Snr Specialist: HR Strategic Workforce Planning

Structural Information

Job number:                     10031750

Job title:                             Snr Specialist: HR Strategic Workforce Planning

Job grade:                          S4

Group/ BU:                       Openserve

Division:                             Openserve

Span of control:               0-5

Reports to:                        Executive Management

Core Description

The incumbent will be responsible to lead the development, implementation and continuous enhancement of Openserve's Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) capability by ensuring the organisation has the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles, at the right time to deliver the business strategy. The role owns the end-to-end Strategic Workforce Planning lifecycle, including workforce baseline analysis, critical role segmentation, workforce demand and supply forecasting, capability gap analysis, scenario planning, and workforce transition planning.

The role is instrumental in delivering four strategic workforce outcomes, that is, de-risking Openserve's ageing workforce through proactive succession and workforce renewal strategies; Reshaping the organisation's capability profile to support the future operating model and emerging business requirements; creating transparent career progression pathways that strengthen internal mobility and talent development and by driving workforce transformation by increasing female representation in leadership and critical roles from 33% to 50% within two years.

The incumbent will partner with business leaders, Finance and HR Centres of Excellence to proactively identify workforce risks, capability gaps and future talent requirements arising from business growth, technology transformation and organisational change.

Job Responsibilities

1. Workforce analytics and insights
Develop workforce dashboards and executive reporting. 
Build, analyse and maintain the workforce demographics (age, tenure, gender, grade and skills),  attrition, retirement risks and succession readiness data consolidated into a single demographic and capability view.
Quantify retirement and attrition risk by function and critical role, and keep the risk picture current.
Produce predictive workforce analytics to support strategic decisions. 
Monitor workforce trends and benchmark against industry standards. 
Provide data-driven recommendations to Executive Management. 

2. Strategic workforce planning cycle
Run critical-role segmentation (impact × scarcity) across the business and ratify outcomes with line leadership.
Conduct demand-supply gap analysis and scenario modelling against the future operating model, including automation exposure.
Develop costed transition plans using Build / Buy / Borrow / Bot levers, and translate them into actionable talent interventions.

3. Organisational Capability Planning
Identify future critical capabilities required by Openserve. 
Partner with Learning & Development to develop capability-building strategies. 
Support digital transformation by identifying emerging skill requirements. 
Monitor workforce readiness for new technologies and operating models. 
Recommend reskilling and upskilling interventions.

4. Talent Supply Planning
Develop strategic talent supply models. 
Identify future recruitment requirements. 
Partner with Talent Acquisition to develop proactive sourcing strategies. 
Monitor internal talent mobility opportunities. 
Develop strategies to reduce critical skills shortages.

5. Business/Stakeholder partnership
Lead structured discovery engagements with business leadership, finance, Organised Labour, HR Business Partners, Human Capital to understand skills held, skills missing, and demand outlook.
Present analysis and recommendations to senior leadership, including EXCO-level forums, and hold the line in ratification sessions.

6. Governance
Develop workforce planning policies and standards. 
Ensure workforce planning governance is implemented across the organisation. 
Maintain workforce planning methodologies and templates. 
Ensure compliance with employment equity, labour legislation and organisational governance requirements. 

Core Competencies

Functional Knowledge/ Skills 
Analytical rigour; Business Acumen; Senior Stakeholder Influence; Consulting and facilitation; Resilience and delivery focus;  Telkom Group Policies/ Procedures & Procedures 

Competencies (Behaviour)
Leadership: Change Leadership; Stakeholder Influence; Strategic Thinking; Relationship Building; Understanding people; Valuing individuals.

Certifications

Education

Experience

Additional Information

Qualifications and experience:
Qualification in Human Resources, Statistics, Industrial Psychology or Business Management. Honours  postgraduate qualification advantageous.
At least 3 years in a senior management/ specialist leadership capacity.
Experience in workforce planning, people analytics, organisation design, or strategic HR, with at least 3 years in a specialist or lead capacity.

Special requirements:
Experience in telecommunications, engineering, or other technical/field-force environments advantageous.
Flexible working hours.
Strong data and analytics capability: comfortable building workforce models in Excel/ Power BI or similar; able to defend the numbers to senior leaders.
Experience in a large, unionised organisation. 
Experience supporting executive decision-making.

Special Requirements

Physical Requirements

Key Stakeholders