How to Boost Clarity in Headcount Planning

Headcount plans face the challenge of balancing big-picture goals with the perfect candidate to meet specific needs. But well-executed headcount planning also requires timely decisions, adaptability to sudden changes, and data wrangling.

When faced with these complexities, you can only go so far with manual data imports and workaround solutions.

In a process riddled with silos, how do you ensure that the urgent needs of the business are met on time? Read on to learn about how Pigment’s integration with Lever can add transparency and speed to outdated headcount planning systems.

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The endless possibilities of connecting Lever to Pigment

Pigment offers a native integration to Lever. But what does this mean for you?

It means you can forget about manual data imports and data entry errors when processing your requisitions data. But connecting your ATS to your headcount planning software has unbelievable benefits:

• Save time for tasks that add value
• Understand the impact of each headcount decision
• Clarity in the end-to-end hiring process
• Identify the urgencies in hiring
• Automate and track your job requisition approval process
• Follow through on OKRs
• Sourcing gets easier
• Boring job descriptions are a thing of the past

Save time for tasks that add value

There’s a misconception that business planning has to be dry, monotonous work. In reality, your headcount plan provides so much added value to your company. And the nature of your day-to-day tasks should reflect that.

You don’t have to export data from your ATS and paste it into a fragile spreadsheet model.

Data connectors exist to handle the prep work for you, with the bonus of eliminating human error. With the Lever connector, you can easily import your data into your planning tool and focus on building your plan and forecasts.

The benefits go way beyond saving time - you can always trust the accuracy of your data as well as rely on data to be up-to-date for those juicy, real time insights.

Understand the impact of each headcount decision

When you connect Lever with Pigment, you gain access to data connections you haven’t considered before. In other words, you could easily connect your ATS with your CRM, HRIS, and many other data sources including spreadsheets. In fact, Pigment's magnificent collaboration features allow you to add expert knowledge as an extra layer of data to your models.

You can transform complex data into a set of easily digestible insights.

And through those insights, you enable your team and the rest of the organization to truly understand the past, current, and future impact of each hiring decision.

This sort of information has the power to grow your company to great heights and to retain that peak position.

Clarity in the end-to-end hiring process

The hiring cycle starts with a business need. What’s the immediate next step? Filing requisition reports and planning headcount!

Although each stakeholder essentially works towards the same goal of procuring the right talent at the right time, individual stages of the hiring process are a blackbox to anyone not directly involved.

Bring clarity to every stage of workforce planning by integrating Lever with Pigment. Your requisitions will now live in the same place as your historical job performance data, capacity planning, and revenue forecasts.

Speaking of forecasts, you can also predict future hiring trends based on past activity. This helps not only the core recruiter team, but also hiring managers to check the current status of the pipeline and the expected time to fill individual roles.

The end result? More visibility to decision makers and faster requisition approvals.

Identify the urgencies in hiring

By being in charge of headcount planning, you play an important role in delivering the support and resources each department needs to succeed. But things aren’t always so optimistic.

Your headcount plan should always make allowances for sudden changes in circumstance. In the face of urgent hiring needs, the ability to quickly pivot can make or break your company’s future.

Ease of reforecast and model adjustments are crucial in adapting to changes. By hosting your headcount data in Pigment, you can afford to make drastic changes without losing time, money, or resources.

Automate and track your job requisition approval process

The job requisition approval process tends to be full of bottlenecks due to multiple stakeholders with varying bandwidth and goals. Automation can simplify the process by:

• Introducing a way to track progress and identify bottlenecks
• Reducing the manual effort required to communicate with each stakeholder
• Allow each stakeholder to identify the best time to work on requests without holding up the cycle
• Achieve faster, consistent results for each requisition request created

Pro tip: set up workflow automation to remove redundancies in the process with data from Lever and other systems.

Follow through on OKRs

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) help potential candidates picture themselves in a job role. They also help the organization evaluate the importance of the role.

Tracking OKRs in Pigment allows you to increase the level of detail tied to a job requisition and follow up with actual and forecasted return on investment. You can then use this insight to drive future headcount models.

Sourcing gets easier

You’re not going to rent out an ad on Craigslist for your next CFO. But you do have multiple locations to find and hire the best candidates: employee referral network, groups and communities, or social media, for example.

How do you keep track of the best sources for talent?

With Lever + Pigment, of course. The advantage of data-driven recruiting is that the data adds up. You build a wealth of information - lessons learnt - from sourcing decisions that worked most effectively.

Repeatable success is the best kind of success, and that’s what you stand to gain from integrating your ATS with your headcount planning software.

Boring job descriptions are a thing of the past

Even with the recent economic downturn, the job market is ruled by candidates with unlimited choices. A compelling, FOMO-creating, not boring job description is one of the best ways to stand out in the crowd of recruiters.

So how do you write the best job description ever? Extract clear, actionable business needs from your requisitions. Convert these to skill and fit requirements that speak to your target candidate.

An employer with a highly defined vision instantly attracts and grows with the best talent.

More than just a number

It’s ironic that headcount planning is a numbers game when each headcount represents a part of your company’s potential for success.

Integrating your business planning software with the right tools and data sources can add deeper meaning to your headcount projections. The right talent can shape your company’s future and make the difference between temporary growth and long-term, sustainable success.

Respect and invest in talent by establishing a clear, transparent headcount planning process.

Learn more about how to connect Pigment with Lever for all your headcount planning needs.