Workforce planning template: Free download and how to build a future-ready workforce

Most workforce plans start with the same fundamental question: How many people do we need to hire? But headcount is rarely the whole problem. A team may need more capacity, a skill it doesn't have, or clearer roles. Hiring can help, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of workforce solutions.

While 73% of organizations conduct operational workforce planning, only 12% of HR leaders plan strategically with a view of at least three years (McKinsey).* That leaves many HR teams reacting to capability gaps that have already impeded business.

Leapsome’s free workforce planning template helps you understand where your workforce stands and what it needs next. It also prompts a more useful conversation: Should you hire, develop someone internally, or rethink how the work gets done? This helps HR prepare before another urgent hiring request lands.

* McKinsey, 2025

What’s a strategic workforce planning template and why does it matter?

“HR often gets forgotten when it comes to strategic objectives, yet we’re just as critical to the business outcomes as any other function. The first step is defining exactly what we want to achieve with our people strategy, then everything else should ladder up to those measurable goals.” 

— Monica Sarkar, Co-Founder, Purple Umbrella

Workforce planning is the process of determining what the business wants to achieve and what it needs to get there. A strategic workforce planning template makes that process smoother. It helps HR compare current capacity with future demand and turn the findings into informed talent decisions.

A good template helps HR:

• Forecast future workforce needs: Translate business objectives into clearer expectations for future roles and workforce capacity.
  
• Spot skill gaps before they disrupt the business: Identify where teams lack the necessary skills or capacity while there’s still time to respond.
  
• Connect talent decisions to business strategy: Give leaders a stronger basis for deciding whether to hire externally or develop existing employees.

Remember that business priorities change throughout the year, and capability needs move with them. HR should update the plan whenever new information comes up. Otherwise, leaders may keep making decisions for a version of the business that no longer exists.

Free workforce planning template and what it’s used for

Workforce planning often begins with conflicting interests. Finance sets the budget limits, department leaders submit hiring requests, and HR tries to reconcile both with potentially outdated workforce data. 

A good template connects each request to a business need and gives HR a clearer basis for deciding what to do next.

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📋 Bring structure to your next workforce planning conversation

Use our free template to organize input from across the business and turn it into a practical workforce plan

👉 Download the workforce planning template now

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What should a workforce planning template include?

“Know your outcome goal, measure progress, and keep a dashboard — it keeps People teams focused on strategy, not just daily noise.” 

— Luck Dookchitra, VP People & Culture, Leapsome

A useful staff planning template should include:

• The reason behind each workforce request: Record the outcome a team must deliver and a deadline. Then document the workload or capability the business requires. This prevents unsupported and expensive hiring requests.
  

• The gap and the best way to close it: Specify whether the team lacks capacity or a particular skill. Then assess whether to develop internal talent or recruit externally. You may also find that moving an employee or redesigning a role solves the problem.
  
• An accurate view of the workforce today: Include employee numbers and role information for each team. Add reporting structures and known workforce changes where relevant. Assign a source and verification date to the data, so planners can distinguish dependable information from outdated assumptions. Centralized employee records make this section easier to maintain as the organization grows.

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🗂️ Give your workforce plan a dependable starting point

Leapsome Employee Records keeps workforce information and organizational structures in one place, helping HR plan from consistent data rather than reconciling separate spreadsheets.

👉 Explore Employee Records

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Your workforce plan shouldn't start with hiring

“Being in HR doesn’t mean you’re not part of the business. The shift is realizing that every tactic — hiring, L&D, benefits — must align to business strategy and outcomes.” 

— Luck Dookchitra, VP People & Culture, Leapsome

A workforce gap doesn’t automatically justify a new role. It tells you the business lacks something. That could be additional capacity, but it could also be a missing skill.

Treating every gap as a recruitment problem locks the organization into an expensive cycle. Each new capability triggers another requisition, while managers overlook current employees with potential to grow. That approach becomes even harder to sustain as roles develop. The World Economic Forum reports that employers expect 39% of workers’ core skills to evolve by 2030. Few organizations can afford to hire their way through that much change.

