Strategy and Planning · Priority topic
Strategic Workforce Planning
By Redaktion techport.ai, HR-Beratung · Last updated on
By 2040, approximately 13.3 million working individuals in Germany will reach the statutory retirement age; this represents 30 percent of all people currently available to the labour market. Around 1.3 million older individuals retire annually, while approximately 800,000 younger individuals enter the workforce. Anyone who breaks these figures down for their own workforce usually observes two things: The age structure is more top-heavy than anticipated, and critical skills are disproportionately held by older employees.
Strategic workforce planning therefore does not answer the question of how many positions you will fill next year. It answers what skills the company will need in three to five years, which of those it possesses today, and how the gap will be closed: by recruiting, developing, redeploying, or automating.
How you will notice it
- Workforce planning is a budget process. It knows positions and costs, but not competencies.
- Vacancies last longer than six months, and nobody saw it coming.
- Departments report their requirements when a resignation is on the table.
- An age structure analysis exists, but it sits on the intranet and has no consequences.
Why this happens
Planning requires three things that are missing in most companies: a common vocabulary for skills, reliable data about the workforce, and a link to business planning. Without a vocabulary, each department plans using its own terms. Without data, estimates are made. Without a link to corporate strategy, HR plans based on the past, while the business has long moved in a different direction.
Our approach
- Define Framework. We work with you to define the planning horizon, competence areas, and roles that are truly business-critical. These are rarely more than ten percent of all positions.
- Compare Supply and Demand. Supply is derived from your HR data, age structure, and fluctuation patterns. Demand is derived from business planning, technology roadmap, and market assumptions. We calculate at least two scenarios.
- Evaluate Gaps and Choose Measures. For each gap, there are four paths: recruit, develop, redeploy internally, replace with technology. We evaluate the costs, duration, and risk of each path.
- Embed in Operations. Planning becomes part of the annual business cycle, receives fixed responsibilities in the departments, and is adjusted quarterly. For this, we set up the data flows from your HR system so that updates are not manual.
What you gain
- Recruiting begins before the gap arises, not just when someone leaves.
- Training budgets flow into skills the business needs, instead of last year's catalogue.
- Management receives a reliable answer to the question of whether the strategy is even implementable in terms of personnel.
From our projects
In planning projects, we almost always experience the same moment: The age structure analysis for each critical role is presented for the first time, and management is silent. The figures were in the system, but nobody had prepared them in this way. The second experience: The first planning round does not fail due to methodology, but because departments cannot describe their needs in terms of skills. Therefore, we start with a small, common vocabulary and not with a tool.
Good to know
The Statistische Bundesamt (Federal Statistical Office) publishes demographic figures annually based on the microcensus. The Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (German Economic Institute) estimates a shortfall of 4.3 million workers by 2036 in its population forecast from June 2026. For internal planning, the regional situation is more important than the national average. Therefore, we work with your location data and the commuting patterns from the employment agency.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need our own planning tool for this?
Not initially. The first planning round works with clean exports from the HR system and a structured model. A tool becomes worthwhile when multiple departments are planning in parallel and scenarios need regular updating.
How long does the initial planning round take?
With clean data, eight to twelve weeks. Most of the time is spent coordinating with the business units, not on calculations.
Let's talk about Strategic Workforce Planning
In a thirty-minute first call we clarify where your biggest lever is and whether we are the right partner for it.
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