.jpg)
"SSR is the best platform to discover top 1% HR tools. Their 10 years of HR Tech experience makes their reviews the best in the industry! Every time I speak about HR technology, SSR is my number one recommendation to for people pros."
"SSR is my go-to place when it comes to researching HR tools. Their product reviews are real time-savers and trustworthy, and the online community is fantastic for bouncing questions and ideas off of others in the Talent space!"
"I trust SSR's HR Tech Reviews because they talk to so many experts, know the right questions to ask and uncover during in-depth product demos to come up with their best picks"
We spend all day researching the best HR software so you don’t have to. We never take money from vendors during our research phase and rely heavily on experts to refine our recommendations. We may earn a fee if you click on vendor links on this page. Learn more about SelectSoftware Reviews
In this Guide
- Top Workforce Planning Software
- Intro and Our Criteria
- Our Reviews of the Top Vendors
- Use Cases: Why Use Workforce Planning Software
- Pricing: What WFP Solutions Cost
- Key Considerations of Workforce Planning Software
- Demo Questions: What To Ask About Workforce Planning Tools
- Workforce Planning Software FAQs
- Last Advice on Buying Workforce Planning Software
Hand picked by our HR Technology experts after product testing, user research, and much debate - enjoy!
Workforce planning refers to the business process of forecasting, analyzing, and organizing workforce supply and demand. In other words, it’s about making sure the right people are at the right job and at the right time. Hence, workforce planning software is a tool that is designed to perform this process more effectively and in less time.
Although many HR professionals agree that the workforce is one of the most important assets of an organization, the Society for Human Resource Management has pointed out that this asset is often overlooked. Some organizations don’t measure, optimize, and plan out their workforce, limiting at times the executive capacity of the business itself.
So, if you’re looking to avoid such problems, we’re glad that you’ve landed on our listing of the top workforce planning software vendors. This carefully selected list contains some of the best options in the market, but it was also made with variety in mind. We’ve tried to include at least one tool with a lengthy free trial and solutions that adapt well to many sorts of business sizes and industries.
Our Criteria: Here's how we chose who made the cut
We take research seriously. To make sure we’re offering our readers the very best solutions in a given software category, we are methodical, rigorous, and expansive in our research. We consult with HR professionals, vendors, and industry experts. We cut through the noise to bring you a carefully curated list of vendors, along with other essential information, to help you find the right software platform for your business.
Here’s how we chose who makes the cut:
Product: We believe in gaining a comprehensive understanding of a product before we recommend it, so we start by getting to know the software. Whenever possible, we meet with a senior executive (CEO or Head of Product) for a demo and Q&A. We also test the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best-in-class offering.
User feedback: We go straight to the source and compile feedback on user experience. Real-world input supports our commitment to diligence in our software evaluation methods and the products we recommend. Keeping up with the everyday experience of HR pros also puts new vendors on our radar, and it keeps us close to our community so we can better connect the right products to the right people.
Financial metrics: We are certified finance nerds, so we use all the data we can get our hands on to make selections for our guides. We comb through data for concrete statistics like retention rates, growth, profitability, and scalability. We evaluate the bottom line of each product because we know making a software purchase can put your reputation on the line.
Best for a use case: Software is never a one-size-fits-all product. Sometimes the best solution is free or cheap. Other times it’s the one that is best for global companies or the one that’s sized right for early-stage startups. Keeping this in mind, we include solutions across the spectrum so our readers can find the best fit for their unique needs.
Here's more detail if you want to read more about how we research vendors. Our dedicated staff writers rely on hard data, impartial experts, and user feedback to ensure our reviews are helpful, truthful, and hopefully a pleasure to read!
Top Workforce Planning Software
We track thousands of HRTech solutions, these are the best Workforce Planning Software vendors for several business sizes and industries per our research and expert council as of 2023.
Why we love it
:
ChartHop is an organizational management software company that is rapidly evolving into one of the most interesting HR Tech vendors in the business.
- Charthop nicely integrates with your existing HR and ATS systems. Having everything under one roof means not having to use ten different applications.
