Insights on How to Create a Yearly Staffing Plan

Creating a yearly staffing plan is a critical strategic decision for any company. This process involves understanding exactly who your team will need in the upcoming year. With a plan, you'll have a clearer picture of the company goals you can achieve with new hires. Once you have a hiring strategy in place, you won't have to rush to create the perfect candidate profile in a critical moment when a position urgently needs to be filled. You'll have more time to prepare and won't have to worry about deadlines.

Components of Hiring Planning

Your plan will clearly show how many people you need to hire for the next year, what skills they should have, what budgets you're prepared to allocate for the recruiting process, and how quickly you need to find relevant candidates.

To create a yearly hiring plan, your company needs to understand the following:

Developing a hiring strategy will help you focus on the global tasks and goals that a new employee can help achieve. If the plan is detailed and purposeful, you won't have to do much when it comes time to search for someone new. You will have already outlined the following points:

It's not necessary to detail every point at the beginning of the year, but even a general description will save you time and allow you to start searching immediately.

Moreover, if you analyze the candidate market and salary levels in advance, you can make your offer competitive and understand how much real time it will take to fill a vacancy properly. This, in turn, will help reduce recruiting costs, as you will be fully prepared for all the challenges and pitfalls that may arise along the way. Modern technologies, particularly AI save a recruiter’s time significantly. However, at the same time, candidates also overuse AI. 

Moreover it’s very important to take into account your company’s work model. For example, for the hybrid workplace you will have a bigger pull of candidates than for inhouse.

Companies often start looking for new employees when problems arise that need immediate resolution, or when they realize that the existing team can no longer handle the new volume of work. It's much better to anticipate this and find great specialists before even a small crisis occurs. 

According to experts at JobMesh, creating a hiring plan will help you see how your company's goals align with team expansion. And you'll understand that if, for example, you plan to double sales from June, you'll need to start looking for a new sales manager in April so they have time to adapt and perform their work without the pressure of external factors.

When to Turn to a Recruiting Agency

Turning to a recruiting agency is always a good idea because it can help solve your team expansion issues more quickly and effectively. You can delegate the recruiting process in any situation, but there are several indicators that you need a recruiting partner:

You want help developing and implementing a hiring strategy

First, this could be assistance in gathering information about the candidate market or analyzing average salaries. Second, after forming a clear hiring plan, a recruiting agency can take on all the worries about finding candidates on time. Imagine how nice it would be not to worry about recruiting for all your open roles throughout the year. And if the recruiting partner also conducts initial interviews - that's fantastic! 

Do you understand that you can work on 5 vacancies at once, but need to fill 10 during this period? Then the best solution would be to involve an experienced outsourcing company to assist internal recruiters. Having prepared an annual hiring strategy, it will be very easy for you to delegate part of the duties to a recruiting partner.

Your team does not have internal recruiters

Sometimes in small companies, the CEO or founders handle candidate searches. Then closing even 3-5 vacancies a year can be challenging. Founders have other expertise and more important strategic tasks for the company. Therefore, the recruiting process can be delayed or difficult. In cases where you don't need internal recruiters on a permanent basis, you can turn to an external staffing agency. They know how to use modern monitoring technologies and pre-interview screening to avoid mistakes.

You don't yet know what approach to work you need

In this case, it would be appropriate to try to fill several vacancies on your own and delegate several to a recruiting agency. Then compare the results, your internal satisfaction with the candidate search process, and the quality of the candidates found. This way, you'll immediately understand whether you're suited for ongoing collaboration with a staffing agency.

In conclusion, crafting a comprehensive yearly staffing plan is more than just a procedural necessity; it's a strategic cornerstone that supports the growth and adaptability of your company.