Workforce Planning Specialist

Job Purpose:

MBZUAI is seeking a Workforce Planning Specialist to translate institutional strategy into annual manpower plans, headcount targets, and hiring calendars, maintain a single source of truth for positions (org charts, FTEs, vacancies) and requisition hygiene and build a long-term hiring forecasts with executive dashboards on time-to-fill, vacancy aging, offer acceptance, and Emiratization. The role standardizes recruitment SOPs, templates, and SLAs, verifies Applicant Tracking System (ATS) data quality, and drives HRIS/ERP integrations and automations for seamless approvals and reporting.

Key Responsibilities:

Workforce Planning & Headcount Governance

• Translate strategic objectives into annual manpower plans, headcount targets, and hiring plans by department.
• Ensure accurate reconciliation of all workforce-related budgets by validating headcount data, salary details, and staffing changes against the approved manpower plan. Identify variances and provide timely updates to the Finance, Planning and analysis function.
• Develop and maintain financial projections for manpower costs, including forecasting salary expenses, new hires, attrition impact, and organizational changes. Regularly monitor budget utilization and highlight risks or required adjustments.
• Maintain a centralized and accurate database of all positions (org charts, FTE counts, and vacancy lists) and ensure requisition integrity, including proper funding, approvals, and current job descriptions
• Build rolling hiring forecasts; track time-to-fill, vacancy aging, offer acceptance, and Emiratization progress, flagging risks and trade-offs.
• Produce executive dashboards and heat maps to prioritize requisitions and redeploy sourcing capacity.

Policy, Process & Systems Enablement

• Standardize recruitment SOPs, templates, and SLAs; ensure alignment with HR policy, Delegation of Authority, and audit requirements.
• Own ATS data quality (stages, reasons, candidate records) and drive integrations/automations with HRIS/ERP for seamless approvals and reporting.

Role Definition & Requisition Readiness

• Partner with units to validate job descriptions/specifications, competencies, and evaluation rubrics; confirm screening criteria before opening roles.

Sourcing Capacity & Vendor Coordination

• Build talent pipelines for hard-to-fill roles; manage agency frameworks and job-board strategies to complement in-house sourcing and reduce time-to-hire.

Assessment & Selection Enablement

• Develop assessment tools/case studies and structure interview packs; train hiring panels on bias-aware interviewing and consistent scoring.

Candidate & Stakeholder Experience

• Formalize communications standards (status updates, feedback norms); monitor SLA adherence to minimize back-and-forth and improve response times.
• Coordinate pre-offer due diligence (references/background checks) and support offer construction within policy and market benchmarks.

Continuous Improvement & Compliance

• Run post-search retrospectives; implement corrective actions and capture lessons learned.
• Prepare audit-ready evidence across requisitions, offers, and hiring decisions; ensure compliance with legal/regulatory requirements and reporting standards.

Other Duties

• Perform all other duties as reasonably directed by the line manager that are commensurate with these functional objectives.

Academic Qualification:

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business/Management, Industrial Engineering, Economics, Data/Analytics or equivalent.
• A master’s degree will be preferred.

Professional Experience:

Essential

• 5–7 years’ experience in workforce planning, headcount governance, or HR planning/FP&A within complex or matrixed organizations (higher education, research, or public sector exposure helpful).
• Proven delivery of annual manpower plans, hiring calendars, and headcount targets aligned to institutional strategy and budget.
• Hands-on ownership of ATS and HRIS/ERP data quality and reporting (e.g., Oracle/SuccessFactors/Workday), including requisition hygiene and approval workflows.
• Strong analytics: forecasting 12–18 months, scenario modeling, vacancy/time-to-fill analysis, pipeline health, and dashboarding (Excel advanced; Power BI/Tableau or similar).
• Experience coordinating with Talent Acquisition, Finance/FP&A, and department leaders to prioritize roles, redeploy sourcing capacity, and track hiring SLAs.
• Demonstrated understanding of UAE HR context, including Emiratization targets/reporting and compliance with institutional policies and delegations of authority.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and documentation skills; ability to influence without authority.

Preferred

• Higher-education or research-institution experience in the UAE, including planning for academic, research, and professional services roles.
• Exposure to national reporting interfaces or government stakeholders (e.g., Emiratization reporting) and collaboration with Finance on budget headcount controls.
• Vendor/agency coordination for hard-to-fill roles; market benchmarking and workforce risk assessments.