“The purpose of an HR function is to create a people strategy that most effectively drives business goals. It starts with the business, then you build your people strategy from there.”  — Melanie Naranjo, Chief People Officer, Ethena

A headcount planning template may tell you how many roles to add. A broader workforce plan asks whether adding a role is the right response. Before opening one, consider four possibilities:

• Build: Develop an employee who already has relevant experience or adjacent skills. This works best when the capability is important, and the organization has enough time to support meaningful development.
  
• Buy: Recruit externally when the capability doesn’t exist internally and the business needs it for the long term. Leaders should be clear about what value external talent can add before accepting the cost and time involved.
  
• Borrow: Bring in a contractor or temporary specialist when the need is urgent but may not last. A short-term arrangement can also help the organization test whether it needs a permanent role.
  
• Redesign: Change the role or redistribute the work when the gap comes from poor job design. Adding another person to a broken workflow usually adds cost without removing the bottleneck.

This framework gives HR a more useful way to challenge a hiring request. For example, “We need another manager” may point to a lack of management capacity, but it may also reveal that current managers need better development. A team asking for a data specialist might already have an analyst who could learn the required tool.

Each workforce planning example comes with trade-offs. Building internal capability takes time, and employees need proper support as their responsibilities grow. Borrowing talent offers flexibility, but using contractors for core work leaves the organization without lasting expertise. 

That’s the value of the framework. It makes leaders examine the capability gap before headcount becomes the universal answer. For HR to guide that decision well, a workforce plan needs to track employee skills as closely as open roles. With a clear view of existing strengths and development potential in a centralized HRIS like Leapsome, HR can recommend how to close the gap instead of approving or rejecting another hire.

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🧩 See the capability before you fund the vacancy

Leapsome Competencies helps HR map existing skills and uncover development opportunities, so workforce decisions start with the talent already inside the organization.

👉 Explore Competency Framework

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Build a smarter workforce planning process with Leapsome

Most HR teams don’t lack workforce data. The problem starts when answering one basic question (“Do we really need to hire?”) requires days of digging through that data. HR checks employee records in one platform, searches for skills data in another system, and asks managers who might be ready to step up. By the time the full picture comes together, the hiring request already feels urgent. At that point, workforce planning becomes less about choosing the best response and more about filling the role quickly.

Leapsome brings this information into one connected platform, so HR can reassess workforce needs as priorities shift instead of starting another round of data collection. This keeps workforce planning focused on choosing the right response rather than filling seats. With Leapsome, teams can:

• Start with a current view of the workforce: Employee Records keeps roles and reporting lines up to date, giving HR a reliable basis for assessing where capacity sits.
  
• Look for skills before opening a role: Competencies reveal which capabilities already exist internally and where focused development could close the gap.
  
• Identify employees who may be ready to step up: Performance insights and development goals help HR assess whether an internal move could meet the business need.

“Before working with Leapsome, we ran an OKR pilot and tested the method in about 40 teams, recording everything in Excel. As we decided to scale OKRs for the whole organization, our teams’ experiences in this pilot program showed that Excel is not the right tool for us. We were also looking for a tool that would allow us to display OKRs next to other key goals — like individual development goals.”  — Marie-Claire Haag-Fundinger, Organizational Change Expert, Generali Switzerland

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🏗️ Build the workforce your strategy needs

Leapsome connects your workforce data with employee capability, so hiring becomes an informed option rather than the automatic response.

👉 Request a demo

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FAQ

How does a workforce planning template help forecast staffing needs?

A workforce planning template compares your current workforce with the people and skills the business needs to meet future goals. This helps HR spot likely shortages early and determine whether each gap requires a new hire or internal development. As business needs change, HR can update the assumptions behind the forecast and adjust the staffing plan before teams become stretched thin.