By Alexander Hagan, formerly Product Manager / Strategic Advisor at Aruspex

There's been a lot of coverage this week about a new research report by the Boston Consulting Group, who issued a press release entitled: Talent, Leadership, and Strategic Workforce Planning Top the List of Critical HR Capabilities in 2012. The title is a bit misleading, but the content clarifies.

Let's be clear, these three areas have always been critical - the research shows that:

1. Organizations are now self-reporting both that they see the link between those three areas and organizational profitability; and

2. They are also conscious of their own deficiencies in those areas.

Significantly, the report shows that companies using best-practise Strategic Workforce Planning have revenue growth 1.4 times - and profit margins of 1.5 times - those that are least capable in Strategic Workforce Planning - a compelling reason to start a Strategic Workforce Planning programme in your organisation.

This also raises an interesting question - if organizations are aware of the importance of Strategic Workforce Planning, but are also aware of their own inability to implement it, what information or resources are organizations looking for that they can't find now? I'm sure many of the people reading this post will have some answers to that question - and I'd encourage you to leave a comment with your thoughts.