Future Workforce Manager Click the link to access the Future Workforce Manager Brochure The Australian economy is reliant on skilled and performance oriented workforce.  With a labour shortage and limited skilled personnel industry sectors are placing importance on quality, real time and relevant industry intelligence.  In response to this ever escalating problem SkillsDMC consulted with industry sectors, designing and developing The Future Workforce Manager. SkillsDMC’s Future Workforce Manager is a user-friendly software based strategic labour force planning tool.   Future Workforce Manager aims to provide real time data planning at enterprise level, determining and providing strong indicators of future requirement directly related to future business demands based on the appropriate workforce.  Workforce Planning Project Access the Coal Workforce Planning Project report here.  SkillsDMC is developing a workforce planning model, initially with the coal sector and then with the other four sectors. The final product will provide our industry sectors with timely, accurate and realistic information to grow and maintain their workforce according to their business needs. This is a direct result of the absence of such information, relevant to our industries, currently in the public domain. Once completed, this project will have significant benefits to our industries, as outlined later in this paper. We see this as being a 6 step process, as follows: Future global and local product demand projections will be made for the next 5 years based on industry and government data. Demographic data is collected from a range of sources, including industry stakeholders. This information will be aggregated to provide whole-of-industry data and will provide a baseline for future reference. Based on the current production figures, taking into account known details like production/workforce ratios, historical attrition rates, estimated retirements (total turnover), etc., estimate future workforce required to support production, across all employment categories. Reconcile the figures from step 3 with the historical data. Translate the final model of the total industry into a tool for use by individual sector companies in workforce planning and to present an overall picture of the industry requirements for the next 5 years. The model (data) can be used, inter alia, to: lobby governments for resources and funding commensurate with our needs; advise the industry on its skills profile requirements; assist school careers advisers and RTOs with their education and training planning. Continually monitor the existing workforce supply/demand situation in line with demographic variations, future product demand, technology changes, and changes in the other industry sectors directly affecting commercial operations. The profile established in step 2 will need to include company employees and contractors and will be used to establish an initial baseline, before being projected across the future demand model. Step 3 will involve data modelling scenarios and will also take into account significant factors like the ageing workforce, the lack of new entrants and their combined effect on the number of people required to achieve desired production levels. It will also take into account factors like changes in technology and how these impact on the training needs of the industry. As a guide, if we agree that the coal industry currently employs approx. 40,000, with an attrition rate of 10%, this alone results in the need for about 4,000 new entrants per year, or around 20,000 (equal to 50% of the current workforce) over a 5 year period. All of these people will have to be attracted and trained, in addition to existing personnel, some of whom will require up skilling because of changes in technology or job roles. Information collected, aggregated and reported will present a well documented argument to governments to facilitate skills development and funding of education and training through the public sector, with the eventual outcome being a constant flow of new recruits entering the industry and a system to continuously grow and maintain the workforce to match business needs. Outcomes for R & I industries. The primary outcome of the project will be a Workforce Planning and data modelling instrument, which will provide the resources and infrastructure industries with, inter alia: A planning instrument specifically developed for our own enterprises to improve enterprise performance and add information and value to the Industry Skills Report. Strategic information which is not only timely and accurate, but is directly relevant to the resources and infrastructure industries. A collective picture of the resources and infrastructure industry personnel which ensures more accurate assessment of the availability of suitably skilled people within the workforce. A complete picture of the resources and infrastructure industries' demand for people within a regional area as well as nationally. This will greatly improve the overall future planning process. The ability to benchmark themselves against their industry sector standards, as well as against other resources industries. By having real-time data, be in a position to identify real labour market trends. A clear indication of education and training requirements to sustain the changing workforce dynamics. As an industry sector, better information to support applications to secure our industries' fair share of the publicly funded VET. Detailed background information to present to governments when their support is sought. A tool which encourages management and HR people to focus on current skills depth and future workforce and skills needs.