As Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying – ‘if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail’.

And it seems that many employers are not observing the former Presidents’ advice. The CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) have just released their recent Resourcing and Planning Survey which reports that less than half (46%) of organisations have a workforce planning strategy based on a robust understanding of current and future workforce needs.

On top of this just 40% reported undertaking any retention initiatives; and only a third (31 %) were collecting data to identify future skills requirements; and even then, only 13% were collecting data to assess their supply of talent.

So, when companies are not investing time and resources into workforce planning, they must recruit from a reactive stance rather than a proactive stance.

This is something that we at Inspire Selection witness daily, whilst we have many clients that engage with their recruitment partners and involve us in their planning, we also find that for many organisations, by the time they approach us to help fill them their vacancy the role has been empty for a while and is suddenly incredibly urgent, not properly planned and considered.

When the average cost of a bad hire is calculated as 30% of the employees first year earnings, this is a risky strategy.

The Market

It is a common misconception that in this region there will always be plenty of people looking for work. Whilst this is in some part true, unfortunately, the reality is that for every role we advertise we do get upwards of a thousand applications. However, for more complex specialised roles, it is proving more and more difficult to find that ideal person.

The market has changed a lot in the UAE over recent years and that has been amplified with the disruption that Covid has had on the workforce.  As a result, we have seen many of the ‘middle management’ tier of workers having to leave the region resulting in a skills shortage in an area that had previously been a much easier hunting ground. This means that for certain roles we know that the local market has been exhausted and a new hire will need to be sourced from overseas.

Therefore, it is even more important to engage in resource planning at an early stage.

Prepare and Plan

The CIPD report in fact, goes on to say that now, more than ever, with a labour market in flux, organisations need to take a more strategic approach to resourcing – particularly since they may need to train and reskill more domestic workers or increase routes into work for young people, both of which can take time and investment.

Organisations which plan their resources and take a strategic view of the market-place are able to engage their recruitment partners to start searching the market for them before an urgent hiring needs occurs. A knee-jerk reaction to a hiring need that has not been planned for can result in high costs, and long lead times especially when the ideal candidate cannot be sourced in the local market.

Should you need any help with your resource planning please contact your Inspire Selection Consultant – as specialists within our own sectors we often have a short list of suitable candidates pre-screened and ready to go.