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Workforce planning used to be simpler: Fill positions with people who had the right skills and experience. Keep things running until someone retired or left. But today’s employers must be more nimble and forward-thinking, especially as technology extends its dominance. You need a modern approach to workforce planning and analytics to prepare for what’s next.
Using data and analytics is key to improving how we manage projects and support employees, which is especially helpful in government contracting. One of Aon’s top HR trends for 2024 is using data and analytics for better workforce decisions — including those affecting hiring, skills development, compensation, and benefits.
Read on to learn how organizations working with government contracts can improve workforce planning and analytics with existing resources. We’ll show how decision-makers can anticipate workforce trends and needs rather than always reacting to changes.
3 Types of Workforce Analytics
There’s no shortage of analytical approaches, but which are most important — and useful — for workforce planning? Here are three categories and how they affect workforce planning for government contractors.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics uses algorithms and historical data to help organizations anticipate future workforce trends. Decision-makers can use these insights to inform workforce planning needs, identify potential skill gaps, and predict attrition rates. This foresight gives contractors a powerful tool for putting the right talent in place to meet objectives and deliver high-quality services to government customers.
Prescriptive Analytics
Prescriptive analytics takes predictive analytics to the next level by providing actionable insights and recommendations. This type of workforce analytics leverages algorithms and advanced optimization techniques to suggest the best course of action based on predicted outcomes.
In government projects, prescriptive analytics offers recommendations that help contractors maximize workforce efficiency and productivity. This approach can optimize staffing levels, develop employee skills, and improve talent acquisition.
Diagnostic Analytics
Diagnostic analytics focuses on understanding the underlying causes of workforce-related issues and identifying areas for improvement. Government contractors use diagnostic analytics to identify what’s contributing to workforce inefficiencies, such as high turnover or low employee engagement.
Diagnostic analytics can help leaders pinpoint root causes and implement targeted interventions based on data. Contractors can use this approach to continuously enhance workforce planning processes and keep the workforce engaged and productive.
Benefits of Unified Planning and Analytics
One of the most common challenges of workforce planning and analytics is trying to draw a complete picture of the operational, financial, and HR landscape from fragmented and disparate data sources. A unified approach to planning and analytics integrates your data into a single source of truth, eliminating the need for multiple software applications across teams or use cases.
This consolidation helps government contractors uncover financial discrepancies, workforce shortages, and areas for skill development, among other benefits. With an improved ability to generate data-driven insights, you can recognize growth opportunities, emerging service demands, and changing workforce demographics to plan your workforce more effectively.
Comprehensive planning and analytics tools, including Acterys, simplify this process by providing a single solution for consolidation, planning, AI-powered automation, and analytics. Acterys also makes data management easier by empowering users to update and modify data within the platform, eliminating the need to switch between multiple systems. Write-back capabilities allow users to update and simulate multiple scenarios directly within reports.
Let’s explore some other reasons government contractors should opt for a unified approach to workforce planning and analytics.
Improved Accuracy and Reliability
When project and employee data is scattered, by contrast, there’s a great likelihood of data duplication, discrepancies, and inconsistencies due to manual errors or outdated information. Consolidating data from various systems into a single source of truth eliminates silos and ensures data consistency.
For example, integrating human resource and finance systems means that changes to employee status are automatically updated across platforms. The same goes for payroll, benefits information, and countless other use cases. With accurate and reliable data at your fingertips, government contractors can make better decisions about resource allocation and personnel.
Seamless Collaboration
Having a single source of truth fuels collaboration by giving departments visibility and transparency about each other’s workforce needs and challenges. This understanding can improve collaboration, communication, and innovation.
For instance, when the HR department shares workforce analytics with finance and operations teams, every department now understands the true state of the organization. They can better discuss what decisions to make based on data-driven insights, all while seeing how a decision might affect a function. In this way, a unified data approach promotes a culture of open communication and mutual support.
Enhanced Agility and Flexibility
Unified planning and analytics enable government contractors to be more agile and adaptive in the face of changing workforce dynamics. Power BI and other planning tools can provide real-time dashboards that highlight trends, patterns, and emerging issues at a glance. This immediate insight is especially helpful for quickly responding to pressing workforce challenges, such as talent shortages.
An agile culture values flexibility, change management, and continuous improvement. When a unified approach to data and analytics supports this culture, government contractors not only predict shifts but are willing and able to react promptly. By combining data and culture, these organizations become proactive. They can easily align strategy and workforce planning while changing tactics as needed.
Streamlined Reporting and Compliance
Consolidated data makes reporting processes easier, including for compliance purposes. For government contractors that use Acterys, data is centralized from CRM, ERP, accounting, and workforce management software. This reduces the data inconsistencies and errors commonly found with manual data approaches. Any stakeholder can quickly pull a trustworthy report on a variety of workforce metrics.
This approach also supports regulatory compliance in two key ways. Laws and regulations often mandate that reports be accurate and filed by a deadline. A consolidated data system can automate and accelerate many reporting processes, making it easier to meet deadlines with complete data. A centralized data repository also simplifies the process of updating reporting practices in response to new regulations, ensuring that compliance is maintained over time.
