Workforce Planning and Strategy Alignment 

The absolute cardinal rule of workforce planning is that it must be aligned with business strategy.

The plan cannot be created in an HR vacuum. 

It must start with a deep understanding of the organization’s strategic goals: 

• Are we entering new markets? 
• Launching new products? 
• Adopting new technologies? 
• Reducing costs? 

Each goal has profound talent implications. Workforce planning is the process of translating those business objectives into a concrete people strategy. 

Without this alignment, you risk efficiently building a workforce for a business that no longer exists. The business strategy is the engine; workforce planning is the steering wheel.