Connect workforce strategy to the decisions managers make every day
Most workforce problems do not arrive labelled as workforce planning problems. They arrive as a vacancy you need to fill, a development approvals backlog, new technology that changes how work is done, or a budget reduction that means delivering the same service with fewer resources.
Operational workforce planning gives managers and HR business partners a practical way to act earlier, consider alternatives and align workforce decisions with service priorities, capability and budget.
The toolkit includes nine linked worksheets, a dashboard, a practical guidebook and a worked example built specifically for local councils. Together they take a business unit from what is changing, through risks and options, to actions that improve service delivery, use resources more effectively and build workforce resilience.
See what is in itBuilt for council business units and designed to be run without a consultant in the room.
Please provide the details of the person who will hold the licence and I will send you the toolkit.
Thank you. Please check your inbox for your Operational Workforce Planning Guide and Workbook.
I hope the resources help you get started. I would be very grateful for your feedback once you have had a chance to explore them.
The workforce pressures councils are already managing
Vacancy lists, hard-to-fill roles and capability gaps are not isolated problems. Councils across Australia are managing persistent skills shortages while also responding to an ageing workforce, technological change and increasing service complexity.
Workforce challenges go beyond recruitment
Councils need to manage today's vacancies while also preparing for retirement risk, changing capability requirements and new technology. The workforce challenge is not simply how to fill roles, but how to maintain the capacity and capability needed to deliver services.
Different problems need different responses
A retention problem needs a different response from a capability gap or a scarce role. Workforce planning helps managers understand the underlying issue first, consider the available options and make a more informed decision before committing resources to a solution.
Workforce planning will not remove every workforce challenge. It gives you more time, better evidence and more options to respond before the problem becomes urgent.
A practical process for turning workforce questions into action
The toolkit guides managers and HR business partners through a structured conversation. It starts with what the business needs to deliver, works through the workforce implications, and finishes with clear actions, responsibilities and review points.
Each stage builds on the one before it. Information is entered once, then carried through the workbook so managers can see the relationship between business priorities, workforce capacity, capability, risk and the actions they choose to take.
The process stays connected to strategic workforce planning. Business units use the organisation's direction and priorities to inform their planning, while the risks, capability needs and workforce patterns they uncover provide evidence that can strengthen future strategic workforce decisions.
Built to make the workforce picture easier to interpret
The worked example shows how information moves through the toolkit. Managers enter the information they know, the workbook performs the calculations, and the visual outputs help them interpret what needs attention.
The dashboard brings the workforce position together in one place, including key figures, summary patterns and four charts that help managers quickly interpret where attention is needed.
Colour-coded criticality, exposure and priority indicators help distinguish work that needs immediate attention from issues that can be monitored or managed over time.
The skills inventory reveals where critical capability depends on too few people, where backup is limited, and where development is needed to strengthen workforce resilience.
A practical guidebook supports the process
The guidebook explains why each stage matters, what to consider, and how to work through the questions with managers. It provides the context behind the workbook rather than leaving users to interpret a set of templates on their own.
Together, the guidebook, worksheets and dashboard provide both the thinking process and the practical tools needed to turn workforce planning into action.
Workforce planning starts with three practical questions
Managers do not need to become workforce planning specialists. They need a structured way to think ahead, understand what their team will need, and make better decisions before workforce pressures become urgent.
What is changing?
What does the organisation need this team to deliver? What is changing in services, demand, technology, funding, community expectations or ways of working?
What does that mean for our workforce?
Do we have enough people, the right capabilities and enough depth in the roles that matter most? Where are the gaps, dependencies and risks?
What should we do about it?
Consider the available options, decide what needs to change, assign responsibility and turn the decision into an action plan that gets implemented.
Strategic and operational workforce planning work together
They answer different questions, but they should continuously inform each other. Strategy provides direction. Operational planning translates that direction into workforce decisions, then feeds real evidence back into the strategy.
Strategic workforce planning
Looks across the organisation and considers where it is heading, how work is changing, and the workforce priorities that need organisation-wide attention.
Operational workforce planning
Brings that thinking into individual business units and helps managers understand what those changes mean for their own work, people, capabilities and workforce decisions.
Organisation priorities, future direction and strategic workforce risks shape what business units need to consider in their own workforce planning.
What managers uncover about vacancies, capability, workforce supply, risk and changing demand gives the organisation better evidence for future strategic workforce decisions.
The strongest workforce planning happens when the organisation-wide view and the business-unit view are connected, repeated and informed by each other.
Built for how councils actually work
Workforce planning has to work alongside budget pressures, competing priorities, limited time and different levels of workforce planning capability. The toolkit is designed to make good workforce decisions easier without creating another complicated process to manage.
Financially realistic
Workforce decisions have a cost. The toolkit makes salary, on-costs, vacancies and external labour visible so managers can understand the financial implications of different workforce choices.
Honest about capability
Current capability and future capability are treated differently. Someone who still needs development does not make a capability gap disappear, but their potential can still be factored into the workforce response.
Flexible enough to adapt
Councils can use their own classifications, on-costs, thresholds, terminology and team structures. The method stays consistent while the detail reflects the organisation using it.
The thinking sits inside the process, not in one specialist's head. Managers and HR business partners learn how to ask better questions, interpret workforce information and make more deliberate workforce decisions each time they use it.
The goal is not to make workforce planning more complicated. It is to make better workforce thinking part of how everyday decisions are made.
Help me make it even better before it is released
The toolkit has been built from real workforce planning work with local councils. Before I offer it more broadly, I want a small group of councils to use it in practice and tell me candidly what works, what does not, and what would make it more useful.
What I am asking from you
Your foundation licence includes
Nine linked worksheets, the dashboard and practical guidebook for use across your organisation.
Including the next updated edition and improvements made from foundation user feedback.
Including updated pay bands, on-cost assumptions and other relevant settings in the next annual edition.
If something is unclear or you get stuck, you can contact me while you are working through it.
De-identified or partial information is fine. The completed workbook stays within your organisation. I do not need your workforce data or a copy of the completed file. The feedback conversation is what is useful to me.
Built from practical workforce planning experience
I am Kath Hume, founder of Workforce Transformations Australia. For more than twenty years I have developed workforce frameworks, tools, learning and capability approaches that help organisations make better workforce decisions themselves.
My work has included strategic and operational workforce planning with local councils, the NSW Health workforce planning framework, toolkit and maturity assessment, and capability initiatives responding to workforce shortages in the NSW Department of Education.
I also teach strategic workforce planning internationally with the Workforce Planning Institute, wrote Learn Solve Thrive, and host the Reimagined Workforce podcast.
My aim is not to hand organisations a workforce plan. It is to build the capability, tools and confidence to keep making better workforce decisions after I have gone.
You do not need to send me your workforce data
The workbook stays within your own systems. When testing the toolkit, you can use de-identified or partial information where appropriate.
I do not need the completed workbook. What I need is your experience of using it, what helped, what was unclear and what could be improved.
Please provide the details of the licence holder and I will send you the toolkit.
I just need a few details so I know who the licence is for and where to send the toolkit.
There is no obligation to continue if it turns out not to suit your organisation. What I value most is useful, candid feedback from people who have tried it in practice.
I would be grateful if you passed this on to whoever leads workforce planning, supports business units with workforce decisions, or is currently trying to solve a difficult workforce issue.
Please provide the details of the person who will hold the licence.
Thank you. Please check your inbox for your Operational Workforce Planning Guide and Workbook.
I hope the resources help you get started. I would be very grateful for your feedback once you have had a chance to explore them.