Workforce Planning – The Key to Successful Tech Hiring

Does your organisation need to confirm a timeline for a new feature launch or kick off a migration to a new cloud but doesn't have the people on seats to make it happen? 

Are you suffering from the stress of having to hire developers and cloud architects at the eleventh hour after a couple of untimely resignations?

Has your organisation made a round of redundancies after a bout of over-hiring, and you're now regretting that decision as workloads are increasing?

No organisation can predict the future, but it is certainly possible to plan for future hiring needs and contingencies that impact your workforce capacity. We'll explain the why and the how of workforce planning and why employers can't live without it. 

Why Bother with Workforce Planning?

In this topsy-turvy world, where your project requirements (and revenue) can turn on a dime, workforce planning will enable your organisation to ride out the bumps and uncertainties. Here's a breakdown of why organisations engage in workforce planning:

Reducing costs and risks: Let's not mince words, inefficient recruitment is expensive. Over-hiring or under-hiring leads to unnecessary expenses and unwanted notifications from the finance team. By planning strategically, you can ensure you're hiring the right number of people exactly when needed. 

Addressing skills gaps and demographic challenges: Specialised skills often require a long lead time for hiring. With sufficient planning, you can develop a talent pool to draw from when your most experienced developers move on. Regarding skills gaps, it may be necessary to play a very long game, as illustrated by Capgemini, which devoted more than 10 years to building its future talent pipelines by targeting school leavers and providing apprenticeships.  

Flexibility and agility: There will be times when your organisation might need to pivot quickly after an unexpected revenue gain or loss that affects operations or resourcing needs. Effective planning ensures all the business's critical areas are prepped to survive and continue to deliver. Google's HR teams, for example, use people analytics to forecast future operational demands, keeping its employee surplus and shortages to a minimum.  

Fulfilling organisational strategy: Whether outlining goals for the next quarter or the next three years, an organisation won't make any progress without a workforce that is calibrated to meet those goals. With the right skills mix and headcount numbers, you can ramp up productivity without sacrificing quality. No employer in their right mind would turn down such an advantage!

Nailing Down the Strategy

The term' workforce planning' is sometimes used interchangeably with 'headcount planning'. However, headcount planning focuses more on short-term hiring requirements (e.g. the next quarter), whilst workforce planning looks at the big picture over a longer timeframe. 

There are several models for strategic workforce planning laid out in HR literature, but there is no need to overcomplicate things. We've laid out a handy framework, popularised by the US public service, that is easily adaptable for a wide range of industries.

Identify organisational strategy, goals and headcount budget

You won't get far without a practical roadmap and budget, so it's vital to start here. This will consider the organisation's overarching vision and mission, plus any big projects on the horizon. Once these blue-sky strategic goals are identified, it's time to determine the headcount budget. Evaluate factors such as projected growth, budget constraints, the average rate of employee retention or attrition and any major changes to the business you can anticipate for at least the next 12 months. This process should involve the senior leadership team, HR, finance and other relevant decision-makers.

Analyse the current workforce to identify skill gaps

With your strategic goals in mind and a headcount budget established, the next step is a comprehensive analysis of the skill sets in your current workforce. Handy sources of skills data include employee performance reviews and the skills assessments you've asked recent hires to do. This type of analysis can produce highly valuable and actionable data for identifying short-term and long-term recruitment needs. 

Develop an action plan

At this stage, you will be ready to create an action plan that outlines how your organisation will close its skills gaps. This would involve recruitment planning and strategy that address key considerations: how much external hiring is necessary, how many people can be promoted internally, the balance of permanent roles and contractors, and strategies for attracting new talent. 

An action plan could also factor in training and development programs to upskill your existing employees, internal mobility initiatives (hiring from within), and succession planning to ensure continuity in critical roles and leadership positions.

Implement the action plan

Once the action plan is developed, it's go time. By now, you will be executing the various initiatives and strategies outlined in the action plan, such as tech recruitment campaigns, training programs and other succession planning activities.

Monitor, evaluate and revise

Establishing and tracking key metrics, as well as getting feedback from employees and reviews, are essential for measuring progress. Effective metrics depend on the organisation but could include factors like how long it takes to fill a role, the employee turnover rate, cost per hire and employee engagement. 

Remember that workforce planning, like recruitment planning, is not a one-off. Make space for regular reviews and to make adjustments. 

How Recruiters Help Your Workforce Planning

Employers can quickly get lost in the woods without the guiding hand of recruitment expertise. Engaging a tech recruitment specialist who knows your domains inside out, whether it's data, software development or product management, will enable you to craft and execute a workforce plan that is informed with market intelligence. 

This can include critical market mapping for key roles and quickly building a pool of pre-qualified talent.  We can help you scale up or down with contingent hiring and make successful job offers based on up-to-date salary benchmarks. 

The Keys to Workforce Planning Success

With sensible workforce planning, you can avoid a fair amount of stress and instead have your organisation well-equipped to withstand the unexpected and deliver all projects successfully with minimal disruptions or wastage. 

However, it requires strong leadership, clear communication, and efficient collaboration between stakeholders. By mobilising your resources effectively and keeping your eyes on the prize (i.e. your key organisational goals), you can ensure workforce planning efforts translate into tangible results.

Get Your Tech Recruitment Planning Sorted, Chat to Us!

At Digital Garage, helping employers execute successful workforce planning is what we do best. As New Zealand's go-to recruitment agency for dev, product, and data talent, we're here to help you build a flexible, high-performing IT team tailored to your needs. Drop us a message or give us a call to discover how we can support your success!