There are several established use cases for workforce planning and modeling capabilities. As one example, organizations frequently use workforce planning to forecast or budget headcount and related costs. This is typically a detailed model at the employee level that plans for the salary, contingent labor, bonus, equity, benefits, and related costs for technology and office space. This planning model generally needs to feed or integrate with the financial planning and budgeting processes.
At a more strategic level, companies are using workforce planning solutions for growth and transformation. Long-range or strategic workforce planning creates a model of the talent needs of an organization as it expands into new markets or geographies, considering the availability of specific skills, salary and wage levels, seasonality, and other factors. Other important use cases for workforce planning are mergers and acquisitions and reductions in force, where an organization needs to optimize staffing levels based on transitional strategies.