Manager, Workforce Planning

CoolSys; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 85,000 - 105,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Dental coverage

Vision coverage

401k with company match

Life insurance

AD&D insurance

Disability insurance

Tuition reimbursement

Employee discounts

Pet insurance

Legal plan

ID theft protection

Job summary

CoolSys is seeking a Manager, Workforce Planning to lead enterprise demand and capacity planning, ensuring right labor capacity, skills mix, and geographic coverage. You will translate forecasted demand into workforce requirements and drive solutions with cross-functional partners.

Responsibilities include developing 13-week forecasts, optimizing capacity, prioritizing hiring actions, and delivering dashboards and insights for budgeting and performance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Admin, Operations, Finance, HR, Supply Chain, or related field
• 5+ years in workforce planning, operations, analytics, or recruiting operations
• Experience building demand forecasts, capacity plans for multi-location environments
• Proficiency in Excel; experience with BI and analytics tools

Responsibilities

• Develop rolling 13-week workforce demand and capacity forecasts by division, region, branch, trade, skill level, and workforce type
• Translate validated demand into required productive labor hours and identify shortages or surpluses
• Maintain enterprise methodology for calculating available capacity including PTO, training, travel
• Identify opportunities to rebalance capacity across branches and regions
• Translate validated requirements into prioritized hiring actions and monitor requisition aging
• Lead the workforce planning cadence: weekly capacity reviews and monthly outlooks
• Provide forward-looking workforce insights for budgeting and growth initiatives
• Serve as trusted advisor on workforce capacity, recruiting priorities, and labor economics
• Collaborate with Operations, Talent Acquisition, Finance, and HR

Skills

Demand forecasting

Capacity planning

Workforce analytics

BI dashboards

Excel proficiency

Stakeholder influence

Project management

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor’s degree in related field

Tools

ATS

HRIS

BI tools

Field service software

Job description

Overview

CoolSys solves the most complex challenges in refrigeration, air conditioning, heating, engineering, and energy management.With over 3,700 associates nationwide, we deliver tailored solutions to help businesses cut costs, improve equipment performance, and reduce emissions.

Our services include HVAC and refrigeration equipment sourcing, installation, repair, maintenance, monitoring, and optimization. We also offer engineering design, energy resilience and consumption optimization, asset recycling, and seamless multi-site rollouts across states.

CoolSys serves over 45,000 customer locations in industries like retail, food service, commercial, data centers, industrial, and pharmaceuticals.

No wonder Newsweek named CoolSys one of America’s Greatest Workplaces!

We understand that hiring great people is the foundation of everything we do. Our employee benefits packages include:

• Competitive pay: from $85-105K
• Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision and Prescription coverage.
• Paid vacation, holidays, and floating holiday.
• 401(K)with Company match.
• Company sponsored life insurance, as well as optional AD&D, short and long-term disability.
• Tuition reimbursement.
• Employee discountson vehicles, hotels, theme parks, select cell phone bills and so much more.
• Pet Insurance.
• Legal Plan, and ID Theft Protection.

JOB SUMMARY

The Manager, Workforce Planning leads CoolSys’s enterprise workforce demand and capacity planning process, ensuring the business has the right labor capacity, skill mix, and geographic coverage to meet operational and financial objectives. The role translates forecasted demand into workforce requirements and identifies shortages, surpluses, and skill mismatches requiring action.

Partnering across Operations, Talent Acquisition, Finance, and Human Resources, the Manager turns workforce needs into actionable solutions, including redeployment, schedule optimization, training, overtime, subcontractor capacity, and hiring. The role provides forward-looking workforce visibility and drives improvements in labor productivity, service levels, and workforce economics.

