Integrating the Modified Monash Model, Strategic Foresight, and the TAKE ACTION System
By Wendy Perry, published in Training & Development, September 2025 (AITD, NZTD)
The challenges of strategic workforce planning and development in Australia’s metropolitan, rural and remote areas are complex, requiring innovative approaches to ensure equitable access to healthcare and other essential services.
The Modified Monash Model (MMM), a classification system designed to guide workforce forecasting, is a cornerstone of rural health workforce planning.
By integrating strategic foresight and the TAKE ACTION system—an innovative workforce planning and development methodology—decision-makers can create dynamic, responsive, and inclusive workforce strategies for regional, industry, and national levels. Policymakers and planners can anticipate emerging trends, adapt to changing societal needs, and create more sustainable workforce solutions with stakeholders contributing to a preferred future workforce picture.
The Modified Monash Model: A Foundation for Strategic Workforce Planning
The MMM categorises locations based on population size and remoteness, ranging from MM1 (major cities) to MM7 (very remote areas). This classification informs policies and funding decisions, for example in healthcare, by addressing the disparities between urban and rural services.
However, as highlighted in the National Analysis of the Modified Monash Model, the system faces limitations in accounting for dynamic factors such as socioeconomic changes, shifting population demographics, and technological advancements. This underscores the need for tools like strategic foresight to supplement the MMM.
Strategic Foresight: Preparing for the Future of Work
Strategic foresight involves envisioning and planning for multiple future scenarios. It combines trend analysis, scenario planning, and systems thinking to prepare for uncertainties and disruptions in the workforce.
In the context of the MMM, strategic foresight can:
- Identify Future Trends: By analysing trends in this example such as digital healthcare, telemedicine, and sustainability-focused jobs, strategic foresight can highlight emerging workforce needs.
- Adapt to Socioeconomic Changes: Rural areas are experiencing shifts in population demographics and industries. Incorporating foresight ensures that MMM classifications evolve with these changes.
- Promote Equity: By considering diverse futures, foresight helps in designing inclusive policies that cater to vulnerable populations, including Indigenous communities and people with disabilities.
Integrating Strategic Foresight into the MMM
- Dynamic Data Integration: Incorporating real-time data on socioeconomic and technological changes into the MMM can enhance its predictive power. For instance, monitoring the adoption of telehealth in MM4-MM7 areas can inform targeted incentives.
- Scenario Planning: By simulating scenarios like climate-induced migration or automation in agriculture, policymakers can assess how these changes impact workforce needs in rural areas.
- Collaborative Approaches: Engaging stakeholders from various sectors and regions can foster holistic solutions. For example, partnerships between regional universities and telehealth providers can address workforce shortages in MM6-MM7 areas.
- Skill Forecasting and Reskilling: Identifying future skill requirements and investing in reskilling programs are critical. Programs focused on digital skills and sustainability can prepare rural workforces for new opportunities.
Benefits of Combining Strategic Foresight with the MMM
- Proactive Policy Design: Strategic foresight enables policymakers to anticipate challenges rather than react to them, ensuring long-term sustainability of local services.
- Enhanced Resource Allocation: By forecasting workforce needs accurately, resources can be allocated more effectively to underserved areas.
- Innovation in Service Delivery: Exploring innovative solutions like mobile clinics or AI-driven diagnostics can bridge gaps in rural healthcare.
The TAKE ACTION System: A Dynamic Workforce Planning Framework
The TAKE ACTION system developed by Workforce BluePrint is a proven methodology to match workforce demand, supply, development strategies and training provision. It can integrate with the MMM and strategic foresight to create a comprehensive, future-ready workforce planning approach. Here’s how the system’s steps align with the TAKE ACTION system.
- The Full Picture
MMM Integration: Use MMM classifications to understand current workforce distribution and gaps. Evaluate local economic development priorities and strategic direction for specific locations and industry sectors, organisations and regions.
Strategic Foresight Application: Analyse global, national, and regional trends affecting rural workforce needs, for example as telehealth adoption in MM5-MM7 areas or shifts in agriculture.
