Purpose: to ensure that the organization has the right people, with the appropriate skills and knowledge, in the correct roles to support its business objectives

Focus on the effective management of the organization and people dimension (people are the most valuable asset in every organization)

Activities in WTM:

• Planning
• Recruitment
• Onboarding
• Learning and development
• Performance measurement
• Succession planning

WTM supported by specialized roles and organizational structures. A dedicated human resources (HR) team, which could be organized in several ways:

• Focus on core business units and little focus on IT WTM; IT managers fulfill WTM
• HR pays attention to IT and performs WTM based on the organizational approach
• In digital and IT-focused organizations, HR has a primary focus on WTM

An effective workforce cannot be developed in isolation: IT leaders, managers, and teams must work with HR professionals to co-create the practice and requirements

VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) environments require WTM to be dynamic and fluid with rules/procedures, organizational structures, and competencies

Consider the following for effective WTM:

• Organizations are open systems, their relationships with other systems cannot be ignored
• Organizational strategies continual evolve, so should the HR strategy
• Digital technologies change the way organizations work and the skills that organizations need
• Decisions should be driven by principles, not rules
• Organizations should recognize and embrace complexity and complexity-driven heuristics
• Organizational agility, adaptability, and efficiency should be enabled by the organizational structure and management practices
• WTM is the responsibility of every team, manager, and leader in the organization, not only HR professionals

1. Practice success factors (PSF)

Three PSFs for WTM:

• Ensuring the continual alignment of the workforce and talent management approach to the organization's business strategy
• Ensuring that motivated and competent people effectively contribute to the achievement of the organization's objectives
• Ensuring that the administrative processes for this practice effectively support the organization's strategy and objectives

1.1 Continual alignment

Must have an agile approach where goals are redefined and adjusted (VUCA):

• Adapt agile and efficient organizational structures
• Nurture agile, creative, efficient organizational cultures
• Inspire and promote servant leadership
• Plan for changes that are in demand in the workforce

Principles for future organizations:

• Small teams; flatter structure, connected workforce
• Think like entrepreneurs; focus on needs (not formal requirements)
• Agility and adaptability are key characteristics as are creativity and innovation
• Adopt emerging digital technology
• Embrace and promote diversity; embrace democratized learning and development
• Triple bottom line and sustainability

1.2 Motivated and competent people

Effective contribution to the achievement of organizational objectives depends on WTM. Manage the following:

• Employee journey management
• Continual learning and development
• Maintaining healthy organizational culture
• Conscious leadership

Outcome of these factors are:

• Organizational workforce and competency needs
• Ensure availability when needed
• Shared organizational values and principles
• Safety, autonomy, professional and personal development, purposeful contribution needs met
• Physical, social, work environments optimized for effective contribution to organizational objectives, culture and principles

1.3 Processes support strategy and objectives

Must understand what is available from a workforce perspective (numbers, competencies, performance, costs, etc.). Allows for conformance to rules and compliance to regulations

WTM integrates the administration into the practice and supporting processes: creates a level of control, conformance and compliance without bureaucracy

Use ITIL guiding principles:

• Focus on value: introduce controls that contribute to value creation
• Think and work holistically: analyze/optimize controls across the organization
• Progress iteratively with feedback: listen to feedback, optimize procedures and controls
• Optimize and automate: automate to minimized effort, costs, distractions

Go back to ITIL 4 Strategic Leader Certification Course: Practices to finish this chapter or to the main page ITIL 4 Strategic Leader Certification Course.