Ensuring that you have the right workforce for your future requirements is essential for business success. However, workforce planning involves coordinating information from different areas of the business as well as extensive forecasting and planning. Not surprisingly, it can feel overwhelming, especially if you are working with manual tools like spreadsheets and your data is stored in many different places.
Luckily, software solutions exist that provide you with a set of online tools to analyse your workforce’s current state and combine this information with your future needs. In this article, we will explain why strategic workforce planning is important, outline the tools available, and provide a step-by-step guide to choosing the right software.
What is Strategic Workforce Planning?
Workforce planning, also referred to as strategic workforce planning, is the process of analysing and planning the future of your workforce. The goal is to have the right person in the right position at the right time. Many organisations fail to set aside time for workforce planning and are forced to navigate unexpected changes without a backup plan in place.
4 Strategic Workforce Planning Criteria
When it comes to creating a workforce plan, employers should focus on these 4 main criteria:
The right size: This is based on the number of people and job roles. A workforce that is too large is overstaffed and works inefficiently while a workforce that is too small, means that the company isn’t producing what it potentially could produce. This can be indicated by an excess of vacancies.
The right shape: This is about having the proper workforce structure in terms of structure, purpose, the ratio of managers and team leads .
The right cost: This is ensuring that employees are fairly compensated for their work, competitively and within company budget. This is also about measuring and managing the HR cost and its impact, including recruiting, training, developing and maintaining the workforce
The right agility: This is about assuring your workforce is agile, flexible and can quickly adapt and react to the demands of the market.
Strategic Workforce Planning Tools Defined
Tools for strategic workforce planning include software, frameworks, and methods that analyse available data to ensure businesses have the right people in the right roles with the right skills to meet current and future objectives. Strategic workforce planning tools move workforce decisions away from short-term reactive hiring towards data-driven, evidence-based planning.
There are many different types of strategic workforce planning tools, including:
Workforce Analytics Dashboard
An interactive visual tool that displays key HR metrics, including headcount, demographics, staff turnover, employee engagement and performance, skills gaps, and productivity. These dashboards transform raw data from multiple systems into actionable intelligence, providing HR reports that enable HR managers and business leaders to spot issues, monitor trends, and use data to make strategic workforce decisions.
Skills Mapping and Skills Inventories
Understanding the existing skills, future skills needs, and any gaps caused by growth, market changes or technology is essential for strategic workforce planning. These tools can range from simple matrices and spreadsheets to more complex AI-driven software that automatically builds a clear, up-to-date framework for your business.
Succession Planning Tools
Succession planning tools identify critical roles and potential successors, including any development needs within the business and talent acquisition challenges in the external market. These tools range from simple spreadsheets and visual aids such as a 9-box grid, to comprehensive AI-driven platforms that include skills assessment, talent mapping and talent pool management.
Forecasting and Cost Projections
Forecasting future supply and demand, and understanding their impact on workforce capacity and costs, ensures organisations can actively plan to have the right skills and roles to meet future needs. As well as financial planning tools, forecasting can involve AI-driven software that analyses trends and predicts future needs.
Scenario Planning Tools
An essential part of strategic planning is to consider the different outcomes from “what if” scenarios, such as major technological change, unexpected market impacts, and rapid growth or retrenchment. Scenario planning uses conceptual frameworks such as SWOT and PESTLE, as well as specialised software for simulations and modelling.
Why UK&I Employers Need Strategic Workforce Planning Tools in 2026
Employers based in the UK and Ireland need strategic workforce planning tools because they deliver several benefits and support business success:
- Minimise overstaffing and skills shortages: by anticipating future needs, organisations can avoid reactive hiring, reliance on contractors or expensive redundancies.
- Enhances financial control: workforce costs are often among the highest in a business, so planning helps reduce inefficiencies, manage payroll budgets, and reduce agency costs.
- Increases retention rates: workforce planning identifies critical roles and ensures succession plans are in place, encouraging the development of internal talent and providing clear pathways that increase employee engagement.
- Improves decision-making: workforce planning tools provide data that helps leaders make informed decisions, understand the potential risks to their workforce and respond with confidence to market changes.
- Supports compliance and risk management: planning tools ensure the workforce meets legal and operational requirements, such as ensuring the appropriate number of staff on site for health and safety and holding the required certifications.
