Empowering HR: The Secrets to Successful Forecasting and Planning

HR Forecasting Basics

What’s HR Forecasting All About?

HR forecasting is all about predicting how many employees you’ll need in the future, based on things like business growth, sales, and how many folks are leaving. It’s super important because it helps make sure you’ve got the right people with the right skills when you need them. This way, you can plan ahead and avoid those "Oh no, we’re short-staffed!" moments (Business Mapping).

Here’s how it usually goes down:

• Check out your current workforce

• Predict how many people you’ll need

• Find and train new talent

• Review and tweak your predictions

These steps help keep your team in sync with what the business needs, making sure you’re ready for whatever comes next (Eddy).

Key Ideas in HR Forecasting

To nail HR forecasting, you need to get a grip on a few key ideas:

• Demand Forecasting: This is about guessing how many employees you’ll need in the future based on things like business growth and sales. Getting this right helps you plan ahead and avoid being short-staffed.

• Supply Forecasting: This is about looking at your current team and figuring out who’ll still be around in the future. It includes things like turnover, retirements, and promotions. This helps you see if you’ll have enough people or if you need to hire more.

• Gap Analysis: This is where you compare how many people you’ll need (demand) with how many you’ll have (supply) to see if there’s a gap. If there is, you’ll need to hire more people, train your current team, or find other ways to fill the gap.

These ideas are key to making HR forecasting work. By predicting your future staffing needs accurately, you can make sure you’ve got the right people with the right skills to hit your business goals.

For more on how to match your workforce with your business needs, check out our page on workforce planning in HR.

HR forecasting is a big part of human resource planning (HRP), which is all about making sure you’ve got the right people in the right jobs to avoid having too many or too few employees (Medium). By understanding and using these key ideas, HR pros can come up with smart strategies to manage their teams and help their companies succeed.

Want to see how HR forecasting fits into modern HR systems? Check out our guide on workday hr integration.

Smart Ways to Predict Workforce Needs

HR forecasting and planning are crucial to making sure your company has the right people with the right skills when you need them. Here are three practical methods to help HR pros streamline their workforce planning.

Ratio-Trend Analysis

Ratio-trend analysis looks at past data to spot patterns and predict future staffing needs. By understanding past trends, HR can make better decisions about what’s needed down the road.

• Steps:

1. Gather historical data on workforce size, growth, and attrition rates.

2. Calculate ratios like employees per unit of output or employees per sales volume.

3. Analyze trends and project future staffing needs based on these ratios.

Here’s an example.

This method is handy because it uses real historical data, making it easier to see trends and patterns. For more on how ratio-trend analysis can fit with workday headcount planning, check out our detailed guide.

Regression Analysis

Regression analysis is a statistical method that looks at the relationship between variables to predict future outcomes. This technique is great for HR forecasting because it considers multiple factors that might affect staffing needs.

• Steps:

  1. Identify dependent (e.g., staffing levels) and independent variables (e.g., sales, production levels).
  2. Use statistical software to perform the regression analysis.
  3. Interpret the results to predict future staffing needs.

Regression analysis offers a more advanced approach by considering various factors that influence staffing levels. It’s especially useful in complex environments where multiple variables come into play. Learn more about integrating regression analysis with HR workforce analytics.

Work-Study Techniques

Work-study techniques involve analyzing the tasks employees perform to find the most efficient way to complete them. This method helps HR understand the actual work being done and the time needed for each task.

• Steps:

  1. Observe and record the tasks employees perform.
  2. Analyze the data to find inefficiencies and areas for improvement.
  3. Use the findings to predict future staffing needs and optimize workflow.

Work-study techniques are great for spotting inefficiencies and making sure the workforce is used effectively. By understanding specific tasks and the time required, HR can better plan for future staffing needs. For more insights, check out our article on hr capacity planning.

By using these methods, HR pros can boost their forecasting skills, ensuring their organizations are ready for future workforce needs. For more strategies and tools, visit our section on hr headcount planning.

Tips for Successful HR Forecasting

Nailing HR forecasting can save you from those dreaded staffing shortages and make sure you're using your resources like a pro. Here’s how to get it right.

Listening to Your Team

Getting feedback from your team is a game-changer for HR forecasting. When you actually listen to what your employees have to say, you get the lowdown on their happiness, career dreams, and where things might be going off the rails. This intel helps you make smart moves about future staffing and keeping your best people around.

Here’s how to get that feedback:

• Surveys: Send out regular surveys to see how everyone’s feeling.

• Focus Groups: Get small groups together to talk about specific issues.

• One-on-One Chats: Sit down with folks individually to hear their personal stories and ideas.

By tuning into your team’s feedback, you can sync up your workforce planning with what your employees actually need and want. This makes everyone happier and more productive. For more on this, check out our guide on workforce planning in HR.

