Strategic Workforce Planning, Senior Manager

About the role

The Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) Senior Manager leads the development and execution of workforce planning strategies across the enterprise, anchored in organizational goals and the future of work. This role partners with HRBPs, corporate strategy, and business leaders to define workforce needs, build SWP capability, and shape the organization's approach to AI-driven talent strategy.

Responsibilities

• Define and implement the enterprise-wide approach to Strategic Workforce Planning, anchored in organizational goals and objectives.

• Develop and maintain the SWP framework, methodology, and governance model to drive consistency and quality across business units.

• Translate business strategy into long-range workforce planning priorities, incorporating workforce of the future and AI-driven work transformation insights.

• Provide consultative support to HRBPs in defining Business-Unit WFP needs, translating business goals into actionable workforce strategies.

• Partner with senior leaders to signal talent choices and implications of strategic decisions, including workforce transformation, AI adoption, and organizational redesign.

• Act as a subject matter expert on SWP best practices, methodologies, and emerging trends.

• Build SWP capability across the People team, coaching HRBPs and Workforce Insight partners on workforce planning processes.

• Consolidate Business-Unit WFP outputs to create an integrated enterprise-wide workforce view for the Board, Executive Team, and key stakeholders.

• Manage the enterprise workforce planning calendar, ensuring timely and high-quality WFP cycles are executed across the organization.

• Develop clear executive narratives translating complex workforce data into actionable strategic insights for leadership.

• Track and report on key workforce planning metrics, trends, and KPIs to inform enterprise talent decisions.

• Evolve reporting frameworks to reflect shifting business priorities and workforce dynamics.

• Partner closely with Strategy and Finance to integrate workforce plans into annual and multi-year headcount budgeting cycles, ensuring alignment between people strategy and financial planning.

• Translate workforce demand signals into approved headcount budgets and org cost models.

• Develop and maintain workforce cost models that reflect span of control, role mix, location strategy, and workforce composition (FTE, contractor, contingent).

• Support business leaders and HRBPs in translating strategic priorities into headcount investment cases, with clear linkage to business outcomes and ROI.

• Provide ongoing headcount variance analysis — tracking actuals vs. plan — and surface insights to HR and Finance leadership to inform in-year decisions and future planning cycles.

• Serve as the primary business-facing interpreter of demand and supply model outputs, translating quantitative forecasts produced by the SWP Operations team into clear workforce strategies and leadership recommendations.

• Partner with the SWP Operations Senior Manager to define the business questions and planning scenarios that should be modelled, ensuring analytical priorities are driven by strategic need.

• Apply demand and supply insights to inform build/buy/borrow/automate decisions, working with HRBPs and business leaders to sequence and prioritize workforce actions.

• Communicate workforce gap analyses and scenario outcomes to senior stakeholders in a way that drives decision-making, not just awareness.

• Ensure modeling outputs are connected to tangible talent strategies — acquisition, development, redeployment, or restructuring — and tracked through to implementation.

• Own the design and delivery of an SWP capability building program for HRBPs, equipping them to lead Business-Unit workforce planning conversations with confidence and rigor.

• Develop practical tools, frameworks, and playbooks that enable HRBPs to conduct workforce analyses, identify talent gaps, and translate business strategy into workforce needs independently.

• Partner with HR Learning and OD teams to embed SWP skills into the broader HR capability agenda, ensuring workforce planning is treated as a core HR competency.

• Lead the change management strategy for SWP adoption across the enterprise; building awareness, engagement, and buy-in among HRBPs, business leaders, and People team stakeholders.

• Identify and develop a network of SWP champions across business units to drive local adoption of workforce planning practices and sustain momentum beyond central team capacity.

• Establish feedback loops with HRBPs and business leaders to continuously improve the relevance, usability, and impact of SWP tools and processes.

• Measure and report on SWP maturity and adoption across the enterprise, using insights to prioritize where additional capability investment or hands-on support is needed.

• Contribute to the development of the enterprise Workforce of the Future strategy, incorporating AI, automation, and emerging work models.

• Partner with Technology, Finance, and Operations leaders to align workforce strategy with AI adoption roadmaps and digital transformation initiatives.

• Monitor external workforce trends, labor market signals, and competitive intelligence to inform proactive workforce strategies (in partnership with Talent Intelligence team).

Qualifications

• 7+ years of progressive HR experience with a focus on Strategic Workforce Planning, HR strategy, or organizational effectiveness.

• Bachelor's degree in HR, Business, or a related field required; Master's degree an advantage.

• Experience contributing to workforce planning strategies in complex, matrixed organizations.

• Experience partnering with HR and business stakeholders to support talent strategy and workforce decisions.

• Strong understanding of AI's impact on workforce design, skills evolution, and future of work trends.

• Demonstrated experience in workforce demand and supply modeling at a working level; ability to interpret and apply model outputs to business decisions.

• Strong financial acumen; experience working with Finance or FP&A on headcount budgeting, cost modeling, and workforce investment cases.

• Experience designing and delivering capability building programs, learning interventions, or change management initiatives within an HR or people function.

• Familiarity with workforce planning tools, HR technology, and people analytics platforms.

• Ability to work collaboratively across HR, Finance, Technology, and Operations stakeholders.

Skills and Attributes

• Strong strategic thinking and ability to connect long-term business vision to workforce implications.

• Excellent communication and storytelling skills; Strong executive presence; ability to synthesize complex data into clear, compelling narratives for diverse audiences.

• Consultative and influencing skills; credible partner to senior business and HR leaders.

• Proven change management capability; able to drive adoption of new frameworks and ways of working across a complex, matrixed organization.

• Collaborative relationship builder with high emotional intelligence and ability to navigate ambiguity.

• Intellectual curiosity and passion for the future of work, AI, and workforce transformation.

• Comfortable working with quantitative outputs and translating analytical insights into strategic action, without necessarily building the models directly.

• Ability to work in a rapidly evolving environment.