Workforce Clarity Diagnostic

Our Workforce Clarity Diagnostic is designed for moments when leaders need an independent, cross functional view of how their workforce model is really working.

It can be run as a one off to create a baseline and then repeated periodically to track progress, test whether interventions are working and reset priorities.

External partners and suppliers can also deploy WCD with their own clients as a way to surface what is and is not working in their service, and how that sits within the broader workforce landscape.

If you recognise your situation in any of these examples, the Workforce Clarity Diagnostic is likely to repay itself quickly.

Click below to view some example use cases.

1. Boards and Executive teams

• New CEO or MD in the first 100 days
  • A new chief executive or managing director often inherits a complex mix of permanent staff, contractors and partners, but limited clarity on where this model supports or undermines the strategy.
  • WCD provides a rapid, independent view of workforce strengths, weaknesses and risks before big structural decisions are taken, and a clear set of priorities for the first 12 to 18 months.
  • Repeating the diagnostic after 9 to 12 months gives the board and CEO a tangible way to see whether the workforce agenda is moving in the right direction and where to adjust.

• Boards concerned about people risk and resilience
  • When boards are uneasy about people risk, off payroll exposure or delivery resilience, WCD provides a consolidated picture that sits alongside financial and operational reporting.
  • It brings together the perspectives of Finance, HR, Technology and Delivery into a single maturity and risk heat map, highlighting where the organisation is robust and where it is fragile.
  • Running WCD periodically turns it into an ongoing assurance mechanism, while suppliers such as auditors, governance advisers or search firms can use it with their clients to anchor conversations about risk and resilience in a more evidence-based way.

• Executive team alignment before a major strategy shift
  • Before a new strategy or operating model is launched, executive teams often hold very different views about how the workforce really operates.
  • WCD surfaces where Finance, HR, Technology and Delivery agree or disagree on workforce realities, making misalignment explicit and actionable.
  • Repeating the diagnostic at key milestones allows the executive team and any supporting advisers to see whether changes to structure, roles or sourcing are having the intended effect, and gives suppliers involved in the change (for example implementation partners) a shared, objective reference point.

2. HR, People and Talent Acquisition leadership

• CHRO building a three year people strategy
  • Chief People Officers and HR Directors need to decide where to invest scarce time and budget across workforce planning, talent acquisition, contingent labour and HR operations.
  • WCD acts as a front end diagnostic that shows where maturity is low, where risks are highest and where changes will have most impact.
  • By running WCD annually, HR leaders and their suppliers can demonstrate progress against the people strategy, refine their roadmap and show how specific interventions, systems and partnerships are changing the reality on the ground.

• TA or Resourcing leaders under pressure on speed and quality
  • When hiring is perceived as slow or ineffective, it is rarely clear whether the root causes sit in channels, hiring manager behaviour, process design, systems or workforce design.
  • WCD helps TA and resourcing leaders evidence where the real issues lie and build a more balanced narrative with HR, Finance and Delivery.
  • Repeating the diagnostic after key changes such as a new ATS, RPO or internal mobility initiative gives a structured way to check whether promised improvements are being realised, and allows agencies or RPO providers to use WCD jointly with clients to understand how their service fits within the wider workforce ecosystem.

• HR teams asked to comment on contractor and consultancy spend
  • HR is increasingly drawn into conversations about external labour and consultancy spend, but may lack a joined-up view across Finance, Procurement and Delivery.
  • WCD links people data with financial and procurement perspectives so HR can talk credibly about how external workforce decisions are taken in practice.
  • Used periodically, it becomes a way for HR and its partners to track whether policy, process and system changes are actually reducing risk and improving value from external providers.

3. Finance, cost and risk functions

• CFOs running cost reduction or efficiency programmes
  • CFOs leading cost reduction efforts often suspect that non-permanent labour, overtime, backfilling and partner spend are quietly undermining savings plans.
  • WCD shows where this is happening, which levers are within the organisation’s control and where changes in workforce planning, role design or supplier strategy are required.
  • Repeating WCD across budgeting cycles provides a disciplined way to see whether cost actions are sustainable and how supplier relationships are evolving, and gives finance-oriented suppliers a structured way to support their clients on people related cost control.

• Internal audit and risk teams reviewing off payroll and IR35 exposure
  • Policy documents rarely reflect how workforce decisions are really made day to day.
  • WCD offers internal audit and risk functions a structured way to understand how managers and functions actually use contractors, interims and consultancies, and where IR35 or other compliance risks may sit.
  • It can be rerun following policy changes, system introductions or major programmes to show whether risk exposure is reducing over time.
  • Advisory firms, MSPs and compliance partners can also use WCD with their clients to move beyond tick box reviews and into a more holistic view of workforce risk.

• Budget setting where headcount and contractor numbers are contested
  • When Finance, HR and Delivery cannot agree on headcount baselines or contractor numbers, WCD creates a shared narrative and heat map that underpins budget negotiations.
  • It clarifies where spend is genuinely strategic, where it is plugging structural gaps and where it reflects unmanaged demand.
  • Repeating WCD ahead of major budgeting rounds allows CFOs and their suppliers to ground those discussions in a current, multi persona view rather than historic assumptions.

