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Workforce Planning:
How Step 2 Fits


An Environmental Scan will help you understand your organization's internal needs and assets, and the external environment in which you’re operating. The Environmental Scan provides information that can help your agency form its vision, and identify its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT). This information is necessary in order to complete the WFP Gap Analysis in Step 3.

 

Collecting data is the second step in the Workforce Planning process. Data collection includes conducting an Environmental Scan andSWOT Analysis (PDF file) and a Supply/Demand Analysis (PDF file).

 

An Environmental Scan can be commonly defined as:

 

an analysis and evaluation of internal conditions and external

data and factors that affect the organization.

 

In workforce planning, environmental scanning helps an agency develop the understanding of the internal and external environment needed to determine whether the business needs of the agency are in sync with the availability and competency of the workforce.


An Environmental Scan requires identifying the internal and external Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) that will affect the short- and long-term goals of the agency.

 

A comprehensive Environmental Scan includes:

  • Forecasting business trends.
  • Conductng internal and external scans.
  • Describing the current workforce.
  • Projecting workforce supply and demand.
  • Identifying current and needed competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors).

While the Environmental Scan is about collecting information and data to gain understanding, the SWOT Analysis is about categorizing this information into action buckets.

 

Information and trends discovered during the Environmental Scan process can provide the foundation for a SWOT Analysis finding. For example, if the Environmental Scan predicts that there will be a shortage of trained child welfare workers, this shortage would likely be identified as a Threat in the SWOT Analysis.

 

A Supply Analysis is the process of creating a profile of an agency's existing workforce. A Demand Analysis identifies the workforce and competencies needed to carry out the agency's mission.