Senior Workforce Planning Specialist

🏗 We're Hiring: Senior Workforce Planning Specialist

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a construction-focused organization committed to delivering complex projects through disciplined contract management, operational excellence, and collaborative project delivery. Our distributed teams collaborate across Project Management, Construction, Engineering, Procurement, Commercial, Legal, Finance, Human Resources, Design, Quality, HSE, Consultants, Contractors, Suppliers, Logistics, Administration, Information Technology, and Executive Leadership to ensure efficient resource allocation, sustainable workforce development, and successful project execution. We value data-driven decision-making, workforce agility, and strategic planning to support business growth, operational efficiency, and long-term organizational success.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Workforce Planning Specialist to lead workforce planning initiatives, analyze staffing requirements, forecast labor demand, and develop strategic workforce solutions aligned with organizational objectives and project delivery schedules. The ideal candidate will bring strong expertise in workforce analytics, headcount planning, labor forecasting, resource optimization, capacity management, and workforce cost analysis.

This role will focus on translating business strategies and project pipelines into actionable workforce plans, identifying current and future talent requirements, optimizing resource utilization, and supporting effective staffing decisions across multiple functions and projects. The Senior Workforce Planning Specialist will collaborate with Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, Finance, Project Management, Construction, Engineering, Procurement, Operations, and Executive Leadership to maintain appropriate staffing levels, manage workforce costs, and ensure compliance with applicable United Arab Emirates labor laws and regulations.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain comprehensive workforce plans aligned with business strategies, organizational objectives, project schedules, and operational requirements.
• Analyze current workforce structures, headcount levels, employee capabilities, vacancies, and staffing distribution across departments and project locations.
• Forecast future workforce demand based on project pipelines, anticipated workloads, business expansion, seasonal requirements, and operational priorities.
• Translate business plans and project forecasts into detailed staffing requirements, workforce budgets, and resource allocation plans.
• Prepare short-term, medium-term, and long-term workforce forecasts to support organizational planning and strategic decision-making.
• Collaborate with department heads and project managers to identify current staffing gaps, future resource needs, and critical workforce dependencies.
• Develop workforce supply models that assess internal talent availability, recruitment capacity, employee turnover, retirement, and external labor market conditions.
• Monitor headcount against approved workforce plans, staffing budgets, and organizational establishment requirements.
• Identify workforce surpluses, shortages, skill gaps, and resource imbalances across departments, business units, and projects.
• Recommend workforce adjustments, recruitment priorities, internal transfers, redeployment, and succession measures to address identified gaps.
• Establish standardized workforce planning methodologies, forecasting assumptions, reporting processes, and planning calendars.
• Maintain accurate workforce planning data, headcount records, position inventories, staffing assumptions, and approved organizational structures.
• Analyze workforce utilization, productivity, overtime, absenteeism, employee turnover, and labor deployment trends.
• Develop workforce dashboards, management reports, and analytical models to support data-driven staffing decisions.
• Prepare regular workforce planning reports for Human Resources leadership, Finance, project leadership, and executive management.
• Track workforce planning performance against agreed targets, budgets, staffing milestones, and operational requirements.
• Develop and maintain key workforce planning indicators, including headcount variance, vacancy rates, time to fill, labor utilization, turnover, and forecast accuracy.
• Investigate material variances between planned and actual staffing levels and recommend appropriate corrective actions.
• Partner with Finance to align workforce plans with annual budgets, cost forecasts, project estimates, and financial performance targets.
• Prepare workforce cost projections covering salaries, benefits, allowances, overtime, recruitment expenses, training, and other employee-related costs.
• Evaluate the financial impact of alternative staffing scenarios, organizational changes, and resource allocation decisions.
• Support annual budgeting, quarterly forecasting, and periodic business planning activities through accurate workforce data and assumptions.
• Conduct workforce scenario planning to assess the implications of project delays, accelerated delivery schedules, changing business demand, and resource constraints.
• Model alternative workforce strategies, including permanent hiring, temporary staffing, subcontracted labor, internal redeployment, and external specialist support.
• Assess the availability of critical skills required for construction projects, engineering activities, technical operations, and corporate functions.
• Work with Talent Acquisition to prioritize vacancies, establish recruitment forecasts, and align hiring plans with project start dates and business needs.
• Provide hiring teams with approved workforce requirements, position priorities, anticipated recruitment volumes, and required hiring timelines.
• Monitor recruitment progress against workforce plans and identify risks associated with delayed hiring or limited candidate availability.
• Coordinate with HR Business Partners to validate staffing requests, confirm business justification, and maintain consistency with approved headcount.
• Review proposed new positions, replacement hires, temporary roles, and organizational changes against workforce planning guidelines.
• Support the development and maintenance of organizational charts, position control records, job families, and workforce establishment data.
• Analyze workforce demographics, employee movement, tenure, turnover patterns, and capability distribution to identify emerging risks.
• Identify critical roles and business functions where staffing shortages could affect project delivery, operational continuity, or regulatory obligations.
• Develop workforce risk assessments covering resource scarcity, excessive dependency on key personnel, high turnover, and limited specialist capabilities.
• Recommend mitigation strategies for workforce risks, including cross-training, succession planning, internal mobility, targeted recruitment, and knowledge transfer.
• Collaborate with Learning and Development teams to identify future capability requirements and workforce reskilling priorities.
• Support skills-gap assessments by comparing existing employee capabilities with current and anticipated business requirements.
• Develop workforce capability forecasts to support leadership development, technical training, professional certification, and career progression initiatives.
• Partner with Organizational Development teams to assess workforce implications arising from restructuring, business transformation, and operating model changes.
• Evaluate the impact of organizational redesign on headcount, reporting relationships, role requirements, staffing costs, and resource allocation.
• Support change management initiatives by providing workforce impact assessments, staffing scenarios, and transition planning recommendations.
• Develop and maintain workforce planning assumptions that reflect business growth, productivity improvements, technology adoption, and process changes.
• Monitor external labor market trends, skills availability, compensation benchmarks, and industry workforce developments relevant to business operations.
• Assess the implications of market conditions and regional talent competition for recruitment strategies and workforce sustainability.
• Support workforce localization and nationalization planning in accordance with applicable UAE requirements and organizational objectives.
• Evaluate workforce composition and hiring forecasts to identify opportunities to strengthen local talent participation and long-term capability development.
• Coordinate with relevant stakeholders to ensure workforce plans reflect applicable employment regulations, visa requirements, work authorization considerations, and contractual obligations.