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2 Planning & EPM

Workforce Planning

People are your biggest cost and your biggest asset. We help you plan headcount, skills, and costs with the same rigour you apply to your P&L.

The headcount planning headaches

Headcount spreadsheet chaos

HR has one number, Finance has another, Ops has a third. Approved positions vs filled positions vs planned positions - nobody agrees on the count.

Costs are a mystery

What's the fully loaded cost of a new hire? Base, bonus, benefits, NI, pension, equipment, training... By the time you add it up, you've already made the decision.

Budget vs actuals drift

You budgeted for 50 hires. You made 38. Vacancies rolled over. Now the forecast is meaningless and variance analysis is a waste of time.

No scenario planning

"What if we freeze hiring for Q3?" Good question. Building that scenario manually will take a week. By then, the decision's been made anyway.

Skill gaps invisible

You know you're short on data engineers, but by how many? Which projects are at risk? Nobody's connecting capacity to demand systematically.

Compliance complexity

Gender pay gap reporting. Pension auto-enrolment. Holiday accruals. The regulations keep coming and your spreadsheets can't keep up.

Connect people to financial reality

Workforce planning isn't an HR project. It's a finance project with HR expertise. We build models that connect headcount decisions directly to P&L impact.

1

Map your current state

Where's headcount data? What's the source of truth for costs? How do approvals work? We document before we design.

2

Define the model

Cost drivers, planning horizons, approval workflows. We design a model that reflects how you actually make decisions, not how a vendor thinks you should.

3

Build cost calculations

Fully loaded costs including all statutory requirements. UK-specific: NI, pension, holiday accrual, apprenticeship levy. Get it right automatically.

4

Enable scenario planning

Hiring freezes, restructures, compensation changes - model them in minutes, not days. See P&L impact instantly.

5

Integrate to finance

Workforce costs flow automatically to your financial forecast. No more reconciliation spreadsheets between HR and Finance.

6

Train HR and Finance

Both teams need to own the model. We build capabilities across functions so workforce planning becomes a collaboration, not a fight.

How workforce planning projects work

Case Study

Global Automotive Services, 30,000 Employees

70%
Faster change implementation
Zero
Backlog of change requests
Multi-country
Workforce planning coverage

"Our Anaplan workforce model now evolves with the business. Change requests that used to sit in a queue for months are handled within days."

- Finance Director

Read full case study View all case studies

Frequently asked

Is this an HR system or a Finance system?
Neither and both. Workforce planning sits between HR and Finance. It pulls data from HR systems (like Workday or BambooHR) and feeds forecasts into financial planning. It's the bridge that connects people decisions to financial impact.
Do we need to replace our HRIS?
No. Workforce planning tools sit on top of your existing HRIS. We integrate with whatever you have - Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, BambooHR, or even spreadsheet exports. The HRIS remains your system of record for employee data.
How do you handle UK-specific costs?
We build models that handle NI thresholds, pension auto-enrolment, apprenticeship levy, holiday accrual - all the UK-specific requirements. When regulations change (and they always do), we update the calculations.
What platforms do you use for workforce planning?
It depends on your existing stack. Anaplan has powerful workforce capabilities for complex organisations. Planful's Structured Planning module is surprisingly comprehensive - it handles LTIP, bonus modelling, and position-level planning out of the box. Pigment is strong for collaborative, visual workforce planning. If you're already using one of these for FP&A, extending to workforce is natural.
Who should own the model - HR or Finance?
Joint ownership works best. HR owns headcount and organisation structure. Finance owns cost calculations and budget integration. The model itself typically sits with FP&A, with HR as key users and contributors.

Ready to plan your workforce properly?

Let's talk about how workforce planning can connect your people decisions to financial outcomes.