- Charthop’s organization chart is its biggest asset. Their drag-and-drop feature to edit the chart is a hit amongst a majority of the users. Overall, the tool makes navigation throughout the company really easy - you can find the people you need, figure out their responsibilities, and track changes after the latest company re-organization.
- Charthop's goal tracking interface is simple, intuitive, and easy to build. There's not much else you can ask for.
- Charthop's Map feature allows businesses to see where each employee is located. For organizations that work remotely, this promotes a feeling of togetherness, which is crucial for employee engagement.
- Charthop's organization chart navigation isn't the best. The chart zooms in and out quite quickly, and the gestures aren't intuitive, making it difficult to use.
- Charthop can be a little complicated to figure out. Also, the fact that there are so many features is a little intimidating.
- Charthop's search function isn't user-friendly. There's not much information on how to use it effectively, and it sometimes throws the wrong results.
- Charthop's UI is somewhat dated and clunky.
ChartHop
Review:
Although ChartHop started out as an org chart software vendor, they see their offering as a new category called organizational management. It is for that reason that they've added people analytics and headcount planning tools to their platform. You can use this tool to understand the state of diversity hiring, for example, or how your organization has changed over time, as well as compensation across the org, etc.
One of the best parts is the ability to forecast headcount, and specifically to do this under various scenarios (if we raise another round, if we built an enterprise business, etc). ChartHop also boasts a compensation management solution which is excellent at distributing salary data and creating personalized scenario planning.
ChartHop
Customers:
Remy Cointreau, InVision, Sequoia, BetterCloud, and Postman
ChartHop
Pricing:
Charthop has 4 different pricing plans. When billed annually, here’s what they look like:
- Charthop Build: At $3.50 per employee per month, this plan has all the fundamental features — a live org chart, employee profiles, DE&I reports, and integrations with HRIS, Slack, and Carta.
- Charthop Grow: Priced at $7 per employee per month, the Grow plan offers additional features such as employee engagement surveys, reporting, and custom data. If you don’t currently use a dedicated employee experience software, you can try check out this plan.
- Charthop Scale: This plan is best suited for businesses that want to scale at speed. Equipped with features like a performance management system, ATS integration, and headcount planning, this plan is priced at $10 per employee per month.
- Charthop Enterprise: Large enterprises whose main priority is agility and efficiency can opt for this plan. This pricing is not disclosed upfront. For more information, you can contact Charthop's sales team.
For an additional $2 per employee per month, billed annually, you also get access to their compensation planning tool. If you want to run your comp cycle on the same platform as your HRIS and performance management software, then this feature is beneficial.
Best For
Companies of all sizes can benefit from ChartHop's offering. It's proved to be particularly effective with remote teams.
Why we love it
:
Anaplan is all about complex scenario planning. Their robust solution is used for many kinds of planning processes and forecasting.
Anaplan
Review:
Within HR, Anaplan is used to turn workforce planning into an extension of the company’s strategic, operational, and financial projects. HR organizations can connect with finances and business data, as well as third-party sources, in order to plan and visualize various workforce scenarios.
For instance, Anaplan can forecast attrition based upon past experiences, plan workforce movements, set and monitor headcount targets, and identify talent gaps. All this is done within an excel-like platform with rich analytics and statistical capabilities.
Anaplan
Customers:
- Del Monte
- Vodafone
- The Greenery
- RSA
- Tableau
- PayU
- Del Monte
- Vodafone
- The Greenery
- RSA
- Tableau
- PayU
Anaplan
Pricing:
Anaplan offers three plans, Basic, Professional, and Enterprise. These vary in their planning and modeling capabilities, but all of them are custom-priced depending on team size and needs.
Anaplan offers three plans, Basic, Professional, and Enterprise. These vary in their planning and modeling capabilities, but all of them are custom-priced depending on team size and needs.
Best For
Several business sizes and industries could make good use of Anaplan’s extensive platform.
Why we love it
:
Board helps manage and plan human resources efforts with a unified analytics software platform.
Board
Review:
Board has business intelligence products for HR, finance, sales performance, and supply chain management. Their HR tool helps manage resources for the department in a manner that stays unified with the plans and activities of the other business units.
Their platform focuses on leveraging workforce analytics to provide actionable insights. When it comes to workforce planning and performance management, these insights can be key in making sure that the proper decisions are taken at the right moment.
