Data Analytics for HR Professionals and Workforce Planning Training Course

Course overview

HR teams are expected to explain headcount changes, hiring demand, attrition risk, absence patterns and workforce costs with evidence rather than intuition. Yet HR data is often split across HRIS, payroll, recruitment and learning systems, defined inconsistently and presented in reports that do not answer business leaders’ operational questions. This course equips HR professionals to turn workforce data into decision-ready analysis for staffing, retention, succession and budget planning.

Participants learn to define reliable HR metrics, structure an analytical question, clean and join workforce datasets, and distinguish descriptive trends from evidence that supports action. The course covers Excel analysis, Power Query data preparation, SQL queries for HR data, and Power BI dashboards. Participants calculate and interpret core measures including headcount, FTE, turnover, retention, vacancy rate, time-to-fill, span of control, workforce cost and diversity representation. They also build workforce plans using demand assumptions, supply analysis, scenario modelling and gap forecasts.

Instructor-led demonstrations are followed by guided labs using realistic anonymised HR datasets. Participants work through a multi-year workforce planning case, test metric definitions, investigate attrition patterns, prepare a reusable dataset and communicate findings to a senior leadership audience. Each participant leaves with a workforce analytics pack: a documented metric dictionary, an Excel planning model, SQL query examples, a Power BI dashboard design and a 90-day plan for applying the methods to their own HR function.

The course is designed for HR professionals who already work with reports or spreadsheets and need stronger analytical capability for workforce decisions. It is equally relevant to HR business partners who must challenge assumptions, HR analysts who need a more structured planning approach, and managers responsible for translating people data into resourcing recommendations.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Define a governed HR metric dictionary for headcount, FTE, turnover, retention, vacancy and workforce cost measures
• Clean, validate and combine HRIS, recruitment and payroll extracts using Excel and Power Query
• Write SQL queries to filter, aggregate and join employee, position and recruitment data
• Calculate cohort-based attrition, retention, absence and time-to-fill measures with defensible denominators
• Build a workforce supply-and-demand model using headcount drivers, productivity assumptions and scenario inputs
• Create a Power BI dashboard that presents workforce trends, variances and drill-downs for management review
• Interpret workforce patterns while identifying data-quality limitations, bias risks and confidentiality controls
• Produce an evidence-based workforce planning recommendation with actions, assumptions, risks and measures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• HR Business Partners — who need to advise leaders on headcount, capability and retention decisions
• HR Analysts — who prepare workforce reports and need stronger data preparation and forecasting methods
• Workforce Planning Managers — who model labour demand, supply gaps and resourcing scenarios
• People Analytics Specialists — who need repeatable metrics and stakeholder-ready dashboard outputs
• Talent Acquisition Managers — who must connect hiring pipeline data to capacity and vacancy plans
• HR Operations Managers — who own HR data quality and need to improve reporting consistency

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should be comfortable using Excel for tables, formulas, filters, sorting and basic charts, and should understand common HR terms such as headcount, FTE, employee lifecycle, vacancy and turnover. Experience producing HR reports, working with an HRIS export, or supporting workforce decisions is strongly recommended. Familiarity with Power BI or SQL is useful but not required; the course introduces the query and dashboard features used in class. Participants do not need programming experience, statistical modelling expertise, access to a live HR system, or advanced mathematics. A working laptop with Excel and permission to install Power BI Desktop is recommended.

Training methodology

The five days combine short instructor-led explanations with hands-on analysis of realistic anonymised employee, position, recruitment and payroll datasets. Participants build calculations in Excel, transform files in Power Query, write and test SQL queries, and create management-facing visuals in Power BI. Case discussions focus on the decisions behind the numbers: whether to hire, retain, redeploy or redesign work. Small groups challenge metric definitions and scenario assumptions, then present recommendations. The final session converts the capstone into a 90-day workplace application plan.

Course outline

Day 1: HR data foundations and metric governance

• Workforce analytics questions linked to business and operating plans
• HR data sources across HRIS, payroll, ATS and learning systems
• Headcount, FTE and position-management definitions
• Metric numerator, denominator and time-period design
• Employee identifiers, effective dates and organisational hierarchies
• Data-quality profiling for duplicates, missing values and invalid codes
• Employee-data privacy, aggregation and disclosure-risk controls

Workshop: Participants audit a sample HR data pack and produce a metric dictionary with agreed definitions, owners, source fields and quality checks.

Day 2: Preparing and querying workforce data

• Excel Tables, structured references and controlled lookup design
• Power Query import, data types and repeatable transformation steps
• Cleaning job families, locations and organisational-unit fields
• Joining employee, position, requisition and payroll tables
• ANSI SQL SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY and CASE expressions
• SQL GROUP BY aggregations for HR measures
• Date logic for hires, leavers, snapshots and tenure bands

Workshop: Participants create a cleaned workforce dataset, document transformation steps and write SQL queries for monthly headcount and vacancy analysis.

Day 3: Workforce measures and diagnostic analysis

• Headcount movement bridges for hires, exits and internal moves
• Voluntary turnover and retention cohort calculations
• Absence rate, absence duration and lost-time analysis
• Recruitment funnel, time-to-fill and offer-acceptance metrics
• Span of control and management-layer analysis
• Workforce cost analysis by function, grade and location
• Segmentation methods for job family, tenure, performance and critical roles

Workshop: Participants investigate an attrition and vacancy case, calculate key measures and prepare a one-page diagnostic identifying priority workforce risks.

Day 4: Forecasting workforce demand and supply

• Translating operating-plan assumptions into workforce demand drivers
• Productivity ratios and workload-based staffing calculations
• Internal workforce supply analysis using retirement, attrition and mobility assumptions
• Build-buy-borrow-automate workforce response options
• Scenario modelling for base, growth and constrained-budget cases
• Workforce gap analysis by role, skill, location and time period
• Sensitivity analysis for assumptions and planning risks

Workshop: Participants build an Excel workforce plan for a business unit, model three scenarios and produce a quantified demand-supply gap forecast.

Day 5: Dashboard storytelling and workforce recommendations

• Power BI data model relationships and star-schema principles
• Power BI measures for headcount, turnover and vacancy KPIs
• Dashboard layout for executive, manager and HR analyst audiences
• Variance commentary linking actuals, plan and forecast
• Trend, cohort and segment visualisation selection
• Recommendation writing with actions, costs, risks and owners
• Workforce analytics operating rhythm and 90-day implementation planning

Workshop: Participants complete a workforce planning capstone by presenting a Power BI dashboard, scenario recommendation and 90-day analytics implementation plan.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power Query, Microsoft Power BI Desktop, ANSI SQL

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions