How Technology Enables Better Workforce Planning

Strategic Workforce Planning: An Introduction

A 2025 study by McKinsey suggests that among S&P500 companies that maximize their return on talent using strategic workforce planning generate an astounding 300 percent more revenue per employee compared to the median [1]. Strategic workforce planning enables companies to proactively align their workforce with market trends and changing business climates rather than waiting to react, even up to five years in advance. This means that companies are able to assess the right number of people with the right set of skills for the right conditions, giving them a massive leverage over their peers and competitors should the time come to act fast.

The ability to predict market conditions also enables companies to map competency requirements. In the age where artificial intelligence constantly disrupts business and work models, companies need to know where to place their investments. For example, in the same article, McKinsey predicts that up to 30 percent of current work hours may potentially be automated by 2030 [1]. With these workforce insights, companies can design targeted upskilling and reskilling programs to prepare employees for future roles and technologies, both to make sure employees can still work and to optimize suddenly available workforce.

Fast-Changing Terrain

But how do companies predict the future? In a 2024 article, Investopedia explains that during the 1960s through 1990s, a new buzzword, “A New Economy”, was coined [2]. Though a buzzword, A New Economy is trying to describe an era where companies start to shift from manufacturing and commodity-based production, to one that uses technology to create products and services at a rate that traditional manufacturing economy could never match. This shift was generated through demand from customers to create products that are faster to deliver and higher quality.

This meant that companies at that time needed to quickly rethink how they ran their business. For example, manufacturing companies needed to update their production line by integrating current technologies to make productions faster. Car manufacturers started to integrate robots to automate basic tasks. Foods and beverages included automated machines to make packaging faster.

Unfortunately, this boom in technology was not balanced well. Investors and financial institutions bid up stock prices to unprecedented highs without considering and analysing the fundamentals. The technology bubble burst in the late 1990s.

This sudden boom and burst of the technology industry meant that companies had to pivot twice in the span of 20-30 years. In the business context and timeline, that was a massive change in a very short amount of time. Companies needed a way to predict these changes in order to plan ahead without damaging their bottom line.

The Future is Now

To effectively analyse the current and future business landscape, companies must build a robust workforce database as the foundation for data-driven decision-making. Without any data, there is nothing to analyse. To help with this, companies can start investing in cloud-based technology for safer storage and faster retrieval of the data, therefore enabling more reliable data analysis should the time demands. Digitalizing databases also means that companies do not have to worry about physical data spaces and maintaining them.

With a proper database, companies can start analysing important and relevant business data. For example, companies can use predictive analysis models using historical data to forecast business trends, attrition rate, retirement rate, and internal mobility. This analysis allows companies to see how their workforce is currently spread and how they are going to change in the future based on multiple scenarios.

The database also allows companies to analyse skills and competencies mapping. This analysis allows companies to see where each of their employees are specialized in. For example, an energy company might expect to see a large distribution of Mechanical Engineering skills among their employees, a technology company with a large distribution of Computer Science skills, etc. This workforce mapping helps organizations strategically allocate talent and plan for future changes in skills demand. Reskilling and upskilling planning can also stem from this. For example, the energy company decides to pivot to new and renewable energy. They might decide that upskilling employees with specialization in Mechanical Engineering to New & Renewable Energy Engineering is much easier than searching for new talents with that specific specialization.

Artificial intelligence tools, such as natural language processing (NLP), help businesses identify emerging skills and competencies in the job market before they become mainstream. NLP can help companies scan the job market for emerging requirements before they become mainstream and analyse if those requirements are relevant for the companies. This way, when they do become mainstream, companies already have a head start by recruiting workforce with relevant shapes. This could potentially save companies money as employees with already-mainstream skills are usually more expensive on the market.

Finally, technology allows data analysis to be presented in a never seen before manner. Executives can change how to present the data at will to extract insights. A Forbes report shows that high-performing organizations are three times more likely to use data visualizations before making an important decision, and that 20 percent of their revenues are due to them using data analysis and visualizations [3]. Current technology allows data analysis and visualizations with the click of a button without having to tinker with formulas. This saves companies a lot of precious decision-making time. 

A Necessity for Ever-Evolving Landscape

Strategic workforce planning is no longer a luxury, but a necessity in today’s volatile business environment and climate. By leveraging predictive models, competency mapping, and reskilling strategies, organizations can position themselves to respond proactively rather than reactively. The lessons of the past, from the rise and fall of the technology bubble to shifts in global economic structures, highlight that companies ignoring workforce foresight risk falling behind compared to their peers and competitors. As market conditions evolve faster than ever, the ability to align talent with strategy becomes the differentiating factor between companies that thrive and those that struggle to survive.

Moreover, the integration of technology, particularly artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics, enhances the power of workforce planning. Companies that invest in digital databases, predictive tools, and visualization platforms gain a sharper view into both current capabilities and future requirements. These tools not only optimize talent management but also provide executives with actionable insights that accelerate decision-making and improve outcomes. Companies that master strategic workforce planning will secure sustainable growth, build resilience, and maintain a competitive edge in the years and decades to come.

Key areas where HR adds value in enabling better workforce planning include:

By partnering with Fed Insight, organizations can strategically leverage technology to create adaptive, data-driven, and future-ready workforce planning — ensuring that talent remains aligned with business strategies and emerging growth opportunities.

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