What is workforce planning?

Staff planning refers to the systematic planning of a company’s current and future staffing requirements. It ensures that, when needed, there are sufficient staff with the right qualifications available at the correct location.

Staff planning takes into account more than just the number of employees. It also considers skills, working hours, absences, costs, organisational structures and the company’s future development.

The aim of structured workforce planning is to identify staff surpluses and shortages at an early stage, to implement appropriate measures and to safeguard the company’s performance in the long term.

With a digital staff and workforce planning Employees, teams, skills, absences, projects and working hours can be coordinated in a single, shared visual planning view.

What are the objectives of workforce planning?

Staff planning pursues economic, organisational and employee-related objectives.

The key objectives include:

• ensure sufficient staffing levels
• make suitable qualifications available
• Identify staff shortages at an early stage
• Reducing overstaffing and idle time
• Deploy staff according to requirements
• Distribute the workload evenly
• Take holidays and absences into account
• Forecasting long-term staffing requirements
• Identifying training needs
• Planning for succession and knowledge retention
• Controlling staff costs
• Supporting business growth through staffing

Effective workforce planning thus creates a link between corporate strategy, human resources management and day-to-day staff deployment.

What types of workforce planning are there?

Staff planning comprises several interrelated sub-areas. These differ in terms of time horizon, objectives and the staffing issue under consideration.

Strategic workforce planning

Strategic workforce planning focuses on the long-term development of the workforce. It is guided by the company’s future objectives and changes.

Typical questions include:

• What skills will be needed in the coming years?
• Which jobs are changing as a result of digitalisation or automation?
• Which employees are expected to retire?
• Which areas should be expanded or scaled back?
• Where will skills shortages arise in the future?
• Which managers or specialists need a successor?

The planning horizon often spans several years.

Tactical workforce planning

Tactical workforce planning translates strategic objectives into concrete plans for the medium term. It often covers the coming months or financial years.

These include, for example:

• Building new teams
• Staffing requirements for planned projects
• Training and further education programmes
• Preparing for seasonal capacity requirements
• Transfers between sites
• Staffing budget planning

Operational staff planning

Operational staff planning manages the specific deployment of staff in day-to-day, weekly or monthly operations.

Among other things, it answers the following questions:

• Which staff members are working today or next week?
• Who is responsible for a particular task?
• Which shift has sufficient staff?
• Who stands in for an absent employee?
• What qualifications are required for a contract?
• Where is there spare capacity?

Operational workforce planning is closely linked to staff deployment planning, shift planning and project planning.

What areas does workforce planning cover?

Staff planning comprises several sub-areas which together provide an overview of the current staffing situation and future requirements.

Workforce planning

Workforce planning identifies which employees are currently available to the company and will be available in the future.

The following points, amongst others, will be considered:

• Number of employees
• Working time models
• Departments and locations
• Qualifications
• Age structure
• New hires and departures
• fixed-term contracts
• Planned retirements
• long-term absences

Workforce planning forms the basis for comparing current staffing levels with those required.

Staffing requirements planning

Staffing requirements planning determines how many employees with which qualifications will be needed in the future.

Staffing requirements can be influenced by:

• Order book
• Production volume
• Project scope
• Opening hours
• Seasonal trends
• Business growth
• Automation
• legal requirements
• new locations

Recruitment planning

Recruitment planning determines how identified staff shortages are to be filled.

Possible measures include:

• New appointments
• internal transfers
• Increase in existing workloads
• Use of temporary staff
• Training of junior staff
• Collaboration with external partners
• Outsourcing of individual tasks

Staff deployment planning

Staff resource planning assigns available staff to specific tasks, projects, shifts, clients or workstations.

It takes into account, amongst other things:

• Availability
• Qualifications
• Working hours
• Absences
• Locations
• Workload
• legal requirements
• Order priorities

Further information can be found on the solutions page for Staff deployment planning with Visual Planning.

Staff development planning

Staff development planning ensures that employees acquire the skills required both now and in the future.

