Overview

Guidelines and a framework for strategic and operational workforce planning, scalable to organizations of any size, industry or sector. Reviewed and confirmed in 2022.

ISO 30409:2016 provides guidelines and a framework for workforce planning that are scalable to the needs of any organization regardless of size, industry or sector. It helps organizations respond more effectively to their current and projected requirements for staff. It was developed by ISO/TC 260, Human resource management, and was last reviewed and confirmed in 2022, so this version remains current.

What workforce planning covers here. The standard treats workforce planning as the systematic process of connecting organizational strategy to the people needed to deliver it: understanding the current workforce in terms of size, shape, capability and cost; projecting future demand based on strategy, growth, technology change and service requirements; projecting future supply taking account of attrition, retirement, internal mobility and external labour market conditions; identifying the gap between the two; and selecting the actions — recruitment, development, redeployment, retention, outsourcing, automation or restructuring — that close it.

Strategic and operational levels. A useful feature of the framework is its separation of strategic workforce planning, which looks across a multi-year horizon at capability and organizational shape, from operational workforce planning, which deals with shorter-cycle resourcing, scheduling and establishment control. The two use different data, different time horizons and different decision-makers, and problems commonly arise when an organization runs one and assumes it is doing the other.

Practical considerations. The standard emphasizes proportionality: a small organization does not need scenario modelling to plan its workforce, while a large organization with critical skill shortages may need several planning scenarios. It also stresses the involvement of interested parties beyond HR — finance owns the cost envelope, operational leadership owns the demand assumptions, and workforce representatives have legitimate interests in the outcomes.

Related standards. Terminology comes from ISO 30400. ISO 30414 covers reporting and disclosure of human capital metrics, several of which — workforce composition, turnover, skills and succession — are direct outputs of workforce planning. ISO 30415 addresses diversity and inclusion across the employment lifecycle, which begins with workforce planning. ISO 30434 covers workforce allocation.

Certification. ISO 30409 is a guidance standard with no certification scheme. Organizations use it as a reference framework for designing or reviewing their own workforce planning process.

Purpose

To provide a scalable framework and guidelines for strategic and operational workforce planning, enabling organizations to anticipate and meet current and projected workforce requirements.

Key Benefits

• Structured framework linking organizational strategy to workforce requirements
• Separates strategic from operational workforce planning
• Scalable to organizations of any size, industry or sector
• Improves anticipation of skill shortages and critical role risk
• Provides a common basis for HR, finance and operational leadership discussions
• Feeds directly into human capital metrics reported under ISO 30414

Key Requirements

• Establish the organizational context and strategic drivers for workforce planning
• Analyse the current workforce: size, shape, capability, cost and demographics
• Forecast future workforce demand from strategy and operational plans
• Forecast future workforce supply including attrition, mobility and labour market conditions
• Identify and quantify workforce gaps and surpluses
• Select and plan actions to address gaps: resourcing, development, redeployment, retention
• Engage interested parties including finance, operational leadership and workforce representatives
• Monitor, review and update workforce plans as conditions change

Who Needs This Standard?

HR directors and workforce planning teams, healthcare and public sector organizations managing critical skill shortages, organizations undergoing growth, restructuring or automation, finance business partners responsible for people cost, and operational leaders forecasting resourcing needs.

Related Standards