More in Workforce Plan (2018-22)

What is Workforce Planning?

Workforce planning is a multi-functional process, involving integrated and thoughtful planning to strategically identify, acquire, and nurture our current and future talent needs to fulfill our commitments and achieve our business goals.

Workforce planning is an ongoing and active process driven by the Human Resources Division (HRSD), but owned by each business area. Through this partnership we can ensure the long-term, sustainable success of our system for our members.

Framework

CalPERS developed our Workforce Plan in five phases, adopting the California Department of Human Resources (CalHR) Workforce Planning Model and best practices research. Workforce planning began at CalPERS with workforce assessments at the unit level, then branch level, to arrive at enterprise-level goals to produce a comprehensive plan.

At the unit level, each manager and supervisor (team leader) used the Workforce Planning Dashboard (Dashboard), a web-based tool developed for team leaders to better understand their teams' talent needs, gaps, and risks, and to determine action steps to mitigate those risks. The data from the unit assessments was rolled up to the branch level to assist executives and senior leaders in evaluating their top branch-level challenges. The Workforce Planning Steering Committee (Steering Committee), comprised of 19 representatives from each branch, partnered with HRSD to review 26 branch challenges. The Steering Committee voted to concentrate on three enterprise-level workforce priorities: recruitment difficulties, loss of knowledge, and inefficient processes and misaligned resources.

Figure 1: Workforce Planning Framework

Workforce Planning Framework. The framework has multiple layers, starting with the CalPERS Strategic Plan (Fiscal Year 2017-22) as the inner-most layer, followed by the CalPERS Workforce Plan (Fiscal Year 2018-22), Branch Challenges, and Unit Challenges.

To achieve our Mission and Vision, our Strategic Plan recognizes we must continue to recruit, retain, develop, and empower a skilled, competent, and capable workforce.

Our Strategic and Business Plans set forth the long-term priorities and our Workforce Plan connects them to any workforce implications. Workforce planning incorporates goals and strategies necessary to ensure we have the right talent management efforts in place to support our business goals. Our Workforce Plan is intended to be an ongoing, active process, which informs our organization and stakeholders of current and future workforce trends, gaps, risks, and environmental impacts. The status of our workforce planning efforts will be provided to CalHR on an annual basis and any significant changes to our strategies will be added as an appendix, as necessary.

Strategy Map

Our Strategic Plan is the result of a year-long collaborative process between our Board of Administration and executive team that gave us a fresh look at the horizon ahead of us. Workforce planning is the next step in the strategic planning process. In developing the five goals within our Strategic Plan, we went through an extensive process to understand the major risks and opportunities facing CalPERS. We gathered valuable information and feedback from a variety of internal and external stakeholders. The result was five goals (see Figure 2) – each with its own set of objectives and measures for success – that will guide us for the next five years. Another outcome of our process was to refine our Vision and Mission statements to make them more reflective of our purpose and direction. When we link them to our Core Values, they illustrate who we are and what we represent.

Figure 2: Strategic Plan Strategy Map

The Strategic Plan Strategy Map. The map in a circle divide into five, equally-sized pieces. The pieces are labelled (starting at the top and moving clockwise) Fund Sustainability, Healthcare Affordability, Reduce Complexity, Risk Management, and Talent Management. Talent Management is highlighted. Another circle is inside the map, and is labelled: Vision, Mission, Core Values.

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