Businesses spend considerable time developing strategy. We set growth targets, approve capital investments, enter new markets, adopt new technologies and define ambitious transformation goals. Yet one question is still too often asked much later in the process:
Do we actually have the workforce capable of delivering the strategy?
After almost three decades in human resources, including executive and board-level environments, I have seen good strategies struggle at the point of execution because the required skills were not available, succession pipelines had not been developed, or employees had not been adequately prepared for the change expected of them. That is why I believe workforce planning can no longer be treated simply as an HR exercise. It is a business imperative.
The strategy-workforce disconnect
Traditionally, workforce planning has often started with the organisation as it exists today: How many employees do we have? Which vacancies need to be filled? Who is approaching retirement? What is our recruitment plan? These questions remain important, but they are no longer enough.
We also need to be asking:
Where is the business going? What capabilities will we need to get there? Which of those capabilities already exist within the organisation? What can we develop internally, what will we need to recruit, and which skills may become less relevant as the business changes?
These questions are particularly important for African businesses navigating technological change, economic pressure, the green transition and persistent skills shortages.The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that more than 60% of businesses operating in South Africa identify skills gaps as a key barrier to business transformation by 2030. Organisational culture and resistance to change were identified by 43%.
These are not simply HR problems. They are execution risks.
You can have the capital to expand, but without the right technical and leadership capability, that expansion becomes difficult to deliver. You can invest millions in digital transformation, but the value of that investment will be limited if your people cannot use the technology effectively. And you can make AI part of your future strategy, but if you have not considered what it means for jobs, skills and workflows, you have addressed only part of the equation.
Workforce considerations therefore need to form part of the strategy conversation from the beginning, not after the strategy has already been approved.
AI changes the work, not just the technology
Artificial intelligence has made this conversation even more urgent. Much of the discussion around AI centres on whether it will replace jobs. For business leaders, however, there is another question that deserves equal attention: How will AI change the work being performed inside our organisations?
The World Economic Forum estimates that 39% of workers’ core skills globally will change by 2030. AI and big data are among the fastest-growing skills, but the same research also points to the continued importance of human capabilities such as analytical and creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, leadership and lifelong learning. That combination is important.
I don’t believe the workforce of the future can simply be viewed as people versus technology. Organisations need to understand where technology can perform work more effectively, where human judgement remains essential and, increasingly, where the two should work together.
Buying the technology is the easier part. Preparing the organisation and its people to use it effectively is where much of the real work begins.
Skills shortages cannot be solved through recruitment alone
For many years, when organisations identified a skills gap, the natural response was to recruit. But what happens when every organisation is looking for the same scarce skills?
Through its Labour Market Intelligence programme, South Africa’s Department of Higher Education and Training identifies occupations in high demand, occupational shortages and skills gaps to support post-school education and training planning, qualifications development, curriculum review, and upskilling and reskilling initiatives. Businesses need to apply the same discipline internally.
We cannot recruit our way out of every capability gap. Organisations need to become much more deliberate about building skills, not merely buying them. That means identifying employees who can be reskilled, developing succession pipelines before they become urgent, building technical and leadership capability earlier, strengthening partnerships with education and training institutions, and questioning whether traditional qualification requirements are necessary for every role.
The World Economic Forum reports that 34% of surveyed South African companies plan to remove degree requirements to broaden their talent pools and improve skills matching.
It is an interesting shift. Instead of asking only, “What qualification does this person have?” organisations are increasingly having to ask, “What can this person do, and what could they become capable of doing?”
Workforce planning belongs in the boardroom
Boards routinely interrogate financial forecasts, capital requirements, market risks and operational performance. Human capital deserves the same forward-looking scrutiny.
If an organisation has a five-year strategy, there should be a corresponding view of the workforce required to deliver it and that conversation needs to go beyond headcount and employment costs. It should consider critical roles, future skills, succession risk, leadership depth, productivity, transformation, institutional knowledge and the impact technology could have on the organisation’s operating model.
Some of the risks are quite practical, if critical organisational knowledge sits with a handful of employees who are approaching retirement, you have a business continuity risk. If your growth strategy depends on skills that are already scarce in the market, you have a strategic risk.
If you are investing millions of rands in new technology without preparing employees to use it, you have an investment risk and if the organisation’s future leadership pipeline does not reflect the market, workforce and society in which it operates, that deserves strategic attention too.
Seen through this lens, workforce planning is no longer an annual HR activity. It becomes part of business strategy and enterprise risk management.
HR must also change
There is a challenge here for the HR profession itself. We cannot ask business leaders to see HR differently if we continue to define our own contribution primarily through HR processes.Today’s HR leader needs to understand the business model, financial drivers, technology, productivity and operational realities of the organisation. We need to be comfortable talking about revenue, cost, risk and strategy because these are the conversations in which major business decisions are made.
Our role is no longer simply to ask whether the organisation has enough people. We should be helping the business answer a much bigger question:
Does this organisation have the human capability to become the business it says it wants to become?
For me, that is where the HR profession has the opportunity to add real strategic value: not only as custodians of people processes, but as business leaders helping to build organisational capability.
Start with the strategy, then build the workforce
None of us can predict with certainty what every job will look like five years from now. Nor should that be the objective.The objective is to build organisations capable of adapting. The World Economic Forum estimates that if the global workforce were represented by 100 people, 59 would require training by 2030. It also found that skills gaps are the most frequently cited barrier to business transformation among surveyed employers.
For African businesses, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Africa has a young population, rapidly evolving industries and enormous potential. But demographic potential does not automatically translate into economic capability. Businesses, educational institutions and governments will need to be much more intentional about connecting the skills we develop today with the industries and economies we want to build tomorrow.
At organisational level, the starting point is relatively simple. Every time we ask where the business is going, we should also be asking who will take it there, and whether they have the capabilities to do so, because ultimately, strategy does not execute itself.
People execute strategy and your business strategy will only ever be as strong as the workforce capable of delivering it.
About the author
Petronella “Tumi” Smith is the CEO of NellSmith Strategic Enterprises (NSE), a diversified business advisory and solutions company built around three pillars: People, Power and Process.
She is a seasoned human resources executive and business leader with almost three decades of experience spanning the full spectrum of human resources management, from strategy through to operational execution, with extensive experience at executive and board level across mining, engineering and other industries.
Tumi holds an MBA from Hult International Business School and has served on company boards and as an employer-appointed trustee. Through NSE, she combines her corporate leadership experience with entrepreneurship to help organisations strengthen their people strategies, improve energy efficiency and adopt technology-enabled solutions that enhance business processes and performance.
References
- World Economic Forum. Future of Jobs Report 2025.
- Department of Higher Education and Training, South Africa. Labour Market Intelligence programme and publications relating to occupations in high demand, skills gaps and occupational shortages.
