What is Workforce Planning?

Do you use a digital or paper-based medium to plan your day, week, month, or year? Perhaps you enter important appointments in a calendar, planner, journal, or app. In our personal lives, scheduling and planning can make life easier by reminding us of upcoming commitments. But in the business world, looking ahead and preparing for the future can significantly impact the bottom line. This is where workforce planning comes into play.

Workforce Planning definition

Workforce planning is when companies and organisations determine what they’ll need to ensure success down the line—specifically, the personnel needed to achieve those goals. This planning process can also include conducting a strategic analysis of the current workforce to best align employees with future plans.

Why is Workforce Planning important for businesses?

It’s never been more crucial for businesses to adapt and prioritise their people. To not just survive—but thrive—during times of change and uncertainty, you need a strategy to predict, analyse, and bridge the gaps between your current frontline workforce and your future human capital needs.

What is Workforce Planning software?

Workforce planning software is a specialised tool that helps organisations effectively manage their workforce by analysing current staffing levels, forecasting future needs, and optimising employee allocation to meet business goals.

Many of us have transitioned to digital resources for personal planning, and increasingly, companies are turning to technology for workforce planning. While in our personal lives, technology may just seem like the more convenient option, workforce planning solutions equipped with powerful planning capabilities are often considered a necessity for professionals.

What are the benefits of Workforce Planning software?

Workload Budgeting

Create a bottom-up, activity-based labour model by adding your unique labour standards and demand drivers.
Run quick and easy calculations based on your unique inputs and logical rules.
Unlock the power of your labour model by aligning it against corporate budgets to spot gaps and respond with confidence

Labour Analytics

Fully customisable and configurable dashboards and reporting based on your unique needs and interests.
Easily toggle, roll up, or drill down based on organisational hierarchy and timeframe.
Track progress toward your KPIs and other metrics with the ability to input additional data sets.

What-If Scenarios

Gain full control over your operations by defining, calculating, and testing any business scenario in minutes.
Understand the business impact or ROI through embedded analytics.
Collaborate across Operations, Finance, and HR with the ability to review results, comment, and publish changes.

Capacity Planning

Enhance visibility by understanding your long-term demand and staffing trends.
Maintain stability by identifying optimal staffing levels and the ideal mix of full-time (FT), part-time (PT), and seasonal staff.
Enable growth by predicting skill gaps and uncovering new hiring opportunities.
Empower managers to make better decisions with actionable recommendations.

Why use UKG for Workforce Planning?

UKG Pro Strategic Workforce Planning gives you a longer-term view of your future staffing and business needs so you can prepare for any scenario and take a more strategic approach to your people strategy.

Enhance planning agility by uncovering insights and accelerating decision-making through flexible, user-friendly workload budgeting and capacity planning tools. Achieve alignment by establishing a robust defence against operational challenges while breaking down silos across Operations, Finance, and HR—all within a unified system. Finally, empower and grow your workforce by elevating your long-term people strategy, discovering new hiring opportunities, optimising staffing levels, and creating the perfect mix of skills.

UKG Pro Strategic Workforce Planning delivers intelligent short-term forecasting and comprehensive long-term workforce planning tools within a single, powerful UKG workforce management suite.