Staffing agencies often rely on a mix of spreadsheets, messaging apps and last-minute workarounds to plan their workforce. When teams work across multiple clients, venues and events, this quickly becomes difficult to manage. Many agencies now turn to workforce planning tools to forecast demand, coordinate people and maintain compliance.
This guide outlines five of the best workforce planning tools for staffing agencies and how each supports different aspects of planning.
The aim is to give a clear overview of what these tools offer, which is designed specifically for agencies supplying temporary staff for events, hospitality, experiential campaigns, festivals and similar sectors.
How Staffing Agencies Use Workforce Planning Tools
Workforce planning tools help staffing agencies organise teams, forecast staffing needs, track skills and maintain clear communication across every project. They reduce the time spent on manual tasks and support more accurate decisions about staffing levels. These tools are used to build schedules, plan for busy periods, maintain qualification and compliance records and keep communication consistent across large pools of temporary staff.
Agencies searching for workforce planning tools are often looking for ways to bring more structure, predictability and visibility to their operations. The right tools help minimise errors, support faster decision making and improve how teams manage multiple events and clients at once.
With that in mind, the following selection outlines five workforce planning tools that support different areas of planning. Each tool brings its own strengths, from strategic forecasting to day to day scheduling. The list begins with the option most aligned with the needs of temporary staffing agencies.
1. Liveforce - Workforce management software
Liveforce is a workforce planning tool designed specifically for staffing agencies that manage large temporary workforces. It supports agencies supplying staff to a mix of events, hospitality venues, festivals, promotional campaigns and similar environments where flexibility is essential.
The platform provides a single place to plan, schedule and manage staff from initial recruitment to shift allocation, communication and timesheets. It is designed around the reality of temporary staffing, where large teams work across different clients and locations, sometimes on the same day.
Liveforce enables teams to build schedules quickly using real time availability. Agencies can plan shifts across multiple events and assign staff based on skills, experience and compliance requirements.
The system checks for conflicts so staff cannot be double booked. It also makes it easier to match the right people to specific roles such as brand ambassadors, hospitality staff, technical crew or festival teams.
Skills based workforce planning
Agencies often need to maintain detailed records of staff skills, right to work documents, training certificates and experience. The Liveforce staff database allows agencies to filter and select staff based on these attributes.
This supports skills based workforce planning and helps ensure the right people are allocated to the right roles.
Temporary workers need quick updates. Liveforce includes a mobile app for staff so they can view shifts, accept jobs, update availability and receive notifications. This reduces the number of missed updates and helps agencies communicate changes instantly.
Compliance plays a large part in workforce planning. Liveforce includes tools for storing documents, tracking expiry dates and ensuring staff meet the requirements of each client. This reduces risk and provides a clear record when planning staffing for regulated environments.
Planned shifts connect directly to timesheets and payment workflows. This reduces inconsistencies between planned and actual hours and helps agencies keep financial processes aligned with staffing plans.
Liveforce is the only planning tool in this list built specifically for temporary staffing agencies rather than internal HR teams. It supports the entire workflow from planning through to delivery.
2. Workday Adaptive Planning
Workday Adaptive Planning is widely used for strategic workforce planning across HR and finance teams. It supports forecasting, scenario modelling and budget planning, making it useful for larger organisations that need to link staffing decisions with long term strategy.
For staffing agencies, Workday is relevant when assessing future demand, modelling headcount needs or evaluating growth. Its modelling features can help agencies anticipate seasonal peaks, shifts in demand or changes to workforce structure.
Key features include:
- scenario planning tools suitable for high level planning
- forecasting modules for headcount and cost
- data driven insights from HR metrics
Workday is less suitable for day to day scheduling or shift level planning, but it offers strong support for strategic workforce planning tools where agencies want to understand long term staffing needs.
3. Anaplan Workforce Planning
Anaplan is a cloud based platform used for strategic workforce planning across global organisations. It supports complex planning models and is often adopted by companies that need detailed forecasting linked to financial planning.
For staffing agencies working at scale, Anaplan may be used to:
- run scenario planning for different event seasons
- analyse staffing capacity
- assess the impact of hiring or reducing pools of workers
- understand long term workforce costs
Anaplan is a strong strategic workforce planning tool, particularly for larger agencies that want to bring financial modelling and workforce planning together. It is not intended for scheduling or managing communication with temporary workers.
4. UKG Pro Workforce Management
UKG provides workforce management software that includes forecasting, scheduling, compliance tools and analytics. It is used across various sectors to manage staff coverage and labour costs.
For staffing agencies, UKG can support:
- demand forecasting for large scale projects
- labour cost planning
- managing compliance rules
- advanced scheduling for complex environments
UKG is widely recognised for its predictive features and compliance tracking. It is particularly useful for agencies with long running contracts or high volume staffing requirements. It is not specifically built for agencies that operate across multiple clients in events, but it offers a strong set of operational workforce planning tools for general workforce management.
