Top Workforce Planning Software - 2023

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.