4. Technology, product and delivery leaders

• CTOs and CPOs with heavy contractor reliance in engineering or product
  • Technology and product leaders often depend heavily on contractors and partners, with limited visibility of where this creates resilience or fragility.
  • WCD helps CTOs and CPOs see where contractors are essential, where they are substituting for missing internal capability and where they introduce unacceptable delivery or knowledge risk.
  • Rerunning WCD after major hiring waves, outsourcing decisions or platform changes shows whether the balance between internal and external capability is shifting as intended, and gives service providers in the tech stack a basis for honest discussion with clients about how their teams are being used.

• Programme and portfolio directors running multiple change initiatives
  • Programme and portfolio leaders must blend permanent staff, interims, consultancies and suppliers across multiple initiatives, often resulting in bottlenecks and hidden dependencies.
  • WCD shows how project teams are composed in practice, where capacity constraints sit and how change is affecting business as usual.
  • Periodic use of WCD allows programme sponsors and their delivery partners to monitor whether resourcing and operating model changes are improving throughput and risk profile across the portfolio.

• Heads of Operations dealing with chronic capacity and burnout issues
  • Operational leaders may see symptoms such as burnout, backlogs and escalating external spend, without a clear diagnosis.
  • WCD reveals whether the root causes lie in workforce planning, role design, process friction, technology limitations or misaligned expectations between functions.
  • Repeating the diagnostic after targeted interventions allows Ops leaders, HR and external improvement partners to see which changes are relieving pressure and where issues persist.

5. Change, transformation and organisation design

• Transformation directors kicking off major redesigns
  • Before drawing new structures or designing a target operating model, transformation leaders need a realistic view of how work is currently done and how different types of labour are being used.
  • WCD captures how the workforce is really operating today across functions and labour types, which informs more credible design choices.
  • When used at the start and again at key milestones, WCD becomes a way to test whether the new design is changing behaviours and workforce patterns in the way intended, and helps transformation partners evidence impact.

• Shared services and central functions looking to standardise ways of working
  • Standardisation efforts often clash with local workarounds, shadow teams and informal roles that sit outside formal process maps.
  • WCD highlights these realities before central functions impose new standards, and helps prioritise where to standardise, where to support transition and where local variation is justified.
  • Repeating the diagnostic after standardisation waves enables both clients and their shared service or BPO providers to see which areas have genuinely converged and where friction remains.

• Post merger integration and group reorganisations
  • After mergers or group reorganisations, leadership teams must decide where to harmonise workforce models, where to preserve difference and where risks sit.
  • WCD compares workforce practices, external labour usage and governance across entities and provides a grounded basis for integration decisions.
  • Running WCD more than once during the integration period allows clients and their advisers to track how workforce alignment is progressing and to intervene early where cultures, practices or supplier models are clashing.

6. External advisers and investors

• PE, VC and growth investors working with portfolio companies
  • Investors can use WCD as a lightweight workforce health check that links directly to value creation levers, without commissioning a full-scale due diligence exercise.
  • It highlights how people, contractors and partners are supporting or constraining growth, margin improvement and risk management in portfolio companies.
  • Repeating WCD across the investment cycle allows investors and management teams to track improvement in workforce maturity and risk over time and gives operating partners and specialist suppliers a sharper brief for their support.
• Operating partners and value creation teams supporting post-deal delivery
  • WCD provides a rapid, comparable baseline across portfolio companies, helping operating partners focus on the few workforce and supplier levers that will move performance fastest.
  • It clarifies where delivery risk is rooted in operating model, governance, capability, systems, or supplier dependence – not simply headcount levels – enabling more targeted interventions.
  • Used alongside a 30-60-90 day plan, WCD translates broad value creation priorities into a sequenced set of workforce actions with clear ownership and measurable movement.
• Lenders, debt advisers and independent reviewers monitoring delivery and operational risk
  • For businesses under performance pressure or transformation commitments, WCD provides a structured view of whether the workforce model and supporting processes are resilient enough to execute the plan.
  • It identifies misalignment between leadership perception and operational reality, and highlights where contingent labour, partners, and key suppliers represent concentration or compliance risk.
  • Repeating WCD at agreed intervals gives a pragmatic monitoring mechanism that supports covenant confidence and reduces reliance on anecdotal reporting.

7. Procurement and purchasing leaders

• CPOs and Heads of Procurement seeking control and transparency over external labour and services spend
  • Procurement often sees the spend, but not the operational drivers, decision rights, or the true mix of contractors, consultancies and statement of work activity across delivery teams.
  • WCD provides a cross functional view of how external workforce and supplier decisions are actually made, where governance is strong or weak, and where value leakage is occurring through informal buying, fragmented processes, or inconsistent engagement models.
  • Repeating WCD after changes such as a new MSP, refreshed SoW framework, or sourcing policy update gives a practical way to verify whether compliance is improving and whether spend is shifting towards more strategic, higher value outcomes.

