Strategic Workforce Planning: David Edwards

From Workplace Stories by RedThread Research by Stacia Garr & Dani Johnson

March 4, 2026 · 50 min · Episode 122

About this episode

David Edwards discusses the importance and practicality of strategic workforce planning in organizations.

Strategic workforce planning is back, and not in a nostalgic “this trend is back around” kind of way. It is back because the old staffing model, react late, hire fast, hope the market delivers, is failing more often than it works. The biggest misunderstanding is still the same one: strategic workforce planning is not long-term headcount forecasting. It is not a spreadsheet exercise dressed up with better visuals. It is a business discipline that exists for one reason, to stop leaders from committing to strategies the workforce cannot deliver. In this episode of Workplace Stories, David Edwards, author of The Strategic Workforce Planning Handbook , lays out a definition of SWP that is refreshingly usable. Strategic workforce planning is workforce planning for the strategic things in the organization, not an attempt to plan the entire workforce. That single shift makes SWP more approachable, more realistic, and far more effective. If you have not listened yet, this is one of those episodes worth hearing end-to-end. The conversation is practical, occasionally blunt, and full of the kind of “this is what actually happens inside companies” detail that most workforce planning content…

People in this episode

Hosts: Stacia Garr, Dani Johnson

Guest: David Edwards

Topics covered

strategic workforce planning
business discipline
workforce planning
scenario thinking
organizational strategy

Keywords

strategic workforce planning
staffing model
business discipline
scenario thinking
workforce strategies

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Workplace Stories

Books & works: The Strategic Workforce Planning Handbook