Business As (not) Normal

Predicting future roles rather than reacting to current scenarios could increase workplace effectiveness

- Nelisa Doda

In the past, businesses could get away with erratic, spreadsheet-intensive workforce planning. Now, increased automation, demographic shifts and globalisation are overturning labour supply-and-demand conventions. More than ever, organisations in South Africa and abroad need to adapt their workforces to the fluctuating business landscape.

Executives estimate that in the next few years, 44% of the workforce will be made up of contractors or temporary positions and that 79% of this fluid workforce will be aligned to dynamic projects rather than fixed job functions.

Today, workforce planning is catching up with this new reality. There are analytic tools designed to help organisations go beyond simply describing ‘what is happening now’ or ‘what might happen in the future’ to where they can control ‘what should happen’.