Thought leadership | Combining strategy with flexibility is essential through uncertainty and change

It’s not surprising then that the critical importance of strategic workforce planning, ensuring workforce agility, and alignment between organisations’ business and people strategies have emerged among the key messages from Winmark’s C-Suite Priorities 2025 report, in partnership with the CIPD.  

Particularly within the context of high uncertainty, leaders have fixed their attention on understanding where growth and opportunities will come from. But those businesses that also understand their current and emerging future skills, and the organisational capabilities needed, are the ones that will be best placed to ‘buy, borrow or build’ the skills they need both for now and the future. Alongside this, employers must now also think more about the ‘bot’ option when it comes to skills and the workforce. In other words, how and where automation and AI can enhance productivity and help create better jobs that optimise human capability and support wellbeing, a crucial outcome for the future.  

A strategic approach to workforce planning enables employers to take a holistic view of the skills issues that face their business. For example, the transition to net zero and technology adoption will be interconnected and interdependent. They will also then be better able to make the case for the much needed raising of investment in learning and development, to be more agile in upskilling and reskilling and to support growth that is needed across our economies. 

Organisations that are a step ahead in thinking in this area will have an advantage in understanding the smartest resourcing and talent management strategies and which mix of external expertise and core inhouse capability will best address skills gaps and shortages. Besides a focus on skills, the analysis in the C-Suite Priorities report also makes clear that flexible working is important in supporting efforts to recruit and retain the increasingly diverse workforce that firms will need in response to changes in workforce demographics and which can be good for both wellbeing and meeting businesses outcomes. 

This means leaders taking steps to foster working cultures that enhance employee engagement, inclusion, adaptability and resilience. It is these traits which will provide the best foundation if organisations are to navigate a fast-changing and increasingly volatile business and external environment.