Senior Workforce Planning Manager

About the role

Drive workforce agility across Program Management in the Americas by establishing proactive 12-week forecasts, maximizing productivity, and ensuring demand needs are managed. Provide early warnings and proactive insights to Americas Service leaders. Manage a team of Resource Planners.

Responsibilities

• Own the 12-week forecast for Program Management, highlighting supply and demand variance.
• Establish data-driven resource forecasts to enable proactive decision-making.
• Provide recruitment recommendations to Service Directors and inform Talent Acquisition partners.
• Maximize the agility of talent across accounts and Sectors, ensuring optimal use of named resource requests.
• Monitor and report on weekly billable and productive time vs. planned, driving improvements in performance and data quality.
• Escalate key risks and issues to leadership and Industry Workforce Planning Directors as relevant.
• Prepare and provide contingency staffing plans to support potential risks or outcomes.
• Maintain an accurate view of workforce planning data for Program Management, including WFP Tags, people mapping, and capacity reporting to ensure integrity of planning and deployment decisions.
• Maximize deployment opportunities to the Global Excellence Centre.
• Optimize resource mix (GEC, Local, Global, Contingent) across the business to achieve optimal financial and client outcomes.
• Support workforce integration and transformation projects within the Americas.
• Ensure talent agility is maintained through optimizing use of name-based demand requests in Program Management.
• Identify and communicate operational risk areas related to talent availability or deployment in Program Management.
• Understand and support Sector/Market needs and talent requirements.
• Provide feedback to key stakeholders on compliance with processes that drive data quality.
• Oversee and lead direct reports and provide leadership and capability building to the wider Resource Planning community.
• Act as the primary point of contact for the regional Service Director.
• Influence Program Management behavior and approach to pursuits and project setup to ensure sufficient resource-level detail.
• Provide insights to service leaders on talent availability, workforce capability, deployment trends, and future capacity considerations.
• Serve as a key point of contact for workforce supply and deployment requirements for Tier 1 and Tier 2 clients across the Americas.
• Provide design requirements on technology and process from an Americas context.
• Drive adoption of workforce planning processes to ensure accuracy and completeness of data in Program Management.
• Support and/or lead change management initiatives across Program Management to embed new workforce planning processes and ways of working.
• Implement and oversee work-sharing and project resourcing policies.
• Ensure the supply and demand matching process is optimized and working effectively.
• Own and coordinate workforce planning training requirements for team managers, ensuring consistent understanding and adoption of tools, systems, and processes.
• Ensure SLAs relating to demand requests within the Demand Marketplace are consistently achieved and maintained in Program Management.
• Establish approaches and processes to maximize non-billable time toward productive work supporting clients or pursuits.
• Drive productivity from non-billable time through proactive workforce management, deployment strategies, and operational planning initiatives.

Requirements

• Experience in workforce planning, resourcing, forecasting, or related analytical roles within the AEC or related professional services industry in the Americas.
• Strategic thinking and business acumen, with the ability to translate regional Service forecasts, utilization trends, and project demand into actionable workforce planning insights.
• Deep understanding of workforce analytics and forecasting, including forecast vs. actual billable hours, productivity metrics, and demand variance analysis.
• Strong collaboration and stakeholder management skills, with proven ability to work effectively with Regional Service Directors, Service Area Leaders, Major Project Directors, and Talent Acquisition partners.
• Knowledge of regional talent trends, labor markets, and basic employment law relevant to workforce planning and mobility decisions.
• Analytical and data-driven, with strong capability in interpreting workforce data, identifying risks, and driving proactive interventions.
• Detailed knowledge of processes and systems that drive workforce planning data, demand matching, and deployment decisions, or the ability to quickly build that knowledge in a comparable environment.
• Client-oriented mindset, with an understanding of Service offerings and differentiators from a client perspective and how these influence workforce needs.
• Experience leading or managing resource planners or similar workforce planning teams, including setting priorities, building capability, and improving forecast accuracy and productivity.
• Demonstrated ability to identify and escalate workforce risks, support contingent staffing decisions, and maintain accurate workforce tags and planning data.
• Strong communication skills, able to provide clear recommendations and insights to Service leaders and project stakeholders on talent availability and capability.
• Ability to make and guide workforce planning decisions, balancing competing priorities across projects, sectors, and workforce constraints.
• Strong understanding of commercial drivers such as utilization, billability, cost management, and their impact on workforce planning decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to lead the end-to-end workforce planning lifecycle, including demand forecasting, capacity planning, deployment, recruitment planning, and performance tracking.
• Leadership style that empowers employees, promotes accountability and continuous improvement, and supports a healthy, inclusive, and high-engagement culture aligned with Arcadis’ leadership profile.
• Degree-level education in a relevant technical or commercial discipline such as business, operations, human resources, analytics, engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Advanced degree preferred (e.g., MBA or a relevant Master’s in business, human resources, analytics, operations) or equivalent senior-level experience in complex regional organizations.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
• 401K retirement plan.
• Short-term disability (STD), long-term disability (LTD), accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D), and life insurance.
• Paid parental leave.
• Reward and recognition program.
• Optional benefits including wellbeing benefits, adoption assistance, and tuition reimbursement.
• Nine paid holidays per year.
• 15 days of paid time off (PTO) that accrue annually.

Pay

The salary range for this position is $115,200 – $138,240 per year. Actual salaries will vary and are based on several factors, such as experience, education, budget, internal equity, project, and location.