Top Strategic Workforce Planning Tools for UK&I Employers
If you are based in the UK and Ireland and looking for strategic workforce planning tools, a good place to start is to consider your business’s size and workforce planning requirements.
Enterprise
Major companies with over 1000 employees usually have complex workforce planning needs, often involving multiple divisions, international offices, and significant resource use. Strategic workforce planning tools for this size of business need to be robust, comprehensive, and capable of handling sophisticated requirements.
💡 Suggested tool: Workday Adaptive Planning provides enterprise-level security and compliance, scalability and flexibility and advanced modelling for scenario planning.
Mid-Market
A mid-market specialist typically has between 100 and 1000 employees and needs workforce planning tools that sit between simpler, manual methods and complex, expensive, large systems. Organisations of this size need software that can integrate systems and scale when required, delivering data and intelligence without overwhelming HR teams.
💡 Suggested tool: Personio Workforce Planning combines specialised, data-driven planning features with a centralised, comprehensive HR platform.
SME
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) usually have a smaller workforce with fewer than 250 employees. While the need for workforce planning is no less pronounced, a smaller workforce often means a smaller HR team, which can limit the amount of planning work. Key tools for SMEs focus on reducing administrative tasks through centralised databases, automated time-tracking and attendance software, and AI-enabled forecasting tools.
💡 Suggested tool: Factorial scores highly as a robust workforce planning tool because of its comprehensive, cloud-based platform that centralises and automates administrative tasks. It even offers a built-in AI agent, One, that makes reporting and gathering data lightning fast. Take a peek at One 👀
Get in touch with one of our experts today for a personalised demo to see all of Factorial’s potential.
Specialised Analytics
Using specialised analytics for your strategic workforce planning shifts your approach from reactive to predictive. These tools provide greater data accuracy, real-time insights into what is happening in your organisation, scenario modelling, advanced gap analysis, and a strong focus on compliance and risk mitigation.
💡 Suggested tool: Neobrain is an AI-powered talent and skills intelligence platform that can map, assess and manage the skills available within the workforce and identify what you need.
Factorial as the #1 Strategic Workforce Planning Tool
Factorial is the perfect strategic workforce planning tool that balances robust features while providing a modern interface. Additionally, Factorial’s platform provides all the essential tools to automate and streamline your essential processes. From features like goal tracking and performance reviews, these features make Factorial a top choice for SMEs looking for support with their strategic workforce planning.
Moreover, Factorial’s comprehensive business management system and AI-agent, One, can help your business focus on its strategic workforce planning in the following ways:
- Analyse trends in absence, leave and time tracking to understand capacity
- Provide performance data to identify skills, gaps and development needs
- Identify risks such as high turnover, burnout or issues with engagement
- Highlight internal talent and readiness for progression
- Support recruitment through an applicant tracking system
- Produce reports for long-term planning, budgeting and strategic discussions
Talk to one of our experts today to understand how Factorial can support your business.
Guide to Implementing Strategic Workforce Tools
If you are implementing strategic workforce planning tools in your business, follow our simple steps to ensure you are making the most of your investment:
- Be clear on your business goals: workforce planning tools work best alongside a clear vision for the organisation.
- Build a clear picture of your current workforce: the key skills, critical roles and turnover risk.
- Think about the future: what roles are in demand, which will change, and what skills are required.
- Start simple: if you already use an HRIS, see which tools are available to you. Working with something familiar is a good place to start.
- Create an action plan: once you know what you need to do, involve managers early and organise how you will achieve it.
- Measure your progress: use the tools available to keep track of what’s happening in your workforce and whether you are on course to deliver the strategic plan you have developed.
- Review and refine: get feedback from managers and sense-check whether your strategic planning is working by regularly reviewing the success (or lack of it) of your plans.
Final Thoughts on Strategic Workforce Planning Tools
Strategic workforce planning tools are designed to assist employers in preparing for the unexpected. These tools simplify how you manage your team and business – allowing you to focus on strategic growth and planning. To meet your company’s needs, it’s best to invest in a tool that offers more than workforce planning. A solution that centralises all your core processes into one unified software, like Factorial.
Factorial utilises AI-enabled tools to analyse your workforce data and support you in making well-informed decisions for strategic workforce planning. You can receive real-time information on headcount, skills gaps, performance appraisals, recruitment needs, and development plans to inform long-term strategic workforce planning. See the power of Factorial today!
