• Squires, A., Jylhä, V., Jun, J., Ensio, A., & Kinnunen, J. (2017). A scoping review of nursing workforce planning and forecasting research. Journal of nursing management, 25(8), 587-596.

• The Issues Facing The Australian Construction Industry | Research Australia. (2015). Researchaustralia.com.au. Retrieved 12 January 2018, from http://www.researchaustralia.com.au/the-issues-facing-the-australian-construction-industry/

• Oostveen, C. J., Ubbink, D. T., Mens, M. A., Pompe, E. A., & Vermeulen, H. (2016). Pre?implementation studies of a workforce planning tool for nurse staffing and human resource management in university hospitals. Journal of nursing management, 24(2), 184-191.

• van Hulst, D., den Hertog, D., & Nuijten, W. (2017). Robust shift generation in workforce planning. Computational Management Science, 14(1), 115-134.