Projecting the demographics of your workforce population becomes much more relevant when you tie the model back to your operational and revenue drivers.
The demand model basically ties your organizational size to your business requirements. In the case of a municipality, this would be related to the number of residents needing services and the expected migration and birthrates that would change those requirements. Capital projects would also come into play as they often have longer term staffing requirements associated with them.
With education boards, the demand is driven by the number of students entering the system. This then drives how many teachers and other support staff you require.
A logistics company may need to relate people to cargo. An oil company to barrels of oil produced, etc.
Now, when you project the workforce departures, you will have a very good estimate as to the number of people you need to hire or outsource.
Then you can change your assumptions… what if we need fewer teachers per student by investing in computers and online learning? How does that change the big picture?
Ultimately good people are getting harder to find as the workforce ages and retires. Getting the most value from your expenditures and allowing your organization to continue operations are important.
These days optimizing your workforce size is getting even more important.
