Lean but Agile: Rethink Workforce Planning and Gain a True Competitive Edge

241 Pages·2012·3.9 MB·English

by  William J. Rothwell

LEAN BUT AGILE
This page intentionally left blank
LEAN BUT AGILE
Rethink Workforce Planning and
Gain a True Competitive Edge
William J. Rothwell
James Graber
Neil McCormick
American Management Association
New York • Atlanta • Brussels • Chicago • Mexico City • San Francisco
Shanghai • Tokyo • Toronto • Washington, D.C.
Bulk discounts available. For details visit:
www.amacombooks.org/go/specialsales
Or contact special sales:
Phone: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
View all the AMACOM titles at: www.amacombooks.org
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information
in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the
publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service.
If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent
professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rothwell, William J., 1951–
Lean but agile : rethink workforce planning and gain a true competitive edge /
William J. Rothwell, James Graber, Neil McCormick.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-1777-5 (hbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-8144-1777-9 (hbk.)
1. Manpower planning—Cost effectiveness. 2. Personnel management—
Cost effectiveness. 3. Strategic planning. I. Graber, James. II. McCormick,
Neil. III. Title.
HF5549.5.M3R6616 2012
658.3'01—dc23
2011026470
© 2012 William J. Rothwell, James Graber, and Neil McCormick
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association,
1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
About AMA
American Management Association (www.amanet.org) is a world leader in
talent development, advancing the skills of individuals to drive business success.
Our mission is to support the goals of individuals and organizations through a
complete range of products and services, including classroom and virtual seminars,
webcasts, webinars, podcasts, conferences, corporate and government solutions,
business books, and research. AMA’s approach to improving performance combines
experiential learning—learning through doing—with opportunities for ongoing
professional growth at every step of one’s career journey.
Printing number
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
PREFACE vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
CHAPTER 1 An Introduction to Lean but Agile
Work and Workforce Planning 1
CHAPTER 2 Optimize the Work 20
CHAPTER 3 Create a Talent Pool for a Lean but
Agile Workforce 49
CHAPTER 4 Optimize the Workforce 84
CHAPTER 5 Optimize the Future Work and Workforce 110
CHAPTER 6 Manage and Maintain a Lean
but Agile Workforce 127
v
vi Contents
CHAPTER 7 Bring Lean but Agile Work and Workforce
Planning into Your Organization 180
CHAPTER 8 The Future of Lean but Agile Work and
Workforce Planning 190
APPENDIX Talent2 Human Resources Performance
Audit Process Framework 198
NOTES 215
INDEX 219
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 225
PREFACE
FULL-TIME JOBS may be relics of a bygone age, though worknever seems
to go away and, if anything, only becomes more complex. This book is a
polemical introduction to a key issue of the day: how to optimize efficient
and effective ways to achieve work results in keeping with customer expec-
tations while also minimizing the costly expenses involved in maintaining
a cadre of full-time workers.
This issue has been bubbling beneath the surface of workforce issues
for a long time. As early as 1994, William Bridges was writing about the “de-
jobbing of America,”1and he predicted that the traditional 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
job would go the way of the dinosaur. More recently employers have con-
tinued to look for creative ways to cut costs while maintaining quality ser -
vice and production. They have tried many ways, such as downsizing; using
more contingent workers, contractors, and temporary workers; offshoring;
outsourcing; relying on “permanent part-time” staff; relying on teleworkers;
and increasing overtime among existing workers. The trouble is that these
efforts seem to be approached without any particular rhyme or reason and
often do not seem to be driven by any logic other than expediency and a
perpetual eagerness to try anything to cut staffing costs.
What is driving this trend toward fundamentally rethinking how work is
done? Two words: costandproductivity. Full-time workers are costly, given
their fixed salaries, benefits, and overhead. And they may not be any more
productive than part-time workers, consultants, temps, or other ways of
staffing to get work done. Consider:
vii
viii Preface
Private industry employers in the United States spent an average of $27.64 per hour
worked for employee compensation in June 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics. Wages and salaries averaged $19.53 per hour worked and accounted for 70.6
