Nearly half of HR professionals say their executives are concerned that employees do not have the right skills to execute their business strategy.
According to LinkedIn Research, 49% of HR professionals reported this concern, highlighting the need for clearer reskilling and learning pathways that match both employee development and company goals.
Investing in learning systems alone, however, does not necessarily solve the problem.
When workforce development is disconnected from what a business needs, learning platforms risk being under-used or focused on the wrong skills. The result is delayed and underwhelming outcomes.
As the corporate learning book The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning states: “We are not in the business of providing classes, learning tools, or even learning itself. We are in the business of facilitating improved business results.”
The challenge for HR is connecting employee development, skills and promotions directly to those results.
HR has a bigger role in workforce development
Poor workforce planning often starts with fractured information.
Skills records might sit in one place, performance evaluations somewhere else and organisational information in another system.
Organisations using the right tools to measure and track employee progress have an opportunity to close this gap.
Sandra Crous, Managing Director of Deel Local Payroll, says businesses often overlook the role their existing HR software should play in workforce development.
“What skills does the business need, and who is ready and appropriate for that training? What about promotions? Who are the best candidates, and what new skills might they need? It can take months to collect all the information needed to make the right calls. But the right HR platform will make that collection simple and continuous, so that you always have a clear idea of how to manage your employees.”
Workforce planning comes before learning
Workforce planning and learning systems serve different purposes.
AI-powered and dynamic learning suites enter the process later, once an organisation understands the direction its employee development needs to take.
Before training starts, businesses need to determine which skills they require, where existing gaps sit and which employees are ready for development or promotion.
This is where cloud-native HR platforms play a central role.
These systems collect information from sources such as payroll and HR records before bringing the data together in dashboards and reports covering areas including skills management, promotion prediction and succession planning.
Leading platforms offer these capabilities either as standard modules or as add-ons in higher-tier versions.
“Most employee appraisal systems are chaotic, with emails and documents from different managers, org charts on one system, evaluation reports on another. An HR platform enables different people to submit information throughout the year, creating a continuous picture of where your workforce is,” says Crous.
Six HR software features that support workforce development
So, does your HR software give you the information needed to make better workforce decisions?
These six features and modules can help:
- Performance management
Gather information needed to assess, develop and manage employees without relying on a separate appraisal system.
- Training and skills management
Record each employee’s training history while maintaining a profile of their existing skills and competencies.
- Succession and talent management
Give managers the ability to rate an employee’s potential for promotion, assess when that promotion might happen and record possible reasons they might leave the organisation.
- Appraisal input
Allow managers and employees to capture performance conversations, supporting documents and motivations directly through appraisal portals.
- Organisation management
Use employee information to automatically build and maintain organisational charts, making it easier to map the roles and skills a business needs.
- Cloud analytics and Power BI
Create reports within the HR platform or bring information such as employee skills, performance and payroll costs into advanced analytics tools.
Moving from annual reviews to continuous development
With the right HR system in place, workforce planning does not need to be an annual exercise.
Instead, businesses can move towards continuous workforce development, with information captured and updated throughout the year.
“HR platform systems reach into different parts of the business, letting different people take part based on their responsibilities and insights. They let managers capture and maintain records that help support their teams. Employees can support each other by contributing testimonials and evidence to reviews. When everyone contributes seamlessly, workforce planning and evaluation changes from annual events to something everyone works on throughout the year. This creates the foundation for strategic workforce planning that gives employees fulfillment and helps move the business closer to its goals.”
Bringing employee information together also gives HR a clearer picture of where skills already exist, where development is needed and who is ready for their next opportunity.
Instead of separating employee development from business strategy, workforce planning becomes part of how the organisation works towards its goals.
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