Stop Doing Human Resources and Finance Planning in Silos

For many companies today, headcount planning and financial forecasting are two independent processes, managed and facilitated by HR and Finance. These processes are not synchronized and do not allow visibility to see the effects of how changes in headcount may drive financial results, or how financial results may impact headcount.

Human Resources

Human Resources may use spreadsheets to calculate how adding headcount, merit increases, additional costs of benefits, or other burden-related increases will affect the human resources department. In addition, they plan for vacancies due to retirement, turnover, relocation, promotions, and company growth. All of this is done within a bubble.

Finance

In a separate bubble, finance is adjusting the quarterly and annual rolling forecast to account for revenue, margin, costs of goods and depreciation. Accountants are working on the cash flow statement, income statement and other financial analysis to see where the money is coming and going. But who is looking to see how changes in headcount are affecting the financial plan? Is this data being easily incorporated into the office of the CFO in real time?

Integrated Headcount Planning

NTT DATA Business Solutions’ Integrated Headcount Planning solution utilizes SAP SuccessFactors’ Employee Central master data for salary, headcount, FTEs and positions as the starting point for salary planning for existing employees. Within SAP Analytics Cloud, users can view current employees by position, cost center or location.  They can plan salary increases, merit increases and burden expenses based on location, or override at an individual employee level to create “what-if” scenarios and modeling within Analytics Cloud. Position management information used within Integrated Headcount Planning displays all current vacant positions and open FTEs.  Leadership can plan and forecast salary and starting dates for when these positions are filled.

As leadership plans headcount at the employee or position level, the financial impact is updated in the financial plan. A cost center manager can see the impact of a new hire or salary change to his or her cost center financials.  There is then no disconnect between vacant positions planned in the financial budget, and non-approved positions are not included in the headcount planning process, since the plans are linked.

HR Analytics

By bringing SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Analytics Cloud data together, Integrated Headcount Planning delivers a cloud-based platform to drive the integration of headcount and financial planning. With these technologies as a foundation, HR Analytics can be integrated and combined with Financial and Operational Analytics to provide deeper insights to the organization.   This allows HR analytics to be included in the rest of the organization’s reporting and planning.