Title:  Workforce Planner

Job Classification

147523
Job Post End Date: 04 September 2026

Job Family

Career Stream

Leadership Pipeline

Manage Self: Professional

Job Purpose

Own and manage the end-to-end integrated workforce planning for GMCA by translating strategic priorities and marketing demand into executable capacity, capability, skills, sourcing and cost plans. The role optimises deployment across internal squads, multiple operating model parameters, specialist teams, Centers of Excellence, agencies, vendors and approved digital agents (Agentic A.I); provides forward-looking insight for trade-off decisions and strengthens delivery predictability, utilisation, capability and value realisation. The incumbent also leads the responsible introduction of agentic workforce capabilities, ensuring that human and digital work are designed, governed and measured as one operating system.

Key stakeholders

• Marketing Operations leadership and squad leadership
• GMCA business and marketing stakeholders
• Finance, Procurement, Risk, Compliance, HR and technology partners
• Centres of Excellence, travelling experts, agencies and vendors
• Data, workflow, MarTech, automation and AI enablement teams

Key accountabilities

Strategic demand and workforce planning

• Own the rolling forecast workforce plan across strategic, quarterly and sprint horizons, aligned to QBR priorities, campaign pipelines, release plans and operational commitments.
• Convert demand into skills, role, effort, timing, cost and sourcing requirements; expose capacity gaps, constraints, dependencies and decision points early.
• Build scenarios for changing demand, priority shifts, leave, attrition, specialist bottlenecks, agency mix and digital-agent augmentation.
• Facilitate evidence-based trade-off decisions and maintain a clear record of assumptions, choices, risks and impacts.

Capacity, allocation and flow optimisation

• Lead data-led allocation of work across squads, travelling experts, Centres of Excellence, agencies, vendors and digital capacity.
• Balance throughput, utilisation, service levels, cost, skill fit and sustainable team load while protecting critical marketing outcomes.
• Monitor backlog health, work ageing, work in progress, planned versus unplanned demand, bottlenecks and delivery dependencies.
• Partner with agile and delivery leaders to improve planning discipline, readiness, prioritisation and flow across the marketing release train.

Workforce analytics and decision intelligence

• Own trusted workforce planning data, definitions, models and dashboards across demand, capacity, utilisation, skills, cost, delivery and service performance.
• Produce forecasts, variance analysis and actionable insights for operational and executive forums; distinguish signal from noise and recommend decisions.
• Establish data-quality controls and reconcile workforce, workflow, financial, time-tracking and supplier data.
• Use scenario analysis and leading indicators to anticipate constraints rather than only reporting historical performance.

Agentic workforce planning and work redesign

• Identify repeatable, rules-based and information-intensive work suitable for automation or approved AI-agent augmentation, while retaining human accountability for judgement and risk.
• Decompose workflows into tasks and determine the best-fit delivery source: human, agency, system automation, AI assistant or governed AI agent.
• Model digital-agent capacity, availability, cost, quality, exception rates and human oversight requirements alongside human capacity.
• Partner with technology, data, risk and business owners to define guardrails, access controls, approval points, monitoring and escalation paths.
• Pilot and scale agentic use cases using clear hypotheses, baseline measures and benefits tracking; stop or redesign use cases that do not meet quality, safety or value thresholds.
• Build workforce readiness through practical AI literacy, prompt and context design, human-agent collaboration, workflow orchestration and adoption support.

Commercial, supplier and financial management

•  Integrate workforce plans with budget, transfer-pricing, statement-of-work and supplier commitments.
• Optimise the internal, agency, vendor and digital-resource mix based on value, capability, responsiveness, risk and total cost of delivery.
• Monitor forecast versus actual effort and cost, investigate variances and recommend corrective action.
• Provide capacity evidence for supplier negotiations, commissioning decisions and insource, outsource, automate or augment choices.

Governance, service management and risk

• Operate clear workforce planning services, intake routes, prioritisation rules, service levels, exception management and escalation paths.
• Ensure workforce decisions comply with applicable governance, privacy, security, model-risk, procurement, financial and people requirements.
• Maintain auditable planning assumptions, access controls, decision logs and performance records for human and digital work.
• Continuously improve planning processes, controls, standards and service experience.

Leadership, stakeholder enablement and change

• Lead and develop the workforce planning capability, set clear outcomes and create a high-accountability, psychologically safe environment.
• Influence senior stakeholders through concise options, transparent implications and a recommended course of action.
• Build planning capability across MOPS through playbooks, coaching, self-service insights and structured planning rituals.
• Create strong partnerships across Finance, HR, Procurement, Risk, Technology, agencies and Centres of Excellence.
• Ensure all personal development activities are completed within agreed timeframes and performance standards, fostering continuous growth as a vendor management professional.
  Identify personal development opportunities (e.g., relevant training courses) to enhance expertise in workforce planning, keeping skills and industry knowledge up-to-date.

Candidate profile

• Essential qualification: Relevant bachelor's degree or advanced diploma (NQF Level 7 or equivalent) in business, operations, analytics, industrial engineering, human resources, marketing, finance, information systems or a related discipline, .
• Preferred qualification: Honours or postgraduate qualification in business, operations, analytics, workforce planning, industrial engineering, HR, digital transformation or a related discipline.
• Preferred certifications: One or more relevant certifications in strategic workforce planning, agile delivery, project/programme management, data analytics, change management, process improvement, responsible AI or an enterprise workflow platform. Certifications should support capability but should not substitute for demonstrated delivery experience.
• Minimum experience: Typically 8 to 12 years of relevant experience in workforce planning, capacity management, operations, delivery management or resource optimisation, including at least 3 years leading people or a significant enterprise-wide planning capability. Marketing, creative, agency, professional-services or other project-based operating environments are strongly advantageous.

Essential experience

• Building and operating strategic, tactical and operational workforce plans in a complex multi-team environment.
• Forecasting demand and capacity; scenario modelling; skills-based planning; workload allocation; utilisation and cost analysis.
• Working with agile or product-based delivery, including quarterly planning, backlogs, sprints, dependencies and release coordination.
• Developing executive dashboards and translating data into practical trade-off decisions.
• Managing a blended delivery ecosystem that may include employees, contractors, agencies, vendors and specialist partners.
• Leading change, improving planning discipline and influencing senior stakeholders without relying only on formal authority.
• Applying governance, data quality, financial controls and service management to an operational planning function.

Agentic and digital capability

• Working understanding of generative AI, AI agents, automation and the distinction between assistive, supervised and autonomous execution.
• Ability to redesign work at task and workflow level, define human-in-the-loop controls and specify decision, escalation and exception points.
• Ability to evaluate agentic use cases for feasibility, risk, cost, quality and measurable business value.
• Practical skill in prompt and context design, structured experimentation, output evaluation and adoption enablement.
• Awareness of responsible AI, privacy, security, bias, explainability, access control, auditability and third-party risk.
• Ability to model human and digital capacity in an integrated plan. Coding is not essential, but strong technology fluency and the ability to partner with technical specialists are required.

Technical skills

• Advanced spreadsheet modelling and scenario analysis.
• Business intelligence and data visualisation; ability to define metrics, interrogate data and communicate insight.
• Workflow and work-management platforms such as Jira or equivalent; backlog, time, capacity and service data.
• Financial and commercial acumen, including budgeting, unit cost, transfer pricing and supplier capacity.
• Process mapping, service design, root-cause analysis and continuous improvement.
• Excellent written, verbal and executive presentation skills.