Designing a Workforce Strategy for a Major Greenfield Industrial Park

Assembling the right workforce for developing sectors, economic zones, and cities is a challenge for leaders around the world. As projects scale up, companies and government agencies need a continuous supply of talent with varied skills and expectations. In the context of Industry 4.0, this includes highly qualified workers adept at digital technology, artificial intelligence, data analysis, robotics, and automation.

We recently helped MegaprojectCo* design a workforce sourcing strategy for an immense new eco-industrial center. Developers can now forecast the types of roles their prospective clean and advanced manufacturing tenants will require and begin sourcing that pool of workers at home and abroad. To support these plans, we helped MegaprojectCo develop a versatile talent analytics platform that provides flexibility amid inevitable economic fluctuations.

Envisioning the human element in the factory of the future

MegaprojectCo’s goal was to create, almost from scratch, a clean industrial zone with interrelated clusters of eco-conscious manufacturing facilities. Its workforce would expand greatly over a decade. Leaders wanted the clearest possible view of the types of workers needed for a wide range of roles throughout the project’s full lifespan.

We began by quantifying MegaprojectCo’s workforce labor demands along several dimensions such as skillset, education, career tenure, and socio-demographics. We developed a taxonomy of roles as well as a robust phasing plan, forecasting the different rates at which each population would need to grow.

Scoping out the true costs of training and recruiting

Like many advanced manufacturers, MegaprojectCo needed to balance international recruiting with the host country’s requirements for local hiring. Our solution addressed that need. We mapped out the full range of talent supply mechanisms, identifying the best recruiting channels for local and international talent (e.g., universities and agencies) and quantifying the costs of hiring and training people to fill every foreseeable labor supply gap.

We worked collaboratively with project leaders to design the training infrastructure that would enable the upskilling of MegaprojectCo’s existing and future talent base. We also deployed robust models for compensation benchmarking. Using our firm’s global reach and perspective, we marshaled public and private data to map out the approximate costs and strategies for global recruiting.

A sourcing engine with our client at the controls

We delivered to MegaprojectCo a digital platform that gives leaders visibility into their current and future labor resources. Leaders throughout the company use it to quantify hiring and training needs, analyze labor supply for any role, set accurate compensation numbers, and search for candidates by skill, country of origin, or career tenure.

Built on the foundation of our Aura^℠ talent assessment tool, this platform can be tailored for any subsector. We have adapted similar approaches for talent development agencies, private sector employers, and regulators. The tool can be deployed by any client to develop its workforce strategy, strike a balance between local and foreign workers, or build a clear roadmap for developing the required capabilities among its talent.

A solid foundation for ambitious growth

Growing economies demand a ready supply of human capital to capture opportunities and launch ambitious plans. The talent strategy and platform we helped MegaprojectCo implement allows its future tenants to attract, hire, develop, and retain the people necessary to sustain a greenfield manufacturing zone. Leaders can offer prospective manufacturing tenants a range of labor channels to tap into as soon as they begin planning their local operations.

Our work will help this project maintain its momentum as its workforce grows, achieve a balance of local and foreign workers, and quickly calculate the costs and training needs of its labor force. MegaprojectCo is now better positioned for success in a development that will transform the country’s industrial profile.