Checking Your Processes

Taking a hard look at how things are running is key for good HR forecasting. This means checking out your current workflows, spotting any hiccups, and figuring out where you might need more hands on deck or a shake-up. Here’s what to focus on:

• Org Chart: Keep your organizational chart up-to-date to spot any role gaps or overlaps.

• HR Metrics: Keep an eye on metrics like turnover rate, retention rate, and capacity to see where you might need more staff (Business Mapping).

• Process Efficiency: Look at how smooth your current processes are and find any bottlenecks that could be fixed with better staffing or training.

Regularly reviewing your processes ensures your HR forecasting is based on the latest and most accurate info. This leads to smarter decisions and better workforce planning. For more on streamlining your processes, check out our article on HR system integration.

By listening to your team and keeping your processes in check, you can create more accurate and effective HR forecasting strategies. These tips will help you align your workforce needs with your business goals, making your organization stronger. For more resources, explore our articles on workday headcount planning and HR workforce analytics.

Nailing HR Forecasting Strategies

Getting HR forecasting right is like having a crystal ball for your workforce. It’s all about making sure you’ve got the right people in the right places to hit those big company goals. This means putting together a solid staffing plan and keeping an eye on things regularly.

Crafting a Killer Staffing Plan

First things first, you need a staffing plan that’s on point. The goal here is to spot where you’re short on skills and figure out how to fill those gaps. You’ll need to look at what skills you’ve got in-house and what’s out there in the job market (Business Mapping).

Our recommendation is that you also need to monitor the effectiveness of execution against business goals. People are the lifeblood of any organization so it becomes increasingly important to hire the right people in the right jobs at the right time.

Headcount planning software like Kinnect will give you a thorough understanding of this information in real time. There are many moving parts in this equation so aligning your business leaders to the company OKRs and holding them accountable is key to success.

In addition, you should pay attention to the quality of hire. It’s one thing to move fast and fluid towards hiring goals, it’s another thing to hire quality people. Quality of Hire is becoming a primary metric to HR and Recruiting teams to understand how effective the recruiting process actually is once a candidate has joined the company.

A good staffing plan helps you use your team wisely, avoid those “oh no, we’re short-staffed” moments, and make hiring a breeze (Business Mapping).

What Makes a Great Staffing Plan:

1. Workforce Check-Up: See who you’ve got, what they can do, and what roles they fill.

2. Future Needs Guesswork: Figure out how many people you’ll need based on where the business is headed.

3. Market Skill Hunt: Check if the skills you need are out there in the job market.

4. Gap Spotting: Find out where your current team falls short.

5. Game Plan: Come up with ways to hire, train, and keep the right people.

Sample Staffing Plan Table:

Keeping It Fresh with Regular Reviews

HR forecasting isn’t a “set it and forget it” deal. You’ve got to keep checking in and tweaking things based on how the business and market are changing.

For example, forecasting used to be solely a Finance function. But in recent years, we’re seeing a trend of HR and Recruiting teams be involved in this process. In some cases, HR is a primary stakeholder and even has partial ownership over headcount planning and forecasting. With more “hands in the pot,” sometimes accountability is lost and the blame game begins.

We built our flagship headcount planning software Kinnect to solve this problem, amongst many others. And with AI in the picture now and multiple stakeholders at the table, we’re predicting a trend of predictive headcount planning and rich analytics at the fingertips of all levels of management.

That’s why regular reviews are so important. They help you:

• Stay on Trend: Use past data and industry standards to keep your forecasts current.

• Plan Smart: Make sure you’ve got the right people with the right skills when you need them.

• Make Better Calls: Good forecasts mean better decisions on hiring, training, and using resources.

Steps for Regular Reviews:

1. Data Gathering: Get the latest info on staff performance, market trends, and business goals.

2. Compare and Contrast: Look at current data vs. past forecasts to spot any differences.

3. Tweak Plans: Adjust your staffing plans based on new data and goals.

4. Share the News: Report your findings to key players to keep everyone in the loop.

Headcount planning software like Kinnect can help you improve your forecasting accuracy in HR thanks to real-tme and accurate data. Finance teams that are responsible for forecasting on an ongoing basis generally only pull data from Workday once per quarter.

That means that the data they are using is up to 3 months stale. This can lead to poor decisions in the business, thousands of dollars of sunk costs, and inefficiencies in headcount management and forecasting.

Kinnect brings your HR and People data, your Recruiting data, and your Planning data together in one place. It creates seamless integration between your technology stack so the data is consumed in real time. And it enables you to rollout Manager Self-Service to enable the business further.

For more on syncing HR forecasting with business operations, check out our piece on workday HR integration.

By putting together a solid staffing plan and keeping it updated using robust headcount planning software, HR pros can make sure their team is ready to rock and roll with the company’s goals. These steps are key to nailing HR forecasting and planning, managing talent smartly, and boosting overall business performance.