You could have the best talent pipeline in the world. However, without the right workforce planning tools on your team’s side, they won’t be working at their full potential.
Imagine your team members are scrambling for real-time data on which project to prioritize (as opposed to getting all the information at their fingertips in one click).
With workforce planning software at their disposal, your team can:
- Improve collaboration between a thousand tasks and projects
- Supercharge their productivity with real-time data about who is working on what
- Optimize the workload and work with greater efficiency, minus burnout or even fatigue
In this guide, we will cover the 10 best workforce planning software you can consider while assessing their key features, pricing, and more.
What Is Strategic Workforce Planning?
A strategic workforce planning process highlights how your team will work towards common goals and objectives without burnout and extremities of any kind.
This ‘capacity planning’ empowers team members to understand what steps to take, which direction to move in, and how to achieve the outlined goals.
Pro tip: The core components of every strategic workforce plan include resource allocation, specific short- and long-term goals, and a plan of action.
What Should You Look for in Workforce Planning Software?
A strategic workforce planning software does all the grunt work related to workforce planning for you.
Naturally, it must entail a few must-have features to help your business achieve all its goals without letting your team experience extreme frustration and burnout.
Here’s a laundry list of critical features you should look out for among a sea of enterprise workforce planning software options:
- User-friendliness: The user interface should be easy to navigate and use for anyone and everyone (whether they have a technical background or not).
- Integrations: The tool should allow you to integrate with existing tools so that you can manage your team and your projects from the same place.
- Scalability: The software should scale as your business grows—otherwise, you’ll end up spending money and resources to accommodate your changing needs.
- Customization: The tool should not only adjust on the fly but should also allow you to pivot as needed when things get tough.
- Cost-efficiency: Of course, the tool must fit into your existing budget. When rounding up a number, don’t forget about the costs associated with training and support.
- Reporting and data analytics: The tool must offer customized reports that throw light on how well you’re achieving your KPIs and how you can optimize your workforce.
- Mobile-friendliness: Organizations today are grappling with remote, hybrid, and onsite teams. Your team should be able to access the tool anytime, anywhere.
- Collaboration: The strategic workforce planning software should allow you to communicate with team members using live chat, email, etc.
Top 10 Best Workforce Planning Tools to Have In Your Toolkit
Not all workforce planning software are created equal.
In this section, we will compare the ten best workforce planning tools you can use and drive informed decision-making.
1. Nifty
When it comes to workforce planning, Nifty offers a suite of useful features that you can leverage to automate your team’s progress tracking, meet timelines, and allocate work like a pro.
Key features:
- Goal-setting feature: Nifty’s goal-setting feature allows you to track goals with extreme precision and in great depth. You can add the target date, metric, progress source, tasks, goal description, and more for each goal:
- Milestones: Nifty’s Milestones feature, in the form of Gantt charts, allows you to break down your strategic goals into manageable components. You can get a birds-eye view of all your projects with your team’s deadlines and priorities, thanks to the master overview.
- Alerts for task assignments and deadlines: You can also set your notification preferences as well as deadlines for tasks so that critical deliverables don’t fall through the cracks:
Comments feature: Most importantly, Nifty allows you to post a comment to start a discussion. All you need to do is tag them with the @Mention, and they will get a notification immediately.
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Pricing:
- Free forever plan: $0 (with unlimited users and tasks)
- Starter plan: Starts at $39 per month, billed monthly
- Pro plan: Starts at $79 per month, billed monthly
- Business plan: Starts at $124 per month, billed monthly
- Unlimited plan: Starts at $399 per month, billed monthly
2. Unito
Unito is an open-source software that is primarily known for its integration capabilities.
However, using this tool, you can create personalized workflows with more supported fields (think: assignees, comments, fields, attachments, etc.) and ensure your team is never out of sync.
Key features:
- Field mapping and rules: You can decide what to sync in addition to understanding when, how, and who to sync it with.
- Unito Sync Platform: This 2-way sync technology feature empowers you to access consistent data updates connected to tools that your team uses every day.
- Comment syncing: You can keep tabs on your feedback and approval cycle by tracking notes on deals as well as main issues. The tool syncs comments between tools to ensure none of the critical information gets missed.
Pricing:
- Basic (1-tool): $99/mo
- Pro (1-tool): $299/mo
- Business (All-tools): $769/mo
- Enterprise (All-tools): Custom pricing
3. Profit.co
Profit.co is the ideal resource planning software for goal setting. From progress tracking and collaboration to data and analytics, this software has it all.
You can also leverage the tool’s structured framework that is based on a universally accepted OKR methodology.
Key features:
- Task management: It helps businesses to organize, assign, and track tasks related to their objectives. You can also prioritize tasks with importance and urgency as the main criteria.
- Integration: You can integrate with popular tools such as Jira, Slack, Gmail, Microsoft Teams, Zapier, Power BI, Outlook, Google Calendar, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and more.
