Planning for the public sector
Executing government agencies, such as executive agencies, inspectorates, water companies, counties and local councils often face the impossible task of simultaneously delivering quality, meeting legal deadlines and operating within budget frameworks. And as if that’s not enough, political commitments, such as the human dimension, are added to the workload. The primary process suffers and staff are overwhelmed. Capacity planning and good operational management give you peace of mind, a predictable situation and control over the processes.
Challenges
Organisations in the public sector have often similar challenges with regard to planning.
Time pressure
The demand for more flexibility and faster delivery times is never-ending. People are spoilt and no longer prepared to wait 20 weeks for a decision on an objection.
Financial resources
The government works with fixed annual budgets while the executing agencies work with changing demand. The same level of service is expected despite these relatively fixed resources.
Change
Legislation and requirements are forever changing under the influence of society. An organisation must have the flexibility to deal with these changes without becoming inefficient.
Often, these challenges result in backlogs, overwhelmed staff and continuous adjustments. This can be alleviated with a smart planning system.
Comprehensive approach with integrated planning management
Execution management consists of a number of components that are related and mutually reinforcing: strategic planning for the long term, tactical planning or capacity planning for the medium term and case planning for the short term. When the processes have dependencies and the organisation is part of a chain, chain management allows for a smooth integration within that chain. Every organisation is different, which is why the Anago platform allows us to respond to each organisation’s unique characteristics and processes.
Strategic planning
Strategic planning tells us how much capacity and other resources are needed to achieve the strategic goals. This includes strategic staff planning, which looks at employee recruitment and selection, employee turnover, and the education and training required to meet future capacity demands. Strategic planning creates the framework for tactical and operational planning and the starting point for the budget.
Capacity and tactical planning
Capacity planning plays an important role in an organisation’s ability to achieve its goals. Considering that an organisation’s knowledge and capacity are not likely to change in the medium term, capacity planning at the tactical level consists of finding the best way of utilising the available capacity to achieve the goals: which priorities do you set for the workload, how do you distribute the workload between the departments, when do you bring in contract staff, and when do you decide to train your staff in a specific activity? Process simulation produces different scenarios, one of which will be leading for the operational planning.
Operational and case planning
At the operational level, capacity planning consists of matching the employees’ skills and availability to the demand. This can be done partially or completely automatically, so the planners can focus on the exceptions. Depending on the organisation’s sector and field of activity, other factors can also be taken into account, such as the location, multiple employees at the same time and travel time.
