Healthcare workforce planning  – can we face the future without it?

Workforce planning is one the most critical HR processes and linked to every other function in HR management.

Skills for Health’s exceptional workforce planning service ensure your organization has the right skills, and is the right size, to deliver high-quality patient care at a cost you can afford.

The health sector employs almost 2.3 million1 people, and workforce spends accounts for an estimated 70 percent of the healthcare budget.

Employers are faced with financial challenges, increasing demands being put upon services from people living longer with more complex conditions, the development of new technologies and new drug therapies.

It is now more critical than ever that organizations analyze how they are using their workforce and ensure that they use that workforce most effectively and efficiently to provide good quality healthcare.

YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO

Workforce plans are required to ensure that people with the right skills, competencies, and behaviors can meet patient needs both now and in the future. The overarching aims should be focused on creating a sustainable workforce that is centered around patient need, provides quality outcomes and is both deliverable and affordable.

At Strategic Axis, we have a proven track record of working with employers to review their workforce planning processes and support them to develop operational and strategic workforce plans.

In spite of its importance, it is often implemented haphazardly due to organizational and market complexities. In addition to surveying the drivers for workforce planning and its key performance indicators, this course presents and elaborates on an operational model for forecasting demand and supply of employees and demonstrates how resulting gaps can be bridged with a variety of controllable staffing initiatives. Moreover, participants will have the opportunity to learn and apply the forecasting techniques that are typically used in workforce planning.

The course uses a mix of interactive techniques such as lecturettes, group activities, case studies, scenario analysis and team presentations

IMPORTANT COURSE INFORMATION

Certificate

Participants who fully attend this course and complete the test on the last day will receive a Strategic Axis Professional Certificate (SAPC). SAPC certificates are regionally recognized and can be quite valuable when applying for more senior roles within the organization or outside.

Additionally, all participants will receive certificates from KHDA –  Knowledge and Human Development Authority.

This course also endorsed by HRCI – HR Certification Institute. By completing this program which is approved by HRCI, participants will earn credit hours essential for maintaining the professional distinction of PHR®, SPHR® or GPHR®.

Course Outline

• workforce planning core concepts and processes
• workforce planning skills
• key stages/processes of the six-step approach to workforce planning
• critically appraise your own performance in this area
• organizational objectives
• key terms in the organization
• departmentalization
• mechanistic versus organic organization
• strategy and organizational structure
• choosing the right organization
• the economics of the organization

Module 2: Fundamentals of workforce planning

• Workforce planning to get, keep and grow
• Defining workforce planning
• Strategic planning and workforce planning
• It is all a question of demand and supply
• Workforce planning and forecasting employee needs
• Aims and phases of workforce planning
• Drivers of workforce planning
• Benefits of workforce planning
• Keys to successful workforce planning
• Workforce planning Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Module 3: An operational model for workforce planning

• Workforce planning analysis
• The strategic staffing process
• Causes of supply and demand gaps
• Static versus dynamic workforce planning
• Demand analysis and forecasting staffing needs
  • Trend analysis
  • Ratio analysis
  • Scatter plot
  • Zero manning methodology
• The supply analysis phase
• The gap analysis phase

Module 4: Beyond staffing plans

• Using workforce planning to support management successions and development planning
• Proactive talent management
• Measuring staffing effectiveness and efficiency

Module 5: Budgeting: process and approach

• Importance of budgeting
• Types of budgets
• Master budget components
• Approaches to budgeting
• Characteristics of effective operating budgeting
• Tools for budget estimation
• HR budgeting
• Cost control
  • Control systems
  • The control process
  • Variance analysis

Module 5: Healthcare workforce planning

• Understanding the Education pipeline: Sets out the timelines for education commissioning, from the start point of initial planning to the time at which  a healthcare worker completes the training necessary for registration
• Introduction to health data sources: This section considers how quality of data can be assessed, an introduction to some data resources and an introduction to simple data manipulation
• Supply: Sets out the factors to be included in a supply model. What approaches could be used to model amount
• Demand: How healthcare demand can be assessed and future forecasts using some of the data sources
• Patient Pathway: An introduction to a workforce planning which concentrates on the patient’s requirements rather than the silos of supply and demand for particular healthcare workforce professions
• Policy Review: This section considers the national and local drivers for healthcare and discusses how this may affect workforce plans.
• Interrogating your data: Making sense of your information you already hold
• Presenting a workforce plan: How to convert your ideas into a method using the 6 step model that others will accept and implement

Module 6: Healthcare specific considerations
Healthcare manpower needs
Healthcare providers
Physician forecasting
Nurse forecasting
Nursing staff
Staff levels
Health staffing levels
Shortage healthcare workers
Recognize overseas qualifications
Different types of health workers
Employ lay health workers