Board
Customers:
- Coca Cola
- KPMG
- Puma
- Mitsubishi Electric
- United States Navy
- Coca Cola
- KPMG
- Puma
- Mitsubishi Electric
- United States Navy
Board
Pricing:
Board does not provide pricing details upfront.
Board does not provide pricing details upfront.
Best For
Board is best-suited for enterprises that want to align their decision-making behind a single source of data.
Why we love it
:
Planful connect HR, finance, and operational data together. Businesses can then plan out the workforce that they’ll need to meet their goals.
Planful
Review:
Planful strives to help teams that may be spending too much time in manual processes, suffering from siloed approaches, and stuck to knee-jerk reactions to day-to-day problems. They ease these headaches by enhancing workforce planning with accurate and current data from the business, better aligning HR’s forecasts with what’s happening, and being planned, at other departments.
In this sense, Planful works for teams beyond HR as well. For example, as soon as a workforce budget is created, HR data is instantly loaded into the system, saving time for each manager, whether they’re in finance, HR, or marketing. Also, once a workforce forecast is done, it can easily be adjusted to match market ups and downs.
Planful
Customers:
- Five Guys
- Nerdwallet
- PalletOne
- Morphe
- Specialized
- Thule
- Five Guys
- Nerdwallet
- PalletOne
- Morphe
- Specialized
- Thule
Planful
Pricing:
Planful doesn’t provide pricing upfront.
Planful doesn't provide pricing upfront.
Best For
HR departments that want a tight partnership with the finance team when it comes to workforce planning.
Why we love it
:
Visier is a robust analytics solution that has a People Planning module. Their platform is built mainly for mid-market to enterprise clients and they offer professional services as well.
Visier People
Review:
The fact that they’ve chosen to name their workforce planning module ‘People Planning’ goes to show how in tune the folks at Visier are to modern human resources. Thinking of that, it makes sense that they keep coming up in many HR analytics conversations.
Many organizations use Visier to better understand themselves. Whether it’s retention, headcount forecasting, TA funnels, or how all these efforts stack up in relation to peer companies, Visier has very robust people analytics capabilities to offer.
Visier People
Customers:
Visier is used at organizations like Amgen, BBVA, Micron, EA, Nielsen, Bridgestone, Dignity Health, and more.
Amgen, BBVA, Micron, EA, Nielsen, Bridgestone, Dignity Health, and more.
Visier People
Pricing:
Pricing for Visier is not currently disclosed, so the best way forward is to get in touch or request a demo.
Pricing for Visier is undisclosed, so the best way forward is to get in touch or request a demo.
Best For
Mid-market to enterprise clients looking to get workforce planning done right, but also implement a myriad of HR analytics tools while they’re at it.
Why we love it
:
Quinyx is a workforce management software solution that takes a data-driven approach to staffing, budgeting and scheduling, all done with an eye towards improving your recruitment strategy.
Quinyx
Review:
Quinyx strives to provide the most up-to-date and significant insights when it comes to your recruitment needs. You can use their solution to calculate and visualize various what-if scenarios and the impact that they could have on your workforce.
Their platform is able to make hiring recommendations based on these forecasts. It can also help with proactive planning when it comes to training, outsourcing, or reallocating people. To do all this, Quinyx takes multiple sources of data and factors them into consideration. Some of these include resource constraints, costs, current attrition level, and efficiency rates.
Quinyx
Customers:
Quinyx’s offering is used in one way or another by companies like McDonald’s, Hilton, Starbucks, Domino’s, DHL, London City Airport, and Elysium Healthcare.
Quinyx's offering is used in one way or another by companies like McDonald's, Hilton, Starbucks, Domino's, DHL, London City Airport, and Elysium Healthcare.
Quinyx
Pricing:
Pricing details for Quinyx are not provided upfront.
Pricing details for Quinyx are not provided upfront.
Best For
Quinyx can work for companies of varying sizes, but it’s best used by businesses with storefronts that need to do workforce planning to address in-person client demand.
Why we love it
:
Workday is one of the most popular people management software products out there, with a workforce planning tool specifically geared towards enterprises.