percent of these costs, while benefits averaged $8.11 and accounted for the remaining
29.4 percent. Total compensation costs for state and local government workers averaged
$39.74 per hour worked in June 2010. Total compensation costs for civilian workers,
which include private industry and state and local government workers, averaged $29.52
per hour worked in June 2010.2
In the United States particularly, employers face double-digit annual in-
creases for health insurance. They are pressured to drive down other costs
and pass on some of these exorbitant health insurance increases to workers
and retirees.
At the same time, employers are experimenting with many ways to get
work done without adding to their full-time payrolls. They are doing that for
many reasons, among them a desire for increased flexibility in how many
people are on the payroll during uncertain economic times, a concern that
full-time workers who do not perform are difficult to fire, a concern that tal-
ent needs change so rapidly that hiring full-time workers may actually limit
employer options in whom to tap to get work done, and increasingly fierce
global competition from low-wage nations. James Stoeckmann, senior prac-
tice leader at WorldatWork, a professional association of human resources
executives, believes that full-time employees could become the minority of
the U.S. workforce within twenty to thirty years, leaving employees without
traditional benefits—such as health coverage, paid vacations, and retire-
ment plans—that most workers take for granted today. According to Stoeck-
mann, “The traditional job is not doomed. But it will increasingly have
competition from other models, the most prominent being the independent
contractor model.”3
This book focuses on the unique issues associated with what we call
Lean but Agile work and workforce planning. By lean, we do not mean
“Toyota-style manufacturing methods.” Rather, we mean a calculated, sys-
tematic effort to plan the work results in keeping with what customers want
and to plan for the workers needed to do the work in timely ways that will
optimize productivity, quality, and cost-effectiveness. By agile, we mean
“nimble and fast-moving, positioned to cope with dynamic change.” An im-
portant goal of the book is to dramatize how important it is to clarify and
Preface ix
focus on measurable, desired outcomes and work backward to design work
and staff to achieve those outcomes.
This book consists of eight chapters. Chapter 1 explains what business is-
sues are driving the need for more creative thinking in planning how work is
done and how to staff to achieve necessary work results. The chapter also in-
troduces a strategic model for Lean but Agile work and workforce planning.
Chapter 2 is about optimizing work. It makes the case, too often forgot-
ten in books on workforce planning, that the primary goal is to get results,
that is, achieve, make products, or offer services that match or exceed cus-
tomer requirements. How the work is done affects the knowledge, skills, and
attitudes needed by workers to achieve those results. We offer suggestions on
ways to reengineer work and thereby impact how many and what kind of
people are needed to do that work.
Chapter 3 is about building a Lean but Agile workforce. It examines how
to build a talent pool that will provide an organization with a lean and agile
team.
Chapter 4 is about how to optimize the workforce. How can the best
work results be achieved? What range of methods exists to staff for work, and
what are their respective advantages and disadvantages?
Chapter 5 is about optimizing the future work and workforce. It offers
suggestions for short-term and long-term efforts to plan for both work re-
sults and the talent necessary to achieve those results.
Chapter 6 is about managing and maintaining lean work and staffing.
Traditional methods of management seem antiquated when they are ap-
plied to a plethora of approaches to getting the work done and staffing for
the work. The chapter examines these issues, offering advice for managers
on how to deal with many different, but coexisting, methods of doing the
work and staffing for the work.
Chapter 7 explains how to build organizational commitment to Lean but
Agile work and staffing, make the business case to senior leaders and other
stakeholders for it, clarify the roles and accountabilities of various stakeholder
groups, formulate and implement an action plan, communicate about the
program to all affected stakeholders, and continually evaluate results.
Chapter 8 offers advice on preparing for the future of lean work and lean
workforce planning. It examines future trends and how they may affect the
future of work and workforce planning. Additionally, the chapter offers pre-
dictions about the future of the contingent workforce globally and some