In a working world that includes remote working, part-time work, and flexible working models, workforce planning is becoming a strategic tool for business success.
So, how can you create a structured workforce planning system that meets both the needs of the company and the expectations of its employees? The following tips will help you optimize your working time management and integrate the right tools for greater efficiency and flexibility.
What is workforce planning?
Workforce planning refers to the process of planning and tracking the working hours of all employees.
For employees, the attendance plan is an important tool for keeping track of working hours, working days, vacations, and absences. It creates transparency for the coming weeks and months.
For companies, the plan is a management tool for deploying the right person in the right place at the right time while ensuring productivity. It also ensures that the contractually agreed weekly and monthly working hours are adhered to.
Careful workforce planning is a key factor in employee satisfaction: it supports a balanced working environment and creates a better balance between operational requirements and employee needs.
What are the advantages of good workforce planning?
Simplify attendance and absence management
An attendance schedule centralizes all important information about the working hours and absences of the respective employees. This enables managers to react quickly, whether in the event of unplanned absences or increased workloads.
Automate planning
Planning takes into account legal requirements and collective bargaining agreements, reducing the risk of planning errors. This saves time and ensures that weekly and monthly schedules are legally compliant.
Promote independence among employees and managers
Employees can view their calendars in real time—including vacation balances, pending requests, and colleagues' availability. This increases transparency, personal responsibility, and teamwork.
Simplify payroll processing
When vacation requests and absences are recorded centrally, variable salary components can be processed more quickly and reliably. This speeds up payroll processing.
Increase efficiency in HR
HR teams no longer have to collect variable salary components manually. They can access up-to-date dashboards at any time, make informed decisions, and gain time for tasks with higher added value.
How do you create a workforce plan?
Workforce planning is relevant for all organizations—whether SMEs, large companies, or associations. The following five steps will help you create a plan that meets both operational requirements and employee expectations.
Record essential information about employees
Record working hours (full-time, part-time, shift models) as well as contract start and end dates.
Take into account operational requirements such as fixed working hours or team-related deployment requirements.
Record planned absences such as maternity and paternity leave or unpaid vacation.
Create a reference plan
Analyze staffing requirements depending on seasonal fluctuations, days of the week, or times of day.
Use data from previous years to plan in a structured manner.
Take legal and regulatory requirements into account
Take public holidays and industry-specific regulations into account.
Pay attention to contractually agreed working hours and legal requirements regarding breaks and maximum working hours.
Include employee requests
Take availability and vacation requests into account to promote motivation and commitment.
Try to take preferences into account as far as possible.
Provide a collaborative and flexible plan
Update the plan regularly and define fixed time slots for adjustments.
Use collaborative tools that allow employees to report restrictions or suggest adjustments.
These steps and the right tools will help you achieve smooth, reliable planning while boosting your teams' performance and satisfaction.
Which tools support workforce planning?
A simple Excel spreadsheet quickly becomes time-consuming and error-prone as a company or team grows. Specialized tools for working time and workforce planning are much better suited for more precise and efficient planning. They offer:
individual configuration
real-time updates
time savings and fewer errors
better collaboration between teams
Workforce planning is an important lever for greater team cohesion. With software for working time and planning, you not only increase operational efficiency, but also improve the employee experience of your staff.
Would you like to further develop working time organization together with your employees? Our memo shows what is important in practice.
