Apparently however, (not that I've taken the time to read Brossard's interview), his perspective on workforce planning is very similar to mine. Certainly I'd at least like to make a distinction between workforce planning, workforce management, and position management (which I define very broadly in response to Regina's post).
Also, I'd like to include a link to a nice workforce planning whitepaper by Wisdomnet.net. You can also do a search in my blog on worforce. I've written a few times about this. Below is a definition by wisdomnet.net that is much more precise than mine on Regina's board.
"Workforce planning is the purposeful process by which an organization determines future human resource requirements needed to achieve the strategic objectives of the organization. It requires an analysis of numerous factors including current staff, long and short-term needs, and weaknesses in the talent pool. It also calls for a detailed understanding of the skills of the workforce and advanced decision support tools to help maximize the organization’s talent pool. Workforce planning includes sub-processes such as staff planning, capacity planning, and forecasting; its purview is the entire breadth and depth of an organization. Companies that maintain an effective workforce planning process have an understanding of the capabilities and trends in the marketplace and can use that knowledge to make effective decisions about the talent pool."