WorkDay
Review:
Workday is one of the best human capital management suites, particularly for large enterprises. Although it is true that their reputation is not the best with users and the HR teams that have to implement the solution, if you’re in need of a product that can scale, checks the necessary IT/Infosec boxes, and can be implemented across large global companies, Workday’s workforce planning tool is worth looking into.
WorkDay
Customers:
- Quicken Loans
- AstraZeneca
- Target
- Dell
- Bank of America
- General Electric
- Patagonia
Target, Patagonia, Bank of America
WorkDay
Pricing:
The exact pricing details of Workday aren’t provided by the vendor, since they’ll likely tailor their offer to your business size and needs. They also don’t offer a free trial, but you can see the tool for yourself through their demo videos online.
Best For
Large enterprises looking for a comprehensive workforce planning solution, with an eye towards fulfilling more HR & business needs with the same platform.
Why we love it
:
As one of the big names in enterprise software, it’s no surprise that SAP SuccessFactors has an HR metrics and workforce planning tool made for medium to large businesses.
SAP SuccessFactors
Review:
SAP SuccessFactors is a cloud-based solution with a people analytics module that’s built for strategic workforce planning. Using augmented analytics and AI-driven insights, HR teams at large companies can make smarter and more informed decisions when it comes to talent acquisition, employee engagement, internal mobility, diversity, turnover, and more.
SAP SuccessFactors
Customers:
- American Airlines
- Vitra
- Premier Foods
- Ernst & Young
- Hero Group
- Terex
- Watco Companies
- American Airlines
- Ernst & Young
- Hero Group
- Terex
- Watco Companies
SAP SuccessFactors
Pricing:
The exact pricing for SAP SuccessFactors is only available upon request, but they do offer a 90-day free trial of their analytics cloud.
Pricing for SAP's HXM suite is only available upon request.
Best For
Enterprises looking to leverage AI in order to streamline their workforce planning.
Use Cases: Why Use Workforce Planning Software
Workforce planning software can help you optimize productivity — both for you and your employees. As such, you’ll be able to reduce costs and be more efficient as a company overall. Here’s how WFP systems can make HR jobs easier:
- Forecasting Labor Demands: Know how many employees — and what type of employees — you need on a given day based on expected demand so you avoid over- and under-staffed days and not get stuck paying unnecessary overtime. For example, if you have a call center and are approaching a busy sales season, you'll likely need to temporarily increase your workforce. But exactly how many more people will you need at your contact center? With workforce software, you can find out how many more you'll need to cover your expected increase in sales volume (without hiring too many and overpaying or hiring too few and losing sales).
- Scheduling Employees: Manage all your employees’ schedules in one place, so you never have to worry about over-scheduling, missed shifts, or unhappy employees (or managers).
- Time & Attendance: Attendance tracking and time management are hugely important tasks, but they also can take a lot of YOUR time to keep up with. Fortunately, scheduling software lets you easily track your employees’ hours and allows them to clock in and out. Depending on the workforce software you use, you can manage time and attendance directly through the platform itself by integrating with an existing timesheet tool you’re already using.
- Time Off Requests: Allow employees to request paid time off (PTO), parental leave, and more. Managers can approve or deny requests right in the program and see who will be out when creating schedules. That way, you never make the mistake of scheduling an employee when they won’t actually be working.
As you can see, convenience plays a big role in why you might use a workforce planning tool. Traditionally mundane and manual processes — from managers creating and assigning employee schedules to employees requesting time off — can be streamlined, managed, and stored all in one place.
Pricing: What WFP Solutions Cost
More often than not, workforce planning systems will charge on a per employee per month basis. Some might offer certain modules as independently-priced add-ons or charge a fixed annual fee. Hence, the best way forward is to see which vendor from this list works with companies similar to yours and get in touch with them for an actual quote.
Key Considerations of Workforce Planning Software
Is it well-known that the workforce is often an organization’s biggest strength but also its greatest cost. Because of that, it’s a challenge to move beyond any slow and manual processes that fail to integrate into the bigger strategy. When choosing a workforce planning tool, one should make the following considerations in order to truly reap its benefits.