5. Visier People Analytics and Workforce Planning
Visier provides analytics and workforce planning software built around data insights. It is used by organisations that want to understand workforce trends, skills gaps and future hiring needs.
Visier helps teams:
- Identify patterns in staffing demand
- analyse performance across workforce segments
- forecast workforce levels using data models
- explore skills-based workforce planning across large teams
Visier is best suited to agencies wanting to improve strategic decision making using data. It does not handle shift level scheduling or communication but complements operational planning tools by offering a higher level analytical view.
How Staffing Agencies Use Workforce Planning Tools
Workforce planning tools help staffing agencies organise teams, forecast staffing needs, track skills and maintain clear communication across every project. They reduce the time spent on manual tasks and support more accurate decisions about staffing levels. These tools are used to build schedules, plan for busy periods, maintain qualification and compliance records and keep communication consistent across large pools of temporary staff.
Agencies searching for workforce planning tools are often looking for ways to bring more structure, predictability and visibility to their operations. The right tools help minimise errors, support faster decision making and improve how teams manage multiple events and clients at once.
With that in mind, the following selection outlines five workforce planning tools that support different areas of planning. Each tool brings its own strengths, from strategic forecasting to day to day scheduling. The list begins with the option most aligned with the needs of temporary staffing agencies.
Types of Workforce Planning Tools Staffing Agencies Use
Staffing agencies often need more than one type of workforce planning tool because their operations combine strategic planning with day to day scheduling. Tools can generally be grouped into two main categories.
Strategic workforce planning tools
These tools help agencies analyse long term demand, build scenarios and plan workforce requirements. They are typically used for quarterly or annual planning and align staffing decisions with growth plans.
Examples include:
- Workday Adaptive Planning
- Anaplan
- Visier
These tools focus on forecasting, capacity modelling and cost planning.
Operational workforce planning tools
Operational workforce planning tools are used daily to allocate staff, communicate updates and track compliance. These tools are essential for agencies that work with temporary staff.
Liveforce fits within this category and supports the full temporary staffing workflow.
Operational workforce planning tools help agencies:
- build schedules for multiple events and clients
- match skills to roles
- send updates and receive confirmations
- keep compliance in check
- manage timesheets and payments
These tools directly reduce the administrative pressure faced by operations teams.
How Staffing Agencies Choose the Best Workforce Planning Tool
Selecting the right workforce planning tool depends on the type of staffing an agency delivers and its operational complexity. Agencies often benefit from combining strategic and operational tools.
Below are common criteria used when evaluating tools:
1. Volume and variety of staff
Agencies handling large pools of temporary workers need fast scheduling, communication and compliance tools.
2. Frequency of changes
If plans change daily, tools that support real time updates, messaging and shift confirmations are essential.
3. Skills and compliance requirements
Skills-based workforce planning tools help agencies allocate staff accurately.
4. Multi-client operations
Agencies working across several clients require tools that offer a clear overview of all events and availability.
5. Need for forecasting
If long-term planning is required, strategic tools like Workday, Anaplan or Visier can provide useful insights.
6. Integration with timesheets and payments
Joining planned shifts with financial workflows reduces administrative effort.
Examples of Workforce Planning Tools in Practice
Agencies often combine several tools to support different aspects of planning.
For example:
- A festival staffing supplier may use Liveforce to schedule staff and track compliance, while using a strategic tool such as Workday for long-term forecasting.
- A hospitality staffing agency may use Liveforce to manage real-time shift updates and a financial planning tool to model seasonal staffing costs.
- An experiential agency may use Liveforce to build team structures for campaigns while using Visier to analyse skill coverage.
This combination helps agencies keep short-term operations smooth while maintaining a clear view of future demand.
How These Workforce Planning Tools Support Staffing Agencies
Each workforce planning tool in this list plays a different role in the planning process. Some focus on long-term forecasting and modelling, while others support daily scheduling, communication and compliance. Staffing agencies often benefit from combining both strategic and operational tools, so planning is consistent from high-level forecasts through to day-to-day delivery.
Liveforce appears first simply because it is the only tool built specifically for temporary staffing agencies working across events, hospitality, experiential campaigns and festivals. The remaining tools offer broader workforce planning capabilities that can support strategic decision making across larger organisations.
Agencies can use this overview as a starting point when reviewing how their current planning process works and where additional tools may help improve visibility, reduce admin and support more reliable staffing outcomes.
Agencies wanting a practical, connected way to plan and deliver staffing projects can book a short Liveforce demo to see how it supports every stage of workforce planning.