Pricing:
- Launch: Free (for up to 5 users)
- Growth: $7/month,/user, billed annually
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
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4. Hirebook
Did you know that you can also use workforce planning tools for employee engagement? Hirebook is one such tool that enables you to have the right conversations with the right people at the right time!
Key features:
- Insights: The tool offers insights into how your departments, teams, and individuals are functioning so that you can work towards the same shared goals.
- Customized check-ins: You can customize the check-ins by department, team, and individual to ensure every question is relevant and gets you authentic employee feedback at your fingertips.
Pricing:
- Business: $10.00/mo
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
5. Runn
This resource management software is great for assigning the right people to the right projects at the right time. You can also use it to schedule resources with a bird’s eye view of what’s going on and who is working on what.
Key features:
- Project planning: You can plan projects based on capacity and pipeline.
- Resource scheduling: Instead of using clunky spreadsheets, you can use the tool’s drag-and-drop functionality to allocate work to the team in a balanced manner.
- Capacity management: The software also helps you to view the team’s workload from a shared, single space so that you can manage your resource pool in the long and short term.
Pricing:
- Free: $0
- Pro: $8 per person per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
6. Monday.com
People who need adaptable strategic workforce planning software should consider looking at Monday.com.
This project management tool is highly customizable. Plus, you can access Gantt charts, collaboration features, automation, timelines, and more to make the most out of your workforce planning.
Key features:
- Sprint management: You can manage the lifecycle of your sprints directly—from sprint planning to daily standups.
- Burndown chart: You can identify bottlenecks by tracking your sprint progress and comparing the actual remaining effort with the ideal progress.
- Git integration: You can also streamline updates directly from your Git repository and track progress as well as status directly from your Git dashboard.
- Kanban view: The tool also provides a cohesive visual workflow into your team’s development tasks, maximizing efficiency in the process.
17 teams migrated from Monday last week without losing any task!
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Pricing:
- Free forever: $0
- Basic: $24 per seat per month, billed annually
- Standard: $30 per seat per month, billed annually
- Pro: $48 per seat per month, billed annually
- Enterprise: Contact the sales team
7. Envisio
Envisio is a dedicated workforce planning software that also aids you in performance management. Whether you wish to execute your strategy, report progress, or monitor performance, this software does everything for you!
Key features:
- Customizable plan structure: The tool allows you to customize your plans so that you can get visibility into progress and keep the team focused on what truly matters.
- Centralized performance data: You can visualize your performance data into your plan and reports, and use scorecards as well as interactive dashboards to get a 360-degree of your team’s performance.
- Multiple project views: The software also offers multiple views, such as Gantt, interactive maps, dashboards, and so on, to align your planning with your project goals.
- Progress dashboards with roll-up reporting: Finally, you can share your planning strategy story with internal and external stakeholders; all you need to do is use customizable public dashboards that are readily available in the software.
Pricing: Contact the sales team
8. Lucidspark
Lucidspark possesses robust virtual whiteboarding features, which come in handy when ideating and conceptualizing your team’s workload.
Key features:
- Excellent mobile and desktop functionalities: Lucidspark can be accessed on multiple platforms and devices, making collaboration easy.
- Integrated chat: Users can collaborate on the same whiteboard in real-time using the integrated chat feature. They can also use the built-in timer and voting features to keep everyone engaged and on-task.
- Templates: Teams can get a head start with readymade templates such as decision trees, roadmaps, SWOT analysis, etc.
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Pricing:
- Free: $0
- Individual: $7.95
- Team: $9/user
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
9. Sciforma
Sciforma PPM software provides actionable intelligence so that you can plan your strategic initiatives with data as the main fuel.
You can also use this software to allocate resources optimally and view the current status of your team’s workload at one glance.
Key features:
- Portfolio status: It allows you to get a concise snapshot of all projects within your portfolio so that you can assess the project’s health easily.
- Resource allocation: You can allocate resources across your portfolio and projects and use markers such as skills, workload, and availability as the main criteria.
Pricing: Contact the sales team
10. Wrike
Wrike is also known for its project management capabilities, but this tool works for workforce planning too.
From resource management and advanced reporting to time management and robust integrations, this software has it all.
Key features:
- Integration: Easily integrates with popular ERP and CRM systems such as Google Drive, Salesforce, Slack, etc.
- Personalized dashboards: You can visualize your tasks, plans, progress, and more in a centralized place.
- Proofing and approval tools: Wrike also offers built-in approval and proofing tools to make your project planning process easier.
Pricing:
- Free: $0
- Team: $9.80/user/month
- Business: $24.80/user/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
- Pinnacle: Custom pricing
Ready to Improve Your Workforce’s Workload With the Right Tool?
You can plan on paper, but ensuring your team is working at optimal capacity requires using workforce planning software.
If you don’t know where to begin, consider Nifty – it is one of the best free strategic workforce planning software available that combines project management prowess with up-to-the-minute resource planning.
You can get started for free and see first-hand how the tool functions and whether it fits your needs.