Responsibilities

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Demand Forecasting and Workforce Capacity Planning
  • Develop and maintain rolling 13-week workforce demand and capacity forecasts by division, region, branch, trade, skill level, and workforce type, including required versus available headcount, productive hours, and skill mix.
  • Translate service-call volume, preventive maintenance commitments, construction and project backlog, customer launches, seasonality, growth assumptions, attrition, and other business drivers into required productive labor hours.
  • Maintain a consistent enterprise methodology for calculating available productive capacity, including technician availability, utilization assumptions, PTO, training, travel, and other non-productive time.
  • Identify expected workforce shortages, surpluses, and skill-mix imbalances early enough for Operations and functional leaders to take corrective action, including situations where overall staffing is sufficient but the experience, certification, trade, or skill-level mix does not align with operational demand.
• Workforce Capacity, Skill Mix, and Optimization
  • Maintain a current view of required versus available productive hours, headcount, and skill mix, and quantify shortages, surpluses, and skill mismatches by geography, branch, trade, skill level, and time period.
  • Partner with Operations to develop actions for capacity and skill-mix imbalances using the appropriate mix of labor levers, including technician redeployment, schedule optimization, training and upskilling, cross-training, overtime, subcontractors, temporary resources, attrition management, and hiring.
  • Differentiate short-term capacity constraints from structural labor requirements so permanent hiring is targeted to sustainable demand.
  • Identify opportunities to rebalance capacity across branches and regions to improve service coverage, reduce overtime, lower travel, and increase productive utilization.
• Talent Demand Planning and Requisition Prioritization
  • Translate validated structural workforce requirements into prioritized hiring and workforce actions, ensuring hiring is used when demand cannot be addressed through existing capacity, skill development, or other workforce levers.
  • Own the business-side prioritization of open requisitions based on customer demand, service risk, skill scarcity, revenue opportunity, and financial impact.
  • Partner with Talent Acquisition to monitor requisition aging, candidate activity, interview activity, offers, acceptance rates, recruiter capacity, geographic coverage, sourcing strategies, and agency utilization.
  • Escalate stalled requisitions, hiring-manager delays, compensation barriers, or market constraints and facilitate resolution with the appropriate business leaders.
  • Support surge hiring, new market expansion, customer launches, and other high-priority workforce initiatives.
• Workforce Performance Analytics and Operating Cadence
  • Develop and maintain enterprise workforce dashboards and performance reporting for Operations and executive leadership.
  • Lead the recurring workforce planning cadence, including weekly forward capacity reviews and monthly 13-week workforce outlooks.
  • Track and analyze forecast accuracy, capacity coverage, skill-mix coverage, productive utilization, overtime, subcontractor utilization, backlog and aging, vacancy, time-to-fill, first-time fix rate, callback/rework rate, revenue per technician rate, and direct margin per technician.
  • Use workforce and operational performance metrics, including first-time fix, callbacks/rework, productivity, SLA attainment, and job completion trends, to identify root causes of performance gaps and distinguish capacity, skill, experience, deployment, process, or recruiting issues.
  • Provide forward-looking workforce insights for budgeting, operating plans, growth initiatives, and major customer commitments.
• Cross-Functional Partnership and Governance
  • Provide workforce planning support across Source Service, Construction, and Customer Support Operations, including refrigeration service, HVAC, construction, supply chain, food service, call center and dispatch, billing, and account management.
  • Partner closely with Operations, Finance, Talent Acquisition, Human Resources, and business leaders to establish one aligned view of workforce demand and required capacity.
  • Clarify accountabilities across functions: Operations owns service and labor performance; Workforce Planning owns demand/capacity visibility and optimization; Talent Acquisition owns recruiting execution; Human Resources owns workforce policies and talent programs; Finance supports financial assumptions and labor economics.
  • Serve as a trusted advisor to business leaders on workforce capacity, labor-market conditions, recruiting priorities, productivity trends, and workforce economics.
  • Identify recurring process barriers and implement improvements that increase planning accuracy, execution speed, accountability, and decision quality.
• Embody the CoolSys CARES culture: Collaboration, Accountability, Respect, Empowerment, and Safety.
• Other responsibilities as required.

Qualifications

Education / Training

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Operations, Finance, Human Resources, Supply Chain, Workforce Planning, Industrial Engineering, Analytics, or a related field required.
• Relevant workforce planning, operations, analytics, or project-management certification preferred.

Work Experience / Skills

• Minimum of 5 years of progressive experience in workforce planning, field operations, service operations, labor planning, workforce analytics, recruiting operations, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience building demand forecasts, capacity plans, staffing models, and workforce action plans in a multi-location or geographically dispersed environment.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate workforce capacity beyond headcount, including skill mix, proficiency levels, productivity, and operational performance, and to distinguish staffing shortages from capability, or process issues.
• Strong understanding of labor productivity, utilization, scheduling, overtime, subcontractor capacity, workforce forecasting, requisition management, and labor‑market dynamics.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze large workforce and operational datasets and translate findings into practical business actions.
• Experience developing dashboards, metrics, and executive-level reporting; advanced Excel proficiency required, with experience in BI and workforce analytics tools preferred.
• Ability to influence Operations leaders, Hiring Managers, Talent Acquisition, Finance, and HR without direct authority.
• Strong project-management, problem-solving, communication, and presentation skills with a bias for action and measurable results.
• Experience with ATS, HRIS, workforce management, field service management, scheduling, or dispatch platforms preferred.
• Experience in HVAC/R, construction, facilities services, field services, skilled trades, or another technician‑intensive service environment strongly preferred.
• Ability to understand and follow company policies, procedures, and applicable State and Federal laws.

Join Us

Today, there are 27 different companies that make up the CoolSys family of brands. Our valued employees are at the heart of our continued growth and success. We invite you to be part of that growth!

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CoolSysis an EEO/AA Employer. All qualified individuals - Including all ages, colors, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other characteristicsare encouraged to apply.

Pre-employment background screening (criminal andMVR for driving positions) and drug testing arerequiredfor all positions. CoolSys will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with federal law, state law, or local ordinance.