Workforce Planning Lead

Job Description

Wood is currently looking for a Workforce Planning Lead to join our team in Abu Dhabi, UAE. This is a full time office based position

Job Objective

The role is responsible for leading operational workforce planning activities across their assigned business unit, region, or portfolio. The role partners with business leaders to ensure workforce capacity aligns with current and future demand through accurate forecasting, utilisation management, workforce insights and proactive resource planning.

The role provides trusted workforce intelligence, enabling informed staffing decisions, improving utilisation, identifying workforce risks and supporting profitable project delivery. Acting as the primary workforce planning partner for the business, the suitable candidate ensures planning standards, governance and enterprise processes are consistently applied while driving adoption of workforce planning tools and best practice.

Responsibilities

Key Accountabilities and Responsibilities

Operational Workforce Planning

• Lead workforce planning activities across assigned portfolios, disciplines or regions.
• Develop short, medium and long-term workforce forecasts aligned to business demand.
• Maintain rolling capacity plans highlighting resource gaps, surpluses and deployment opportunities.
• Identify workforce risks early and provide mitigation recommendations.
  
  

• Partner with Delivery Managers and Business Leaders to understand future workload.
• Translate sales pipeline, secured work and project demand into workforce requirements.
• Monitor workforce capacity and recommend hiring, redeployment, contractor engagement or workshare opportunities.
• Support mobilisation planning for major projects.
  
  

• Monitor weekly utilisation performance across assigned portfolios.
• Analyse utilisation trends and recommend actions to improve billability and productivity.
• Support leaders to optimise workforce deployment while balancing employee development and project delivery.
• Provide commentary explaining utilisation movements and future outlook.
  
  

• Produce weekly and monthly workforce planning reports from our dashboards.
• Present workforce insights to senior stakeholders using clear recommendations.
• Monitor key workforce planning KPIs including:
• Utilisation
• Forecast accuracy
• Resource demand
• Capacity risk
• Hiring requirements
• Skills shortages
• Ensure reporting accuracy and consistency across all business units.
  
  

• Build trusted relationships with Operations Managers, Delivery Leaders, Project Managers and Talent Acquisition.
• Act as the primary workforce planning advisor for allocated business areas.
• Facilitate regular workforce planning meetings and planning reviews.
• Influence workforce decisions through data-driven recommendations.
  
  

• Ensure workforce planning data remains accurate, complete and current.
• Drive adoption of enterprise workforce planning processes and tools.
• Identify opportunities to improve reporting, automation and planning processes.
• Support implementation of new workforce planning initiatives.
  
  

• Champion workforce planning best practice across the business.
• Coach leaders on workforce planning methodology and utilisation principles.
• Support change initiatives relating to workforce systems, reporting and planning standards.
• Promote a culture of proactive workforce planning rather than reactive staffing.
  
  

• Delivery Leaders
• Global Competence Manager
• Workshare Utilisation & Best Practice
• Wood Technical Academy
• IT/ Systems & Data
• Talent Acquisition
  
  

• Owns workforce forecasts for allocated portfolios.
• Recommends hiring, contractor engagement and redeployment activities.
• Escalates workforce risks impacting delivery.
• Approves workforce planning assumptions within agreed governance.
• Recommends resource optimisation strategies to improve utilisation.
  
  

• Degree or equivalent experience in operations, business, engineering, data/analytics, or related discipline.
• Desirable, training/certification in resource planning, workforce analytics, or change management.
  
  

• Experience in workforce planning, resource management or operational planning within a complex organisation.
• Experience in change management and continuous improvement programs
• High-quality decision-making, planning and problem-solving skills
• Proactive and open approach to learning and change and ability to look for opportunities that bring value to the organisation
• Experience interpreting utilisation and operational performance metrics.
• Strong analytical capability with advanced Excel and Power BI experience.
• Experience working with enterprise workforce planning or ERP systems.
• Ability to simplify complex workforce data into practical business recommendations.
• Strong commercial awareness and understanding of project-based delivery environments.
• Experience facilitating planning forums with senior stakeholders.
  
  

• Strategic thinker with excellent operational execution.
• Proactive problem solver who identifies risks before they occur.
• Strong communicator who can influence at all organisational levels.
• Collaborative leader who builds trusted relationships.
• Comfortable working in fast-paced, changing environments.
• Continuous improvement mindset with a passion for using data to drive decisions.
• High attention to detail and commitment to data quality.
• Role model for Wood values and behaviours.