Workforce Planning in the Belgian Federal Government EUPAN HRWG / IPSG EUPAN meeting 4-5 April 2013

1. Workforce planning issue in the Belgian Federal Government Context : –Since 2009 : Economic and budget crisis => Government's priorities :  control of public finance  better management of public services : “Selective Replacement Policy” Purpose of workforce planning in Belgium : – to achieve an optimal combination between  Available personnel budget  and appropriate number of human resources endowed with useful skills Workforce planning relies on 2 mechanisms: 1.Personnel Envelope 2.Personnel Plan

2. Personnel Envelope Financial resources allocated for each federal public service to pay his workforce Yearly defined Interest : –Transparency –Autonomy –Accountability Stakeholders : –Government : « How much money » to spend for civil servants in order to achieve his policy –Heads of Departments : « How to take advantage » of their envelope to achieve their missions

3. Personnel Envelope Since 2009, Personnel Envelope = tool to reduce the federal personnel budget

3. Personnel Plan Goal : to give to the services the opportunity to assess and to plan the suitable Human Resources to carry out their objectives Annual process, described in FTE and cost One Personnel Plan for one personnel envelope –Personnel Plan gives a double limit : »Maximum FTE »Maximum cost (personnel envelope)

3. Personnel plan

4. Personnel Plan In the economic and budget crisis context, some points in the issue of workforce planning are placed in front of the Federal agenda: Critical point=> To develop the personnel plan as a management tool –that gives flexibility to the service to manage his desired HR policy Avoid simplistic recipe as « 1 civil servant out of 2 won’t be replaced » –that integrates a method to estimate the cost of HR policy with a high degree of accuracy –that uses a standard method which gives the possibility to make a transversal assessment of all services

5. SEPP Project The P&O FPS has to give support to this decisional pattern which is based on a balanced partnership between government and public services. In order to make that possible we have lead the SEPP project Integration of a standard method in the Personnel Plan that supports : o The Head of administration to produce accurate estimation of his desired HR policy  FPS Management support with SEPP o The government to assess the risk taken by all services with the same rules  Political level support with SEPPFED

5. SEPP Project SEPP & SEPPFED constraints : –A common methodology applied to all FPS To count the public servants in FTE with public classification : –distinction between management, statutory and contractual staff –distinction following 4 educational levels (A, B, C, D) To define and catch the personnel cost To estimate the personnel cost in the future –A reliable and flexible system that gives the information at the right moment –Normalized basic data sets

5. SEPP Project –Strict definition of a period of time To avoid the problem of constant flux of the workforce due to in and out flows of employment –Accurate estimation of the employee’s cost Estimation of the existing personnel based on the real latest paid salary Estimation of the existing personnel on individual level => high level of accuracy for more than 85% of the plan’s costs accuracy Standardized definition of the heading costs => guarantee of fair treatment between the services

5. SEPP Project –Standard rules to estimate the impact of the flow : in, out and promotion of the civil servants within a service

6. SEPP within the workforce planning process SEPP is used –By the Head of administration Each year to make the final step of his workforce planning process when he gives an estimation of his HR vision  “To Plan” (yearly activity) Every month to –follow the state of progress of his plan –Evaluate management policies –take decision to realize the goals –Manage risk  « To manage » (monthly activity)

6. SEPP within the workforce planning process –By the Government Each year to analyze the risk level taken by all services in their workforce planning and to avoid bankruptcy  Personnel Plan assessment Every month to analyze the evolution of civil servants  Federal Monitoring  As often as needed  to evaluate new HR policies  to focus on services that have difficulties reaching the HR or budget goals

6. SEPP within the workforce planning process Personnel Plan assessment –The government makes sure that every service respects in its workforce planning the financial resources allocated by the envelope

6. SEPP within the workforce planning process Federal Monitoring –The government follows the monthly evolution of FTE’s and their cost to prevent public deficits and to check government decision implementations : –Selective Replacement Policy : better with less Evolution of the paid FTE’s and of the recurrent payrol– Envelope of (nov – nov. 2011)

How to contact us ? er? Anne De Vos: Sophie Maquoi :