U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

Career Patterns Guide

• Introduction
• Dimensions
• Scenarios
• Analytic Tool
• Building Work Environments
• Resources and Tools
  • HCAAF Resource Center
  • Workforce Planning
  • USAJOBS and Studentjobs.gov
  • Writing Effective Vacancy Notice
  • Flexibilities and Authorities
  • Telework Resources
• References

Resources and Tools: Workforce Planning

To make the Federal Government competitive for the best talent America has to offer, the hiring process needs to be lean, fast, and effective. To be ready to hire swiftly, agencies must do their "strategic homework" by conducting workforce planning, an important part of the Strategic Alignment System, the planning and goal setting system of the HCAAF.

Through workforce planning, agencies are able to:

• Identify and document mission-critical occupations and competencies
• Identify competency gaps between the current and future workforce
• Identify gap reduction strategies, i.e., make decisions about structuring and deploying the workforce to best support the agency mission.

The results that agencies are expected to achieve through workforce planning may be found in the HCAAF Resource Center at http://www.opm.gov/hcaaf_resource_center/3-4.asp. This site also contains detailed information about the key elements of a workforce plan and suggested effectiveness and compliance indicators to help determine the adequacy of the agency’s workforce plan.