Talent & Workforce Planning Manager

Overview: The Talent & Workforce Planning Manager is responsible for leading the organization’s talent acquisition and workforce planning strategy to ensure the Company has the right talent, capabilities, and staffing levels to support current operations and future business needs. This role serves as a strategic partner to business leaders and hiring managers, translating workforce needs into practical recruiting, succession, and staffing strategies. The Manager oversees the full recruitment lifecycle while also bringing a broader workforce-planning lens to headcount needs, organizational capability and talent pipelines.  Success in this position requires strong business judgment, proactive communication, disciplined follow-through, and the ability to balance immediate recruiting demands with longer-term workforce priorities. The role is expected to provide leaders with clear visibility into recruiting activity, emerging workforce risks, and recommended actions. This role will own the overall health and effectiveness of the assigned recruiting portfolio, including progress against hiring priorities, responsiveness to business needs, hiring-manager engagement, candidate experience, aging vacancies, and timely resolution or escalation of barriers.

Duties & Responsibilities:

Talent Acquisition

• Lead the full-cycle recruitment process for positions across the organization, from intake and sourcing strategy through candidate selection, offer development, and pre-employment transition.
• Partner with hiring managers to clearly define position requirements, candidate profiles, recruiting priorities, and realistic hiring timelines.
• Develop targeted sourcing strategies using job boards, professional networks, industry relationships, social media, referrals, recruiting partners, and other appropriate channels.
• Screen and assess candidates for technical qualifications, leadership capabilities, organizational fit, and long-term potential.
• Facilitate effective interview and selection processes, including interview planning, candidate evaluation, and appropriate documentation.
• Partner with leadership and Compensation & Benefits on offer development to promote internal equity, market competitiveness, and consistency.
• Manage relationships with external recruiters, staffing agencies, and other talent partners, including evaluating effectiveness, cost, and service quality.

Hiring Manager and Candidate Partnership

• Serve as a trusted advisor to hiring managers throughout the recruitment and selection process.
• Establish clear expectations regarding responsibilities, timelines, communication, and decision-making at the beginning of each search.
• Maintain proactive communication with hiring managers regarding candidate pipelines, market conditions, delays, risks, and required decisions.
• Provide appropriate support and guidance to hiring managers regarding interviewing, candidate assessment, selection decisions, and recruiting best practices.
• Ensure candidates receive professional, timely, and respectful communication throughout the hiring process.

Workforce Planning

• Analyze workforce trends and data to identify areas of concern and recommend appropriate recruitment, retention, development, or succession strategies.
• Maintain awareness of potential retirements, key positions, and other areas of workforce vulnerability.
• Support succession planning and talent review processes by helping identify critical roles, potential successors, readiness gaps, and development priorities.
• Partner with HR leadership on organizational design and workforce restructuring initiatives as appropriate.

Recruiting Operations & Analytics

• Maintain accurate and current recruiting activity within the applicant tracking system and other HR systems.
• Produce recruiting metrics, including open positions, time to fill, candidate pipeline health, source effectiveness, offer acceptance, vacancy trends, and other relevant indicators.
• Monitor recruiting workload and capacity and proactively identify when additional internal or external resources may be required.
• Evaluate recruiting processes and identify opportunities to improve efficiency, candidate experience, hiring-manager experience, and overall effectiveness.
• Management of the talent acquisition budget, including agency fees, advertising expenses, recruiting technology, and other related costs.

Communication & Organizational Support

• Communicates proactively rather than waiting for leaders to request updates.
• Identifies emerging recruiting or workforce challenges early and escalates them appropriately.
• Provides clear recommendations rather than simply reporting problems.
• Understands the audience, business context, and potential organizational impact when communicating information.
• Maintains appropriate urgency while exercising sound judgment and attention to detail.
• Support internship, early-career, skilled-trade, professional, and leadership recruiting strategies as business needs require.
• Participate in HR projects and organizational initiatives that support the Company’s overall people strategy.
• Maintains confidentiality and demonstrates discretion when handling sensitive employee, candidate, and organizational information.

Qualifications

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or a related field
• Five or more years of progressively responsible experience in talent acquisition, recruiting, workforce planning, or a related HR discipline.
• Prior experience managing full-cycle recruiting for positions across multiple functions
• Experience working with applicant tracking systems, HRIS platforms, recruiting technologies, and common business software.
• Experience supporting specialized, technical, skilled-trade, professional, and/or leadership recruitment is preferred.
• Prior supervisory, project leadership, or recruiting-function leadership experience is preferred.

Skills and Abilities

• Strong understanding of talent acquisition practices, sourcing strategies, interviewing, candidate assessment, and selection.
• Strong analytical and workforce-planning capabilities (ability to turn business needs into talent strategies)
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong consultative and relationship-management skills.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple concurrent searches and competing priorities.
• Ability to work effectively in a collaborative team environment while maintaining ownership and accountability for assigned responsibilities.
• Working knowledge of employment laws and regulations applicable to recruiting and hiring.