Improved Resource Allocation
Unified planning and analytics provide government contractors with a holistic view of their workforce and resource allocation. By analyzing data on employee performance, project assignments, and resource availability, decision-makers can assign the right people to the right projects.
This comprehensive perspective enables government contractors to optimize their resource allocation by forecasting project timelines and adjusting their workforce accordingly to meet both current and future demands. For example, predictive analytics can reveal the likelihood of skill shortages before they occur, allowing contractors to train existing employees or recruit new talent in advance to avoid project delays.
Optimizing labor utilization rates through unified planning and analytics enables contractors to maximize workforce efficiency, aligning staff deployment with project needs. This targeted approach helps to minimize idle time and redistribute tasks more effectively, ensuring each employee’s workload contributes positively to project timelines and budget constraints. Analytics-driven insights allow for proactive adjustments, such as identifying when to scale the team up or down based on real-time project requirements, helping contractors avoid unnecessary labor expenses and overtime charges.
How to Improve Workforce Planning and Analytics
Let’s explore how a unified approach can be used to improve workforce planning and analytics in government contracting.
Automate Data Collection and Consolidation
Traditional workforce management and planning processes can lead to delays and inaccuracies. These inefficiencies can lead to slow, ineffective planning, which can be a problem for fast-moving projects or when regulatory requirements are changing.
Acterys simplifies these processes by automating data collection and consolidation, which reduces the time and resources government contractors need to devote to data management. As a result, HR and operations managers gain a comprehensive, real-time view of the workforce, informing decisions about staffing, emerging skill gaps, utilization, and more.
Access Deeper, Smarter Analytics
Traditional analytics often focuses on descriptive analysis — what has happened and why — but advanced analytics goes further. This approach includes predictive models that forecast future trends and prescriptive analytics that recommend specific actions. Acterys helps government contractors run deep analyses that anticipate future workforce requirements and recommend strategies that align with these predictions.
When you use advanced forecasting tools, you can transform raw workforce data into actionable insights. For example, predictive analytics helps HR teams quickly analyze patterns and trends to forecast workforce shortages before they become critical. This foresight allows HR professionals and operational leaders to make proactive, targeted plans for talent acquisition.
Prescriptive analytics can even suggest tailored strategies for talent management, ensuring that the workforce evolves in tandem with business goals and the government’s changing demands.
Model and Analyze Workforce Scenarios
Government contractors can’t afford to make workforce projections based on static historical data. Acterys introduces a more agile and nuanced approach, enabling decision-makers to create and analyze workforce planning scenarios in real time.
HR leaders can simulate potential hiring waves, assess the impact of new staffing models, or explore the consequences of skill-development programs. This is achieved through Acterys’ advanced planning engine, which integrates data from across the organization for a comprehensive, interactive simulation environment.
Business leaders can adjust variables and instantly see how outcomes change, from budget implications to service delivery capabilities. This hands-on approach to scenario planning allows government contractors to anticipate needs and pick the right response.
Foster Collaboration and Alignment
Cross-functional collaboration is more challenging when your organization struggles with silos and disjointed planning. These obstacles also complicate your ability to align strategy and workforce planning.
With a unified planning platform, managers and department leaders can have better discussions about staffing needs, budget allocations, and operational requirements. It can further enhance collaboration and alignment by enabling teams across different departments to access and analyze the same data. This shared insight fosters a culture of transparency and cooperation, leading to holistic strategies and joint decision-making.
Streamline Reporting and Communication
The intricacies of government contracting workforce data often lead to cumbersome reporting and communication processes. Departments typically operate with their own data sets, complicating visibility and reporting, as well as the ability to communicate in a shared language with peers.
Planning solutions such as Acterys provide a suite of intuitive reporting and analysis tools designed specifically for these organizations. Users streamline communication with features such as embedded comments and annotations within Power BI reports.
This capability fosters an interactive and collaborative review process. Decision-makers and department heads are comfortable engaging in meaningful dialogue about data. Communication is clearer and more productive.
Future-Proof Your Workforce Planning and Analytics Processes
Modern workforce planning and analytics requires efficiency, foresight, and strategic adaptability. It’s not enough to just fill positions as they open. Government contractors need to look ahead, understand what skills they’ll need, and start preparing now.
The market has long lacked applications specifically designed to address the needs of government contractors, especially in areas like managing project costs, revenues, and indirect cost allocations. Strict government regulations make these challenges even tougher, making traditional tools inadequate for the task.
Government contractors need a system that not only consolidates data for a unified view but also understands the complexity of project-based accounting and compliance management.
Acterys offers a unified solution for workforce planning, giving teams access to the tools they need to stay agile and informed. As your needs change or scale, Acterys seamlessly enables you to adjust to match. You’ll always work with the most advanced analytics and planning features for today’s challenges and tomorrow’s.
With Acterys, you’re ready to evolve your workforce planning and analytics. Ready to see how a unified approach can help your organization? Get started with a free trial.