• Procurement leaders introducing or resetting an MSP, VMS, or SoW governance model
  • Implementations often fail not because the technology or supplier is wrong, but because the operating model, roles, and behaviours around demand, approvals, and manager accountability are unclear or contested.
  • WCD surfaces where the organisation is aligned or misaligned across Procurement, HR, Finance, Technology and Delivery on what the workforce model should be, and where friction points will undermine adoption.
  • Used at the start and again post go live, it creates an evidence-based baseline and a measurable set of priorities for optimisation, training, process tuning and governance reinforcement.

• Commercial and procurement functions asked to evidence value for money and reduce supplier dependency risk
  • Periodic use gives procurement teams and their suppliers a shared reference point to improve value delivery, reduce dependency on specific vendors, and strengthen resilience through clearer capability plans and better workforce design choices.
  • Supplier performance issues often reflect deeper internal constraints such as unclear requirements, inconsistent workforce planning, limited internal capability, or a lack of shared metrics and governance across functions.
  • WCD connects procurement signals to operational realities by showing where suppliers are filling structural gaps, where demand is unmanaged, and where contract and engagement models are misaligned to outcomes.

8. Suppliers and partners

• RPOs, MSPs and Neutral Vendors
  • Using WCD to strengthen your proposition and your in life delivery. RPOs, MSPs and Neutral Vendors are often brought in when an organisation already suspects that something is not working in its workforce model, but cannot agree on whether the problem is process, technology, suppliers, hiring managers or workforce strategy.
  • By running WCD pre engagement, you can offer a rapid independent view across Finance, HR, TA, Procurement, Technology and Delivery that shows where the current set up is helping, where it is adding cost and risk, and what needs to change.
  • This makes your proposals more targeted, de risks transition and positions you as a partner who is prepared to tell the truth, not just sell capacity.
  • The Workforce Clarity Diagnostic gives you a neutral, structured way to help prospects understand what actually needs fixing before you propose a solution.

• For existing client programmes, WCD can be used as a periodic health check that looks both at how well your service is performing and at the wider workforce context it operates within.
  • The diagnostic surfaces what is and is not working in areas such as demand management, requisition quality, hiring manager behaviour, process design, systems integration, supplier mix and contractor usage, then translates this into a maturity and risk heat map and a short list of joint actions.
  • Because it takes a cross functional view, WCD allows you and your client to see where issues genuinely sit within the RPO, MSP or NV scope, where they sit inside the client organisation and where they are symptoms of a wider workforce strategy gap.

• Repeated over time, WCD becomes a shared reference point for you and your clients.
  • It enables you to evidence improvement, demonstrate where your service has moved the dial, and make the case for changes in scope, operating model or technology with a clear baseline.
  • It also gives you a credible, insight led way to add value to key accounts, by facilitating a broader conversation about workforce strategy, external labour and talent pipelines rather than only defending SLAs.
• Executive search and interim firms placing senior leaders
  • Search and interim providers can use WCD with their clients to give incoming hires a clear workforce related hit list for their first 90 to 180 days, increasing the chances of a successful appointment.
  • The diagnostic provides an objective view of the workforce they are inheriting, which supports onboarding, early stakeholder engagement and board communication.
  • Repeating WCD later in the tenure allows firms and clients to evidence progress tied back to the original brief, strengthening long term relationships.
• Leadership coaches and NEDs supporting new C-suite appointments
  • Coaches and non-executive directors benefit from a structured, evidence-based view of workforce realities when advising new senior leaders.
  • WCD gives them that view in a form that can be used to shape coaching agendas, challenge assumptions and guide board conversations on people, cost and delivery.
  • Periodic diagnostics provide a way to revisit progress and recalibrate focus over the course of the leader’s first years in role.
• HR and OD consultancies scoping broader programmes
  • People and organisation consultancies can deploy WCD as an entry diagnostic that clarifies where their deeper culture, leadership or change work will have most impact.
  • It equips them with a cross functional, data backed view of workforce issues that supports more targeted proposals and programmes.
  • As change progresses, running WCD again allows both consultancy and client to check whether culture, leadership and design interventions are reflected in how the workforce is actually being used.
• HR tech, ATS, HRIS and VMS vendors pre implementation and optimisation
  • Technology vendors and implementation partners can use WCD with clients to translate strategic workforce needs into more robust requirements and operating model decisions before system build or optimisation.
  • It helps ensure that new platforms are configured to support the reality of planning, sourcing and managing people and external labour, not just idealised process maps.
  • Periodic diagnostics post go live allow vendors and clients to assess whether the technology is shifting behaviours and outcomes as expected, and where further configuration, training or operating model changes are required.

Not sure which use case fits you?

Share a few details about your context and we will tell you whether the diagnostic is likely to be a good investment – and if not, we will say so.

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