Tertiary institutions face significant workforce challenges in the post-COVID world. Competition in the race for talent has rarely been fiercer4, while educator burnout is on the rise as staff are increasingly asked to do more with less5. With academic staffing the largest cost component of any university, it has never been more important for higher education managers to seek solutions that improve operational performance, labour optimisation and cost management.
Academic workforce planning (AWP) has become so important in modern learning that it has earned an acronym all of its own. AWP has emerged as one of the sector’s key priorities in 2023 as universities realise the need to analyse their workforces and determine what must be done to not only ensure smooth sailing today but prepare for future staffing requirements.
The good news is technology is helping ease the burden. The advent and evolution of AWP solutions is allowing higher education managers to uncover workforce gaps, allocate academic workloads and perform what-if scenario planning to assess the impact of changes.
And high on the AWP list is the tool that has been described by one leading Australian university as providing “a next-level solution for (our) future planning needs … (and) greater visibility into our business”6. That solution? Anaplan for Workforce Planning.
With studies showing 39% of higher education employees plan to quit their jobs if they are unable to have a flexible schedule7, AWP is of critical importance in navigating workforce pressures. AWP is the process of analysing, forecasting and planning workforce supply and demand within higher education institutions. It focuses on assessing gaps, allocating workloads and determining recruitment initiatives to ensure the university or learning practice has the right people with the right skills in the right places at the right time to fulfil its strategic objectives.
Adopting a new approach to academic workforce planning offers numerous benefits for forward-thinking institutions.
Anaplan is a cloud-based platform that offers multiple features that benefit workforce planning.
It is one thing to know the power of academic workforce planning. It is another to roll out a program that delivers the results a university is seeking. As digital transformation experts, Innovior has a proven track record of helping higher education institutions not only identify game-changing technology but working with them to maximise their potential and deliver world-class academic outcomes.
While every case is different and requires a specific approach, Innovior would essentially undertake several key steps when partnering with universities or other tertiary institutions on an AWP project.
The first step is to understand the background of the AWP process. Why is it important? What has happened in the past that inspired a need for change? This requires input from key players, with affected parties added to the consultation process including deans, heads of departments, academic planners and administrative staff including HR, finance and information services.
The next step is to establish what the current process is and how it could be improved. This involves a series of workshops to iterate our knowledge of the level of AWP required, as well as upstream and downstream impacts.
Playback the proposed solution to key stakeholders, outline high-level business requirements and incorporate feedback. Once again, several workshops are completed as part of the review process.
Finally it is time for the main event. Arguably the highlight of any AWP project, implementation unfolds across several phases from enabling the IT landscape to building integrations to automate data transfers in and out of the Anaplan system. Then it is a case of watching the quantitative and qualitative benefits come to fruition.
As higher education institutions seek to adapt to a very different world, workforce planning is only going to become more critical. Superior AWP bolsters staff engagement and morale, helps attract and retain talent and provides a foundation for students to achieve better results. Realising such benefits is the first step on the journey to academic workforce planning success. The next? Investing in quality digital solutions and working with an experienced and knowledgeable technology partner. Speak to Peter.Grainger@innovior.com at Innovior today to find out how we can deliver a workforce planning solution for your university.