These include:

• Further training
• Product training courses
• Leadership development
• Certifications
• Supporting young talent
• Mentoring
• Induction plans
• Succession planning

Staff redundancy planning

Staff redundancy planning deals with situations in which the current workforce exceeds future requirements.

Possible measures could include:

• Making the most of natural staff turnover
• Do not fill these vacancies
• Customise working time models
• Transfer staff internally
• Further training for other roles
• temporary reduction in capacity

Such measures must be carefully assessed from the perspectives of employment law, social considerations and economic factors.

Staff cost planning

Staff cost planning forecasts the financial implications of the current workforce and planned changes.

The following should be taken into account, for example:

• Wages and salaries
• Social benefits
• Overtime
• Allowances
• Training costs
• Recruitment costs
• temporary staff
• planned wage trends

How does staff planning work?

Structured workforce planning is usually carried out in several coordinated steps.

1. Define business objectives and the planning period

First, it is clarified for what period and for which organisational areas planning is to take place.

Possible planning levels are:

• the entire company
• Location
• Department
• Team
• Project
• Production area
• Shift

2. Analyse the workforce

The next step is to determine which staff members, capacities and qualifications are currently available.

The following points should be taken into account, for example:

• Number of employees
• Full-time and part-time roles
• Qualifications
• Locations
• Absences
• Contract terms
• Staff turnover
• planned departures

3. Determine future staffing requirements

Future demand is derived from planned orders, projects, production volumes, services or opening hours.

In doing so, both the quantitative and qualitative staffing requirements must be taken into account.

4. Compare target and actual stock levels

The expected staffing requirements are compared with the available workforce.

This may result in:

• Staffing shortfall
• Staffing surplus
• Skills gaps
• regional bottlenecks
• temporary capacity issues

5. Define measures

Appropriate measures are planned on the basis of the comparison.

These include, for example:

• Recruitment
• Translation
• Further training
• Adjustment of workloads
• Use of external staff
• Reallocation of tasks
• Changes to shift models

6. Schedule staff specifically

In operational workforce planning, staff are assigned to specific tasks, projects, shifts or work locations.

In doing so, availability, qualifications, working hours and current workload must be taken into account.

7. Monitor and update the plan

Staff planning is not a one-off process. Changes to orders, projects, staff or business objectives necessitate regular adjustments.

Planning should therefore be continuously compared with the actual staffing levels and real workload.

Quantitative and qualitative workforce planning

Staff planning takes into account both the number of staff required and their skills.

Quantitative workforce planning

Quantitative workforce planning answers the question of how many staff are required.

The following points, amongst others, should be taken into account:

• Workload
• Processing times
• Working hours per employee
• Holidays
• Illness
• Public holidays
• Further training
• Productivity factors

High-quality workforce planning

High-quality workforce planning answers the question of what skills, experience and authorisations are required.

These include, for example:

• Professional qualifications
• Product training courses
• Management experience
• Language skills
• IT skills
• Certificates
• Safety briefings
• Driving licence categories

A purely quantitative staff surplus can co-exist with a qualitative staff shortage. There may be enough staff in total, but not enough people with the required qualifications.

How are staffing requirements calculated?

Staffing requirements can be calculated using various methods, depending on the company and the role.

A common, simplified basic formula is:

Staffing requirements = total workload ÷ available productive working time per employee

For a realistic calculation, additional factors must be taken into account:

• Holidays
• Sick days
• Public holidays
• Further training
• Breaks
• Meetings
• administrative tasks
• unproductive downtime

Requirements

The staffing requirements describe how many employees are needed to carry out the actual work.

Resource requirement = total workload ÷ an employee’s productive working time

Reserve requirements

The reserve requirement takes into account both planned and unplanned absences.

These include, for example, holidays, sick leave, further training or other absences.

Gross staffing requirements

The gross staffing requirement is calculated as the deployment requirement plus the reserve requirement.

Gross staffing requirements = operational requirements + reserve requirements

Net staffing requirements

The net staffing requirement shows how many additional staff are needed or the extent of any potential overstaffing.

