Back by Popular Request; Strategic Workforce Planning II From the Why to the How
Date(s) - 8th October 2026
6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Location
Kingsley Napley
The HR Connection Group is delighted to invite you to our next live and ‘in person’ networking event.
In May, Dean Morley, Shelley Thomas and Adam Gibson gave you the why – the case for strategic workforce planning that finally lands with your Board. Now it’s time to get down and dirty.
Shelley Thomas is back – this time to take you through the five steps to build your own strategic workforce plan, start to finish. You don’t need to have been there in May.
The Five Steps
- Understand the context. Build one honest, shared view of what AI genuinely changes in your business – and where the hype outruns reality. A leadership conversation, not a technology one.
- Assess the Capability Gap. Separate the roles worth defending from the roles worth reinventing. Not every disrupted role is a threat; some are the biggest opportunity in the building.
- Gather Workforce Intelligence. Replace the out-of-date skills matrix with a real baseline: talent market data, build-vs-buy analysis, attrition modelling and evidence-based skills mapping.
- Evaluate Investment Options. Turn a skills gap into pathways people actually want to walk – then model the investment scenarios and quantify the commercial return.
- Monitor and Adapt. Plans fail in governance, not strategy. Pilot first, scale only after measured ROI – so workforce planning becomes a living function, not an annual exercise.
What you can expect from attending this event
- A deliberate break from traditional workforce planning – built for the AI era
- Pitched at senior level – no basics, no theory, no reheated headcount cycles
- Fast-paced and highly interactive – working in groups, not sitting in rows
- A first-draft AI-era workforce snapshot for your own organisation, completed as you go
- A printed field guide to take away, plus three named actions for your next 30 days
This session is being led by Shelley Thomas who is a Board Advisor and Fractional Chief Transformation Officer with over 25 years’ experience leading major organisational change across some of the UK’s most recognised brands including Spire Healthcare, Asda, Greene King and Morrisons.
Join the HR Connection Group at this event and be part of the movement transforming workforce planning from reactive firefighting to strategic advantage.
This event is free to attend but, by its very nature, is only really relevant to senior inhouse HR practitioners as it’s a practical workshop with takeaways to apply in their own organisation. If you wish to attend, please register below.
This exclusive event is kindly being hosted by the leading law firm, Kingsley Napley in their offices at 20 Bonhill St, London EC2A 4DN.
“Strategic workforce planning has always been treated as something HR enables. In the AI era, it has to be something HR drives. That’s the whole session in one sentence.”