Equipping HR for the future of work: Europe’s workforce planning trends in 2026

Workforce planning is becoming top of mind for European companies. And it is not just a question of rising costs. What distinguishes 2026 is the sought-after balance of human personnel and AI automation to address these higher labour and operational expenses.  

Economic growth in Europe is limited, and people comprise a large share of every company’s cost structure. Combine the potential of AI with a general talent shortage and organisations start to ask how they can relieve workforce costs while adding real value.  

The question becomes how can companies access a continuous supply of talent, keep that supply chain running, and be forward-looking so the whole process doesn’t lean on ad hoc decision making. And are HR teams and leaders equipped to answer it.

In other words, how can you design systems that keep costs under control while getting the best work out of your human talent?  

Our 2026 HR & Payroll Pulse report, powered by SD Worx Research Institute research and data, looks at the urgent workforce planning trends, including why planning has become so critical, and what employers can do to alleviate mounting pressures.  

Organisations across Europe are all feeling the same pressures: slower growth, difficulty finding talent, rising pressures to save money, and lots of uncertainty around how AI plays into all of this. There’s a scramble to control spending when it comes to people, ensure continuity, and invest in roles that will make a real impact.   

• Workforce planning is among the most urgent challenges facing organisations, with 18.7% of companies reporting it as one of their top pressures.
• 51% of organisations consider workforce planning critical, while 35% say it’s a moderate priority.
• Workforce planning is becoming urgent for many reasons, including sufficient staffing and optimising workforce costs. 48.2% of companies say scheduling efficiency and maintaining adequate staffing is a factor in making workforce planning a priority.  

Despite this urgency, many companies still see workforce planning as a capacity issue. This is likely why many HR departments remain ill-equipped to plan for a more expensive, AI-driven future.  

According to Jan Laurijssen, a consultant, researcher and self-styled HR evangelist at SD Worx, “HR can tell you what the labour cost is, but they do not have simulation models or projections of what will happen next. They do not have impact analyses of AI on the workforce. How many HR departments are making AI occupational analyses?” 

Also, intention and action tend to be a bit misaligned. In many cases, the majority of companies declare they are working on better planning, but only 32.9% of companies have a structured approach to operational and strategic planning. A small share (12.1%) say planning is informal or ad hoc, and 5.3% don’t have any workforce planning on the books.  

One clear way to address this misalignment is to give HR an advisory and strategic role in workforce planning, aligned with business and finance pillars.  

“If I draw a Venn diagram with these stakeholders, then the business is responsible for demand, and you need to listen to finance because they define the financial limits,” says Laurijssen. “So as an HR department, you need to get a clear picture of what the business is asking for: what types of capabilities will we need, and where do they think we can really make a difference?”.  

Another trend in workforce planning is the continued shift from focusing on capabilities and skills instead of headcount and job roles. A substantial share of companies in Europe (43.3%) base workforce planning on a mix of skills and job roles—27.1% are focusing on skills and tasks and 23% on job roles.  

This data suggests momentum, but experts like Laurijssen say that companies may be overstating their progression. Some organisations may interpret skills-based planning more broadly or allow aspirations to colour their responses to research inquiries.  

“There has been a lot of HR communication from all sorts of companies over the past few years around the skills-based organisation,” says Laurijssen, “so that probably plays into it.”

Pulse data backs up the gulf between vision and tangible implementation. More than half of organisations (55.3%) say they are shifting workforce planning from job roles to skills, but people on the ground are having a different experience.  

• 46% of employees feel their talents are being used fully in their current role.
• 40.7% see opportunities to grow or move within the organisation if they so desire.
• 34% say their organisation makes it easy to explore internal jobs, roles or projects that match their skills and interests.

This data says a bit more about internal mobility within teams and across companies, but it shows that a substantial share of organisations aren’t making full use of the skills they already have on staff.  

Organisations across Europe agree that workforce planning is a critical issue, especially as a mix of business and technology pressures mount. The challenge is that workforce planning is an expansive issue. Where can HR leaders start, and what role do they actually have in the business? 

There are three concrete steps HR leads and departments can take to answer these questions while addressing the related urgent trends. 

Project your costs as if nothing will happen. Laurijssen suggests first projecting your workforce and personnel costs, as well as the size of your workforce, over the next five years if you do nothing. Calculate it based on your normal outflow, retirements, and average turnover, and figure out how many people you’ll retain within five years and their total cost.  

• Examine the remaining employees. The second step is to look closely at those people and determine whether they’ll be the ones with the right skills for the coming future.
• Identify what isn’t being done yet. Lastly, or before starting workforce planning initiatives in earnest, determining which skills or task gaps you’ll need to fill. When you’ve identified those shortcomings, you can define the actions you’ll need to take in terms of hiring people, retraining your current staff, expanding your flexible workforce or talent pools, and other initiatives.  

All this is to say that if you haven’t started thinking about strategic workforce planning, or still perceive it as a slate of disparate HR tasks that can be ticked off eventually, now is the time to lift up your HR department and look at workforce planning as a priority.  

Making it central will be essential to tackling rising labour costs, talent shortages, and so much pressure to automate work, while also signalling to employees that their skills are needed and automation doesn’t exclude them from adding real value. 

Need help turning planning insights into action for your workforce? Download the HR & Payroll Pulse 2026 report for free, or contact us for personalised advice.  

Looking for the full story and the data to back it up? The 2026 HR & Payroll Pulse Europe report explores what pressures to watch out for, what’s behind these challenges, and how to handle these changing workplace dynamics now and in the future.