Net staffing requirements = gross staffing requirements − available workforce

A positive result indicates a need for additional staff. A negative result may indicate that there are too many staff.

A practical example of workforce planning

A technical services company is planning to expand its service business in the coming year. The number of monthly customer orders is set to rise from 800 to 1,050.

The current workforce comprises 20 service engineers. Two employees are due to retire later this year. At the same time, the new orders require additional expertise in a specific product area.

Staff planning shows:

• how many productive working hours will be required in future
• what capacity remains following the planned departures
• how many additional technicians are required
• which employees can receive further training
• whether regional bottlenecks arise
• whether temporary staff are required as a stopgap solution

The company has decided to recruit three new service engineers and to provide targeted training for four existing employees in the new product area.

This takes into account not only the number of staff required, but also the necessary skills mix.

The difference between workforce planning and staff deployment planning

Staff planning and workforce planning are closely linked, but serve different purposes.

Staff planning takes into account a company’s entire workforce and deals, amongst other things, with:

• future staffing requirements
• Workforce
• Recruitment
• Staff development
• Succession planning
• Staff costs

Staff deployment planning focuses on the specific operational deployment of existing staff.

It answers the question of which employee is assigned to which task, when, where and for what purpose.

Staff deployment planning is therefore a sub-area of the overarching workforce planning.

The difference between workforce planning and human resources management

Human resources management encompasses all tasks and decisions relating to a company’s employees.

These include, for example:

• Recruitment
• Human resources management
• Remuneration
• Management
• Staff development
• Employment law
• Staff retention
• Personnel Controlling

Staff planning is a key component of human resources management. It provides the quantitative, qualitative and temporal basis for many HR decisions.

Further information can be found on the solutions page for the Staff management with Visual Planning.

Staff planning and resource planning

Employees are one of the most important operational resources. The Resource planning takes into account not only staff but also machinery, vehicles, rooms, equipment and other operational resources.

Staff planning, on the other hand, focuses specifically on:

• Workforce
• Work capacity
• Qualifications
• Staff development
• Absences
• Staff costs

Example: Resource planning shows that a project requires one employee, one vehicle and one measuring device. Staff planning ensures that, in the long term, there are sufficient suitable employees with the necessary qualifications.

Staff planning and capacity planning

Capacity planning compares the expected workload with the available staff capacity.

The following factors may be taken into account:

• Number of employees
• contractual working hours
• Part-time roles
• Shift models
• Holidays and Absences
• Productivity
• Required qualifications

Staff planning uses this information to identify overcapacity and undercapacity at an early stage.

Example: A department requires 4,000 working hours in the coming quarter. However, after deducting holiday and training time, only 3,500 hours are available. Capacity planning shows a shortfall of 500 hours.

Staff planning and shift planning

Shift planning assigns staff to fixed or varying working hours.

The following must be taken into account:

• Early, late and night shifts
• Minimum staffing levels
• Breaks
• Rest periods
• Work at weekends and on public holidays
• Qualifications per shift
• Absences
• statutory and collective agreement requirements

Shift planning is particularly important in manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, security services and other organisations with continuous or extended operating hours.

Staff planning and holiday planning

Holiday planning must ensure that staff can take their holidays without jeopardising critical tasks or minimum staffing levels.

Co-ordinated holiday planning takes the following into account:

• Holiday entitlements
• already approved absences
• Representation options
• seasonal workload
• School holidays
• Minimum staffing levels
• Skills within the remaining team

Absences should be linked directly to deployment, project and capacity planning.

Staff planning and skills management

Competency management documents the knowledge, experience, certificates and authorisations held by employees.

Qualifications that can be scheduled may include:

• Vocational qualifications
• Product training courses
• Machine training
• Driving licence categories
• Language skills
• Safety briefings
• Project management skills
• Manufacturer’s certificates
• statutory documentation

Staff planning uses this data to identify skills gaps and plan further training in good time.

