Expert Tips for Developing a Solid Staffing Plan

The new year is just around the corner, and now is the perfect time to review your strategic staffing strategy from the past year and plan for the coming year. Note what worked well, what could have worked better, and where you deviated from the plan – and the results. Want more tips on developing a staffing strategy – keep reading for must-have tips on better preparing for your hiring needs now and in the future. 

Forecast

It may be hard to predict the weather, but try to foresee your business’s goals for the coming year. Whether your business is large or small, a good question to ask yourself or your leadership team is what employee resources are needed to achieve a certain amount of growth.  The first course of action should be to promote from within your ranks as it facilities productivity, helps control costs, and is less risky. 

After you have exhausted the internal search, it’s time to recruit. To do so, consider the experience, capabilities, and skills needed to achieve a set of goals along with the urgency and ask your team to be as specific as possible. The more detail provided makes it easier to implement a staffing plan when the time comes. Although you can’t anticipate every change in staffing, you can make reasonable predictions that will help you articulate who you’ll need and when. With this information, you can start strategizing. 

Analyze

Taking inventory of how long past projects have taken to complete is a good indicator of future employee requirements. What’s more, it enables you to determine if contractors can fill positions. Projects are often a moving target in the energy, manufacturing, power, utilities, and commercial construction industries. Today’s project can swiftly evolve or get put on hold if a contract doesn’t come through.  Therefore, hiring contractors makes sense for these organizations so they don’t have to take on an annual salary and benefits for a position that may or may not happen. Perhaps your business can take advantage of contractors too. 

Budget

When it comes to determining next year’s staffing needs, don’t forget to budget for recruiting. Depending on the size of your company, posting jobs on your website and word-of-mouth referrals may not be enough to attract the right talent. Today’s market is highly competitive, and it’s absolutely a candidate’s market. Posting jobs online can cost upwards of $400 a month. Then there are background checks to be made, resumes to review, assessment tests, referrals to follow up on, and more. Then consider training costs, onboarding, salary, and benefits. On average, it costs $4,129 U.S. dollars to hire a new employee and 42 days to fill a position.

Measure

It isn’t easy to establish a sound staffing strategy without comparing your current staffing strategy results to your goals and needs. You don’t have to have a savvy software platform to do this either. All you have to do is consider where to adapt staffing needs and preserve them. Ask whether there were projects that ran over budget or weren’t completed in time.

Much has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic sent the job market into a frenzy. Consider if you have positions experiencing a higher than normal turn-over. Consider solutions such as higher pay and better job descriptions and factor these issues into your staffing plan. 

Talk to your staffing partner.

Recruiters who specialize in connecting companies to qualified candidates also specialize in helping their clients create strategic staffing plans that position them to recruit and retain the best talent available. Don’t hesitate to gain your staffing partner’s valuable input into your upcoming staffing strategy.

At FootBridge, our recruiters can help you craft a strategic staffing plan that supports your business goals – and ensures you’ll always have access to high-quality talent when you need it. Contact us today to learn more about our recruiting services.