Strategic Workforce Planning Lead

Aurora Innovation Aurora Innovation · Robotics · Mountain View, CA · People

This role focuses on strategic workforce planning, analyzing current capabilities, and forecasting future talent needs based on business strategy. It involves demand and supply forecasting, gap identification (including how AI might change future employee profiles), and partnering with various departments like Finance and Talent Acquisition. The role also includes predictive modeling for business scenarios, developing key workforce metrics, aligning hiring plans with budgets, optimizing resource mix, and identifying critical talent gaps and skill adjacencies, with a specific mention of prioritizing 'emerging' skills like AI proficiency.

What you'd actually do

  1. Demand Forecasting: Analyzing business goals (e.g., expansion into a new market) to project future staffing requirements.
  2. Supply Analysis: Evaluating the current internal workforce to identify existing skills and potential attrition (retirements, turnover).
  3. Gap Identification: Pinpointing the discrepancy between future needs and current reality, whether in total headcount or specific technical skills. Including how AI can augment human labor or change the profile of employees required in the future.
  4. Partnership: Partner with Executive Leadership, Finance, Talent Acquisition, Compensation, and People Analytics to align workforce strategies with business goals, budget, and headcount projections.
  5. Predictive Modeling: Using historical data and market trends to build models that simulate various business scenarios (e.g., "What happens to our capacity if turnover increases by 10%?").

Skills

Required

  • 10+ years of progressive experience in Human Resources, with a strong focus on Workforce Planning
  • Proven experience partnering directly with C-suite executives within a rapidly scaling organization.
  • Technology industry experience is strongly preferred.
  • Proven experience designing and implementing Strategic Workforce Planning frameworks and models.
  • Highly proficient in using Workday and other systems/tools tools to extract, analyze, and present data-driven insights to senior leaders.
  • Exceptional verbal, written, and presentation skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across all levels of the organization.
  • Strong communication skills (written and verbal) to effectively address all organizational levels.

Nice to have

  • Advanced degree preferred.
  • Ability to travel within the U.S

What the JD emphasized

  • AI proficiency must be prioritized
  • AI can augment human labor