Staff planning and project planning

In project-oriented organisations, staff must be assigned to various projects, both in the long term and in the short term.

The Project planning displays tasks, deadlines and milestones. Staff planning ensures that suitable staff and teams are available for these tasks.

When combining these two sections, the following points may be taken into account:

• Project roles
• Qualifications
• planned workload
• Project duration
• Workload in other projects
• Holidays and Absences
• internal and external staff

This makes it clear whether projects are adequately staffed or whether individual specialists have been scheduled to work on too many projects at the same time.

Staff planning and workforce management

Workforce management refers to the comprehensive control and optimisation of staff deployment.

It often links several areas:

• Staffing requirements forecast
• Staff deployment planning
• Shift planning
• Time and attendance tracking
• Absence management
• Capacity planning
• Performance and Key Figure Analysis

Staff planning forms the basis of workforce management. It provides the necessary information on headcount, demand and qualifications.

Staff planning and document management

A large number of documents and records are generated in connection with staff.

These include, for example:

• Employment contracts
• Evidence of qualifications
• Certificates
• Training materials
• Reviews
• Operating instructions
• Exams
• Approvals
• Personal forms

With an integrated Document management Files can be linked directly to employees, teams, appointments or tasks.

Personal data must be protected by appropriate user rights and data protection measures.

Common mistakes in workforce planning

The planning takes only the number of employees into account

Qualifications, experience and authorisations are not taken into account.

Staffing requirements are carried over from the previous year

Changes to order volumes, processes, technologies or business objectives are not taken into account.

Part-time work and absences are being calculated incorrectly

The number of employees is taken into account, but not the actual available working time.

Staff planning and resource planning are separate

Long-term staffing decisions are not aligned with actual operational workload.

Skills gaps are identified too late

Any necessary training or certification is only planned once a specific order is imminent.

New hires and departures are not taken into account

Retirements, redundancies, parental leave and fixed-term contracts are not factored into long-term planning.

Overtime is treated as permanent capacity

A regular shortfall in staff numbers is offset by overtime, rather than by adjusting the actual staffing requirements.

Departments plan in isolation

Available capacity in other teams or locations is not taken into account.

Planning data is out of date

The HR department, team leaders and the planning department work with different staff rosters and absence information.

Privacy policy and access rights are missing

Sensitive personal information is visible to people who do not need this data to carry out their duties.

Key figures for workforce planning

Workforce

The headcount shows how many employees the company has at a given point in time.

Full-time equivalents

Full-time equivalents, often referred to as FTEs, convert different workloads into comparable full-time positions.

For example, two employees, each working 50 per cent of full-time hours, together amount to one full-time equivalent.

Staffing requirements

Staffing requirements indicate how many employees or full-time equivalents are needed to cope with the expected workload.

Staff utilisation

Staff utilisation compares the scheduled working hours with the available capacity.

Overtime rate

The overtime rate indicates the extent to which the regular workforce is required to work beyond their contractual working hours.

Absenteeism rate

The absence rate compares holiday, sick leave and other periods of absence with the total available working time.

Staff turnover rate

The staff turnover rate shows the proportion of employees who leave the company within a specific period.

Vacancy period

The vacancy period describes the time between a post being advertised and it being successfully filled.

Skills coverage

Skills coverage shows whether there are enough staff with the required skills and authorisations.

Further training rate

The training participation rate can indicate the proportion of staff taking part in planned development or training programmes.

Labour cost ratio

The labour cost ratio compares labour costs to turnover, total expenditure or another operational benchmark.

Productive working time

Productive working time shows what proportion of the available time is actually spent on value-adding tasks.

Software as a support tool

Software can support staff planning by providing centralised information on dates, availability, resources and responsibilities. Which solution is suitable depends on the specific process, the available data and the existing systems. One example is Staff deployment planning with Visual Planning®.

Conclusion

Structured workforce planning links staff numbers, staffing requirements, skills, working hours and business objectives. It provides a technical basis for identifying bottlenecks at an early stage and utilising available capacity in line with requirements.