In Finmark, you can model your hiring growth over time using a custom formula. The hiring driver can forecast based on New Headcount or Total Headcount for a Given Role.
How to Forecast New Headcount
How to Forecast New Headcount:
Step 1: Go to the employee's section, and click +Add Hiring Driver.
Step 2: Enter your custom variables or system variables into the custom formula field.
Ex. Dynamic hiring plan based on Revenue targets:
Example #1: New Hire Based on Revenue
Say, for example, we want to create a hiring plan that requires one employee for every $20,000 in monthly revenue. We can use either the FLOOR function or the CEILING function to help us with the formula.
The CEILING function returns the nearest integer greater than the calculated value.
The FLOOR function returns the nearest integer less than the calculated value.
In this example, we will use the FLOOR function. This function will allow us to model 1 employee for every $20,000 in Revenue achieved.
This calculation returns the level of Headcount expected at the current revenue level. However, the hiring trigger requires an estimate of new hires per month. In order to calculate the estimated number of new hires, we subtract it from the current Headcount that is being modeled. We use the offset here [-1] to avoid a circular reference with the current period.
Formula:
floor(Revenue.Total/20000) - [(e..g, Headcount.[POSITION].Total[-1])]
[Relevant Position] Examples:
Headcount.Sales.AccountManager.Total
Headcount.CustomerSuccess.CustomerSuccessManager.Total
Headcount.SoftwareEngineering.SoftwareEngineer.Total
Note a special case where we may have over-hired and have 3 people on the payroll. The formula would return minus 1 (2 Headcount - 3 currently working). This is ok because the hiring driver requires a positive value to model future hires. Therefore, a new hire will only be added once the level of Revenue passes $80,000.
Example #2: Hire with Time (every X months)
Let’s say you want to hire an Account Executive every 3 months starting March 2022.
Build a custom variable on the Custom Variables screen. Let’s call it “AE driver”.
Enter the value ‘1’ in March 2022 (since you want to hire 1 AE starting March)
In April 2022, write the formula: if(Headcount.SalesMarketing.Sales.AccountExecutive.New[-3]>0,1,0)
Copy the formula across all cells
Go to the Employees screen, click on add a hiring driver, and reference the custom variable “AE driver”.
This formula checks whether there was any new AE hired 3 months ago. If there was, then it means that one new AE should be added in the current month to maintain the 3-month cadence. If there wasn’t, then we should not add a new AE.
Example #3: Hire based on another Job Title
Let’s say you want to hire a Customer Success Manager (CSM) for every 5 Customer Service Reps (CSRs) starting March 2022. The formula is as follows (to be entered starting March 2022):
ceiling(Headcount.SalesMarketing.CustomerSuccess.CustomerServiceRep.Total/5) - Headcount.SalesMarketing.CustomerSuccess.CustomerSuccessManager.Total[-1]
The first part of the formula calculates the number of CSMs needed for the current number of CSRs. The second part of the formula compares that number against the number of existing CSMs (by taking the number of CSMs from the previous month). If there are more CSMs needed, then the formula will add the extra CSMs. If the number of existing CSMs is equal to or higher than the number needed, then the formula will not add any new CSMs (however it won’t delete existing CSMs)
Example #4: Hire based on the number of customers
Let’s say you want to hire a Customer Success Manager (CSM) for every 200 customers on a product called “Monthly Plan” starting March 2022 (you can create products on the Revenue screen). The formula is as follows (to be entered starting March 2022):
Formula:
ceiling(Customers.MonthlyPlans.Total/200) - Headcount.SalesMarketing.CustomerSuccess.CustomerSuccessManager.Total[-1]
How to Forecast using Total Headcount
Example #1: Forecast Total Headcount based on a # of Total Employee Growth
Step 1: Create your Variables in the Workbook Section of Finmark
Step 2: Click +Add New Hiring Driver and fill in the following details
