Model headcount, capacity, skills gaps and budgets before committing to a plan. Compare scenarios using a current picture of your organisation.
Example annual cost per new role:
R720 000
Illustrative scenario · Full-year role costs exclude other implementation costs
Who it’s for
Workforce planning tends to happen under pressure, with a deadline and a spreadsheet. These are the moments it matters most.
Headcount and salary cost per department, due next week.
“Give me a number per department I can defend, not last year’s plus ten percent.”
Set budgeted headcount and amount per department for each financial year. October tracks actuals against them and raises an alert when a department runs over.
Merging two teams or moving people between departments.
“What does this do to headcount and cost before we commit to anything?”
Model department moves, merges and splits from a chosen month and compare the result with other saved scenarios. Each scenario keeps its revisions, comments and approval.
The board has agreed a headcount number for year end.
“Is hiring ten people a month even realistic for us?”
Enter a target and October works out hires per month at your current attrition, rates the plan as feasible, aggressive or infeasible, and turns it into requisitions.
Engineering, mining, healthcare or any team with long-serving experts.
“Three of our five senior engineers could retire within four years.”
Retirement analysis shows who reaches retirement age and when. Alerts flag retirement clusters and critical skill gaps before they become vacancies.
Why plans go stale
TodayThe plan is a spreadsheet export that stops matching the organisation within weeks.
With OctoberForecasts read headcount, hires, leavers and salary cost from the employee record, with daily snapshots.
TodayEvery what-if sends someone back to rebuild the model.
With OctoberStart from a template or clone a scenario, change the assumptions and compare it side by side.
TodayNobody knows which version of the plan was agreed, or why it changed.
With OctoberScenarios keep revisions with change notes, a comment thread and a recorded approval.
TodayAn approved plan still has to be re-keyed into recruitment.
With OctoberPlanned hires become requisitions by department and month, linked back to the scenario.
Inside workforce planning
Start from the organisation you actually have, explore the options and carry the decision through.
Forecast
October projects headcount for the next six months from your hiring and attrition history, with a confidence range around it. Department breakdowns show where growth and losses will land.
Scenarios
Start from a template such as moderate growth, maintain headcount or hiring freeze, or set your own growth rate, attrition and planned hires by month. Compare year-end headcount, hires, leavers and salary cost across scenarios.
Growing 10% adds R9m in salary cost over Maintain. Two critical skill gaps in Engineering stay open unless hiring starts by November.
Follow through
Tell October where you need to be and by when. It works out how many hires you need each month, says whether the pace is realistic, and creates the requisitions so recruitment can start.
About 13 hires a month to cover growth and 1.4% monthly attrition. That is double last year’s hiring pace.
Early warning
Workforce alerts flag retirement clusters, critical skill gaps, attrition spikes and budget overruns, each with a severity. Retirement analysis shows who reaches retirement age, and when, years ahead.
Planning the next year
An illustrative 420-person manufacturer preparing its budget and a 10% growth plan for the board.
Sets department budgets for the new financial year with the CFO. Operations is already six people over because of seasonal temps.
Saves three scenarios: maintain, grow 10% and a hiring freeze. The comparison shows the cost gap between them and the skill gaps each leaves open.
Comments on the growth scenario and asks for Engineering to hire earlier. The HR director clones it, adjusts the months and adds a change note.
Approve the revised growth scenario. The approval is recorded against that version.
Generates requisitions by department and month from the approved plan and starts on the first nine roles.
Plan from what is true. Decide before it is urgent.
How it works
Headcount, hires, leavers, salaries and skills come from October, so the baseline is already there.
Use templates or your own assumptions, compare scenarios and share them with finance for comment.
Approve a scenario, set department budgets and turn planned hires into requisitions.
Planning with care
Planners without compensation access see headcount projections with the salary figures removed. In a one-person team, cost would reveal someone’s pay.
Revisions keep the assumptions, results and a change note, so you can see how the plan evolved.
Approving a scenario records who approved it and when, in the audit log.
Scenario summaries and hiring recommendations are suggestions for people to weigh, not decisions.
Works with
Scenario costs use live salary data from compensation.
ExploreSkills gaps in the plan become learning paths.
ExploreRetirement analysis hands over to succession planning for critical roles.
ExploreHeadcount, tenure and departments come straight from the employee record.
ExploreExplore the workflows, tools and practical details that support workforce planning throughout the working day.
Model future headcount needs from growth plans, seasonal patterns and attrition trends. A six-month projection with confidence intervals sits on the overview beside current headcount, attrition rate and skills gaps.
Run what-if scenarios for expansion, restructures and market shifts and see the real-time impact on headcount, cost and capability. Save and compare scenarios before committing resources.
Map the skills your organisation has against the skills it needs. Identify critical gaps and connect them directly to hiring plans, learning pathways or internal mobility opportunities.
Plan workforce budgets with precision by modelling compensation costs under each headcount scenario. Identify upcoming retirements that could create knowledge or leadership gaps years in advance.
Predicted departures and their impact on the plan.
Cost and capability consequences of each plan, instantly.
Explore the detail behind workforce planning.
Headcount, attrition, tenure, compensation and skills all come from the same record, so forecasts reflect the organisation as it is today rather than an export from last quarter.
Yes. Budget scenarios model compensation cost under each headcount plan and can be exported or shared with finance.
We’ll walk through the real product with your team and show how it connects to the rest of October People.