Workforce Planning Lead

The West Midlands Combined Authority is working to become the best place to work and belong, creating an environment where people feel valued, supported and able to contribute their best. To deliver our ambitions for the region, we need to understand the workforce we have today, the capability we will need tomorrow, and how we make proactive, evidence-led decisions about people, skills, affordability and organisational design.

As Workforce Planning Lead, you will help WMCA build that capability. This role will lead the development and embedding of strategic workforce planning across the organisation, using workforce intelligence, analytics and scenario planning to help senior leaders anticipate future capacity, capability and affordability needs. Your work will help connect people insight with organisational strategy, transformation and financial planning, making sure workforce decisions are joined up, sustainable and focused on delivering meaningful results for the West Midlands.

• Lead the development and embedding of strategic workforce planning across WMCA, acting as the organisation’s senior specialist and establishing workforce planning as a core leadership discipline.
• Develop organisation-wide workforce planning frameworks covering forecasting, scenario planning, skills and capability analysis, succession planning, workforce risk assessment and establishment planning.
• Translate organisational strategy, service demand and workforce intelligence into a three-to-five-year workforce strategy, providing evidence-based recommendations on future workforce requirements, sustainability, capability and risk.
• Lead strategic workforce insight, modelling and analytics, using workforce data to identify organisational risks, future capability and resource gaps, financial opportunities and workforce sustainability issues, supported by effective dashboards, reporting and benchmarking.
• Provide strategic advice, challenge and workforce planning expertise to senior leaders, governance forums, directorate planning cycles, organisational design activity and transformation programmes, influencing organisational decisions through evidence-based workforce insight.
• Build strong relationships and work collaboratively across People & Culture, Talent Acquisition, Reward, OD, Inclusion, Finance, PMO and other specialist teams, including providing workforce affordability and investment insight in partnership with Finance.
• Develop the governance, capability and culture required for proactive, data-led workforce decision-making, building external networks and promoting continuous improvement, innovation, knowledge sharing and best practice across workforce planning and People & Culture.

• Significant experience in a strategic workforce planning, OD or organisational planning role within a complex organisation.
• Advanced capability in workforce modelling, forecasting and scenario planning.
• Experience leading strategic workforce analytics, workforce insight or organisational planning activity.
• Strong understanding of workforce planning strategy and approaches.
• Ability to use people data and insight to inform decisions and drive improvement.
• Experience influencing senior leaders and shaping people responses to business challenges through an evidence-based approach.
• Evidence of supporting workforce planning in organisational change.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional input from HR and wider specialist teams, such as People Partnering, Reward, OD, Inclusion and Transformation.
• CIPD Level 5 qualification or equivalent

For a full list of duties and essential criteria, please refer to the job description attached.

The location for this role is 16 Summer Lane, Birmingham, B19 3SD
with…