Workforce Planning: How Many People Do We Really Need?

A strategic workforce planning model can help organizations answer this intangible question and right size their workforce while continuing to meet their missions. Workforce planning models are analytical management tools that use some combination of quantifiable factors (e.g., workload, complexity of work, budget, and performance data) to predict staffing requirements. In other words, they use data and analytics to help inform the staffing demand. These tools can be very powerful as their utility lies in providing reasonable projections based on data-driven assumptions, allowing organizational leaders to use data and strategy to drive their decision-making processes about staffing levels.

It’s also critical to understand that a workforce planning model, no matter how good it is, cannot exist in isolation. These models are only one part of an organization’s overarching workforce planning methodology, which should be an iterative, ongoing, and repeatable process. To learn more about the overarching workforce planning process, check out our blog: A Quick Intro to Workforce Planning. In particular, workforce planning models help organizations with the Demand Analysis phase of this process by providing information to help leaders better understand their organization’s current and future workforce requirements, as well as the employee skillsets needed to perform the work. In addition to being effectively integrated into an organization’s overall workforce planning framework, workforce planning models should be:

• Aligned with the organization’s strategic goals;
• Championed by senior management, who must provide the necessary support to ensure that all offices with responsibility for managing the workforce are actively engaged in the development and sustainment process;
• Built in collaboration and coordination with key stakeholders who understand the work (and drivers of the workload) in detail;
• Updated frequently to ensure data and assumptions are current and reflect the organization’s changing priorities and evolving strategic direction; and,
• Representative of the entire workforce. This means employees and contractors, headquarters-based staff and those who geographically dispersed, full-time and part-time employees.

Comprehensive workforce planning continues to be a critical focus area across the local, state, and federal Government. In fact, every two years, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports on federal programs and operations that are “vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, or that are in need of transformation” (i.e., GAO’s High Risk List, which you can view here). In its February 2025 report, GAO again cited strategic human capital management as a high-risk area, indicating that “federal agencies and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) need to address skills gaps within the federal workforce by improving workforce planning, training, and recruitment and retention efforts.” Further, staffing and workforce planning were cited as gaps to other high-risk areas in GAO’s report in highly consequential missions like “ensuring the cybersecurity of the Nation” and “improving federal oversight of food safety.”

To do this effectively, agencies need to first understand their mission and performance goals in order to identify the functions necessary to achieve their organizational objectives. Then, they can determine the appropriate mix of skills and the number of personnel needed for efficient and effective performance. After an organization identifies the functions necessary to achieve its goals and determines the desired performance and personnel needed, they’re ready to assess how to meet staffing needs. To make these determinations, agencies need to determine if the work is inherently governmental (and thus must be performed by a federal employee) or whether the work can be performed by either a federal employee or a private sector contractor. These cost analyses for how to source work can be built into agencies’ workforce planning models, so leadership can run cost comparison scenarios to optimize sourcing decisions. In this way, workforce planning models can be a very effective tool to help federal agencies identify waste and achieve operational efficiencies.

Workforce planning models are extremely effective in helping leaders leverage data and analytics to inform key decisions. Specifically, these tools can be used to:

• Run cost comparisons to help inform strategic sourcing decisions;
• Justify staffing decisions to key external stakeholders;
• Inform budget development and funding allocations;
• Guide reorganization efforts.
• Develop succession planning strategies;
• Conduct risk assessment; and,

Workforce planning can be a powerful tool to strategically align your organization’s resources to meet the demands of a changing landscape.

Reference:

US Government Accountability Office. High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness. Publicly Released: February 25, 2025. Accessed from: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107743

Ashley Agerter Raitor originally joined FMP in 2007 as a graduate student intern, while she was obtaining her master’s degree in I/O psychology from George Mason University. Her areas of expertise include workforce planning, organizational assessment, and performance management. When she’s not working, you can find her cheering on her two kiddos on the soccer field!