Total Talent Workforce Planning Strategies

Authored by Karen Weisz, Kevin Moss, Rebecca Greenberg, and Willow Pedersen

The big question

“We don’t know.”

Again and again, we hear these three little words as the answer to some big questions—questions that can range from how many computers an organization orders to how security protocols are managed to how many software licenses are purchased. And while those questions seem to be about traditional hardware and software capital "things," they all directly connect to human capital, the "headcount." So the follow-up question, while seemingly straightforward, can actually be quite difficult: How many total workers—full-time employees (FTEs), part-time employees, plus all your "indirect" or extended workers such as freelance workers and contractors—does your organization have?

Every time we ask organizations that question—no matter the company's size or industry, we almost always get the same answer: “We don’t know.”

And it’s not necessarily the organization’s fault. It’s not an easy question. Many organizations’ processes for bringing in and tracking their extended workforce processes grew out of immediate need, not a planned process. Many organizations didn’t pay close attention to how many extended workers were moving through the organization because they didn’t have to (or couldn’t); the immediate need was being met. Even if they’d tried, technology systems were not set up to capture the total workforce. Moreover, many organizations use a planning process for official full-time and part-time employees that’s more art than science, let alone that accounts for their extended workforce. This "system" has worked for many years... but it doesn’t meet organizations’ needs anymore.

Total talent workplace planning and its four benefits

Today we’re increasingly seeing a marked interest and focus on total talent workforce planning, and we’re excited:

• Eighty percent of surveyed organizations reported they are investing in workforce planning.¹
• Sixty-five percent of surveyed organizations reported they will rely on extended workers more in the next two years.²
• Eighty percent of surveyed organizations reported they need to do more to manage their workforce holistically.³

To level set, when we say “total talent workforce planning,” we’re referring to planning for all types of workers holistically. This includes FTEs, gig workers, professional services, contractors, interns, managed services, part-time workers, and more.

By including nonemployee extended workers in workforce planning, organizations can gain several benefits in terms of cost savings, risk management, and talent experience. And there are key factors for organizations to consider when implementing total talent workforce planning.

The potential benefits of taking a total talent perspective are fairly straightforward:

1. A true sense of your workforce needs: Total talent workforce planning forces decisions about what type of work an organization wants its FTEs to do (build or buy) and what work an organization does not want its FTEs to do (borrow or bot). This is inherently a strategy or philosophy question but is underpinned by issues of talent access, cost pressures, geographic and skill restraints and overall risk tolerance level. A recent Deloitte survey found that 89% of organizations that manage their workforce holistically are able to distribute work effectively among FTEs and other worker types, compared to only 15% of organizations that do not manage their workforce holistically.⁴
2. Leverage when working with managed service providers (MSPs) and suppliers: Having a sense of future need (both in the short and long terms) can give an organization leverage to negotiate with MSPs / suppliers to meet that forecast need. Being able to plan for what type(s) of workers and what skills will be needed also means that MSPs / suppliers will be able to proactively plan to supply those skills and workers. This can result in higher quality candidates who are more in line with the skills needed.
3. A proactive and pragmatic plan for workforce shifts: Total talent workforce planning can help organizations avoid taking higher risk actions (for example, hiring sprees or heavy investments in AI bots) and gives vendor management or procurement teams leverage when negotiating with suppliers. It means exploring new talent models in an age of unpredictable (or less predictable) talent markets. It also means embedding flexibility and agility into your human capital plan.
4. A proactive mindset for strategically leveraging extended workers: With total talent workforce planning, leaders are asked to think ahead about what type, quantity and duration of workers or technology are needed. This can lead to more strategic enterprise-level decisions. There is a reason why we at Deloitte use the phrase “extended worker” instead of the more common terminology of “contingent worker.” We believe extended workers are not a contingency plan or your Plan B, but rather should be part of your Plan A.

Here’s an example of total talent workforce planning: Applause, a software testing services company, harnesses a community of over 1 million testers through its uTest subsidiary. But the testers are not its employees and are not paid by Applause. The subsidiary uTest offers its testers rewards rather than traditional compensation. Applause strategically considered how it could develop the large workforce needed for testing services and took a nontraditional approach with nonemployee workers at the core of its business model.⁵

However, we recognize that this is not an easy task, and only 14% of surveyed organizations are fully implementing total talent management.⁶

Creating and planning for a holistic, future-focused workforce requires shifting the organizational mindset around both what it means to do workforce planning (not everyone’s favorite activity to start with), what it means to create and sustain teams with mixed staffing models, and what it means to engage extended workers (and when and for what outcomes) both on short-term and long-term stints. It also means fundamentally understanding, and setting guidelines around, your organization’s skills access strategy—when should the organization hire or train in-house staff and when should it contract with vendors?

Six strategies for total talent workforce planning

Points to consider for organizations starting their total workforce planning journey:

1. Understand the strategies of the business and the desired outcomes. What are the drivers inspiring the organization to take a total talent planning view?
2. Redefine the flow of work. How can value-based outcomes be translated into future skills, jobs, and talent needs?
3. Model internal demand based on financial metrics. What financial and workforce metrics are accessible to use for total talent planning and to measure ongoing progress?
4. Forecast supply using HR information system (HRIS) data and predictive algorithms, understand talent supply adjacencies and evaluate sources and competition to access talent. How can data and metrics be used to generate insights and forecast what types of skills are needed and their availability in target markets?
5. Create strategic initiatives to address gaps in work, workforce and workplace. How should the needs found in forecasts be addressed?
6. Execute the workforce strategy and tie it to annual and long-term planning, including against the budget. How can the total talent strategy continue to support short- and long-term business, financial, and people goals?

Taking a total talent view is quickly becoming an organizational imperative. It’s the difference between accounting for some and accounting for all; between guessing, reacting, and strategic forecasting; between the uncertainty of “We don’t know” and the confidence of “Yes, we know.”

Authors

• Karen Weisz
• Kevin Moss
• Rebecca Greenberg
• Willow Pedersen

End Notes

¹ Internal Deloitte study, 2023.
² Staffing Industry Analysts, “65% of companies say they plan to increase use of contingent workers,”, August 23, 2023​.
³ Elizabeth J. Altman et al., Orchestrating workforce ecosystems: Strategically Managing Work Across and Beyond Organizational Boundaries, MIT Sloan Management Review, May 17, 2022.
⁴ Altman et al., Orchestrating workforce ecosystems.
⁵ Elizabeth J. Altman et al., Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Strategic Goals with People, Partners, and Technologies, The MIT Press, April 2023.
⁶ Altman et al., Orchestrating workforce ecosystems.