- Continuous optimization: Workforce planning tools aren’t ‘set it and forget it’ like other HR solutions out there. Since a business's staffing requirements, like the business itself, are always shifting, the program needs to be updated accordingly. New forecasts need to be made considering the latest insights and developments in order for the actual workforce planning to be effective. The main thing to take away from this is that the system you choose should have reporting functionality that lets you know when it’s time for a new forecast.
- Syncing with finance & other departments: One of the main characteristics of effective workforce planning is that it takes into account the needs, plans, and objectives of other parts of the organization. Thus, HR becomes a strategic partner in fulfilling the business’s broader goals. Hence, it’s important that any WP tool provides visibility to business leaders in other parts of the organization, so everyone can leverage it, and the insights it creates, for their decision making.
- Mobile readiness: Lastly, the solution should not only be accessible to people beyond HR, it should also be convenient to use. Choosing a solution that’s mobile-friendly creates a better experience for everyone involved since they can study the data and consider new insights from multiple devices. If the solution also has HRIS capabilities such as scheduling and time tracking, then it’s all the better if employees can access these features while on-the-go as well.
Demo Questions: What To Ask About Workforce Planning Tools
You’ll likely have to book a demo in order to find out the exact pricing of most of these tools, and it’s also necessary to see them in action.
Now, one thing to keep in mind here is that even if seeing a demo was a bit of a necessity born from the lack of a free trial (when there isn’t one), you should drive the discussion as much as possible.
The main goal of each demo is to understand if this solution could be the best for your unique needs, and which features it has that make it so. You should also talk about what integrations are important to you, what kind of insights you’re after, and what kind of support you’ll get if something goes wrong.
Here are some other questions to help you get started, but we recommend you draft a list of the ones that are most important to you and your team. You can bring that to the demo, or even send it to the salesperson that’ll be conducting it in advance.
- Is this suited to a particular industry or type of worker?
- Do I need to use the rest of your HR software suite to use this?
- How will others in the organization use this solution?
- How have other organizations used this to optimize their WP efforts?
- What are the key features I want to ask about?
- What are the things that would make me nervous about buying this sort of solution?
- What kind of implementation plan would we be looking at?
Workforce Planning Software FAQs
What is workforce planning?
Workforce planning is the process of preparing your business for new hires, terminations, succession planning, growth, and acquisition.
What are the three stages of workforce planning?
The three stages of workforce planning are acquisition, development, and termination.
What is workforce planning software?
Workforce planning software are solutions that are designed to manage, analyze, and track administrative processes related to your employees. It encompasses the entire employee lifecycle, from hiring to termination.
What features do workforce planning software solutions provide?
Workforce planning software offers the following features: time tracking, scheduling, mobile app, analytics, reporting, payroll, benefits, performance management, AI, compliance, and communication.
What are the benefits of using workforce planning software?
Benefits of using workforce planning software include reduced compliance risk, improved retention, and automation of tedious tasks.
Last Advice on Buying Workforce Planning Software
Workforce planning software can be a key part of assessing gaps in your workforce and determining which interventions need to be made in order to have the right people in the right position at the best possible time. But of course, the tool is not everything. For workforce planning to truly become an aid to broader business goals, there needs to be a strong link between all departments.
We mention that because although picking out 2-3 tools from this list and booking demos is one of the obvious next steps, you should make an effort to involve every stakeholder in the conversation. WP software, if it is to fulfill its purpose, is not only for the HR department.
If you’re in need of a broader HR solution that helps with workforce planning, recruitment, and more, check out our roundups on the best HR software, the best HR tools for SMBs, or the best free HR software.
Top Workforce Planning Software
- ChartHop:For data-centric workforce planningOrg Chart and People Analytics software with the most integrations
Stay on top of what really matters in HR and People Tech. Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up on the latest news, trends, and culture.
We put in the effort to make this guide awesome
53
Hours Researched
.svg)
4
Experts Consulted
.svg)
16
Vendors Reviewed
Featured in
Looking for HR Tech Advice? Join our community
Ask questions, share knowledge, find new job opportunities, network and more in our closed HR Tech Buyers Community
Join 20,000 HR Tech Nerds who get our weekly insights