- At This Time (Current Workforce)
MMM Integration: Profile the current workforce, focusing on critical job roles and capabilities unique to MMM regions.
Strategic Foresight Application: Identify current challenges, such as recruitment and retention issues in MM6-MM7 areas, and use foresight to understand potential impacts of external drivers like automation or demographic changes.
- Know What You Want (Future Workforce)
MMM Integration: Define the preferred future workforce vision, considering critical roles and capabilities.
Strategic Foresight Application: Apply the 8-step foresight process (facilitated by Workforce BluePrint) to create preferred future scenarios. For example:
- Scenario Question: How might telehealth transform rural healthcare delivery by 2035?
- Driving Forces: Examine regional labour market trends and funding models.
- Strategic Visions: Identify the workforce capabilities needed for sustainable healthcare in MM5-MM7 areas.
- Evaluate the Gaps
MMM Integration: Compare the current workforce profile against the envisioned future, focusing on gaps in critical roles and training needs for specific MMM classifications.
Strategic Foresight Application: Analyse uncertainties and risks tied to these gaps, such as challenges in adopting new technologies or attracting talent to specific roles and remote areas.
- Address the Gaps
MMM Integration: Develop targeted workforce development strategies. For instance, prioritise digital skills training for healthcare workers in remote regions.
Strategic Foresight Application: Use scenario planning to test the viability of these strategies under different future conditions.
- Co-Design Solutions
MMM Integration: Collaborate with local stakeholders, including employers, training providers, and community leaders, to ensure solutions align with regional needs.
Strategic Foresight Application: Engage stakeholders in foresight exercises to build consensus on the most plausible and desirable future workforce scenarios.
- Timelines and Targets
MMM Integration: Set realistic implementation timelines for workforce strategies, tailored to the unique needs of each MMM region.
Strategic Foresight Application: Monitor early warning signals to adjust timelines and strategies as scenarios evolve.
- Inspire and Implement
MMM Integration: Leverage the MMM framework to inspire communities and stakeholders by showcasing success stories and measurable outcomes.
Strategic Foresight Application: Use foresight tools to communicate a compelling vision for the future, encouraging stakeholder buy-in.
- Ongoing Review
MMM Integration: Periodically review workforce strategies against MMM classifications, adjusting for changes in population and workforce needs.
Strategic Foresight Application: Track deviations from preferred scenarios and update plans accordingly.
- Next Workforce
MMM Integration: Use MMM data to project long-term workforce needs and opportunities for rural areas.
Strategic Foresight Application: Develop 21st-century capabilities by aligning workforce strategies with emerging trends like sustainability, innovation, tech and entrepreneurship.
A Synergistic Approach
Integrating the TAKE ACTION system with the Modified Monash Model and strategic foresight creates a robust, future-ready framework for workforce planning. This dynamic approach ensures that regions and sectors not only address current challenges but also thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape. By aligning these tools, policymakers, employers, and communities can build resilient, equitable, and inclusive workforces for the future.
For strategic workforce planners and policymakers, the future is now. Let’s align the vision of the Modified Monash Model with the dynamic realities of tomorrow, working towards a future we want rather than the one we have to get.
Further Reading and Resources
https://www.peoplemedical.com.au/what-is-the-modified-monash-model/
https://www.pwc.com.au/future-of-work-design-for-the-future.html
https://www.peoplelikeus.au/rise-of-sustainability-green-jobs
https://www.flinders.edu.au/study/articles/the-future-of-work
https://crana.org.au/our-community/stories/2022/modified-monash-model
https://thephn.com.au/what-we-do/workforce/general-practice-workforce-incentives-and-support
https://www.futurityinvest.com.au/insights/futurity-blog/2023/08/04/future-australian-jobs
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B978044459568300002X
https://www.jcu.edu.au/employability-edge/21st-century-work-ready/the-rapidly-shifting-world
Doanload - Strategic Workforce Planning for a Changing Australia AITD WPerry September 2025