THE CHALLENGE
In 1998, the company sought significant growth and guest service improvement as part of their 5-year strategic plan. How would they do this proactively without compromising profitability or support to employees?
THE SOLUTION
TalentSmart® guided the development and implementation of a strategic workforce plan to acquire and equip the right people to achieve Jack's business growth goals. Specific objectives were to:
1. Proactively identify employees required to keep pace with turnover and growth.
2. Define the new and emerging competencies needed across the organization.
3. Position employee talent at all levels to acquire and use the new competencies.
THE PROCESS
TalentSmart® consultants created a strategic workforce planning process with supporting tools that could be repeated annually, prior to finalizing budgets. All regional restaurant executives convened with corporate staff and regional HR and Training managers to forecast the staffing implications of expected growth.
Planning work outside the group sessions included creating a projected 5 year Staffing Plan by region and job title (developed by TalentSmart® and automated in-house), a scan of the future workforce environment and projected staffing changes based on workforce needs. Regional action plans were reviewed collectively by the organization to identify opportunities for collaboration as they implemented new strategies.
THE RESULTS
For the first time, workforce planning became a collaborative process between Field Operations, Human Resources, Training and corporate services management. Field executives began to identify the sheer volume of talent development needed and created opportunities for hi-potential managers, such as stretch assignments. Today, the company continues to enjoy the bottom-line success that comes from the collective pursuit of tough workforce development challenges.
