Lock reference · Draft

v0.1.0

Approve Workforce Need and Headcount

Turn a business capacity or capability need into an explicit workforce decision before a role or requisition is opened.

Adopt · export.md Adopt · export.jsonDraft reference — not a fitted standard

Profile

Purpose

Choose and authorize the most suitable response to the work—redesign, automation, development, redeployment, external capacity, or employee hiring—using common evidence and clear decision rights.

Intended outcome

A versioned workforce decision that states the need, selected response, economics, timing, ownership, constraints, and next-process handoff.

Accountable

Business leader or workforce approver

Operator

Workforce planning owner or People partner

Use when

— A team says it needs another person or a replacement.
— A business plan creates a new capability or capacity requirement.
— Workload, service, quality, safety, or delivery evidence signals a recurring gap.
— An urgent staffing request would otherwise bypass normal planning.

Entry gate

A business outcome, capacity gap, or capability gap has been stated.
An accountable sponsor and decision authority are identified.
Baseline demand, workload, performance, or risk evidence is available.

Exit gate

The decision is approve, revise, defer, or decline, with its rationale recorded.
The chosen response type, owner, funding, timing, and material constraints are explicit.
If employee hiring is approved, the controlled Workforce Need is ready for role design.
A review point and expected outcome measures are assigned.

Flow · 7 controlled steps

01
Frame the business need
Define the work and required outcome before proposing a person.
- — State the business outcome, obligation, or problem.
- — Describe the work, its customer, and why the need exists now.
- — Name the accountable sponsor, affected processes, and decision deadline.
- — Separate recurring demand from a temporary spike or one-time project.
Responsible
Requesting manager
Output
Business Need
Decision
Is the request anchored to a material business need?
02
Assess capacity and capability
Establish the size, duration, timing, and nature of the gap.
- — Profile current capacity, skills, constraints, and relevant attrition or absence risk.
- — Estimate future demand and the time pattern of the work.
- — Compare available supply with required capacity and capability.
- — Record uncertainty, assumptions, and the consequence of taking no action.
Responsible
Workforce planning owner or People partner
Output
Capacity and Capability Assessment
Decision
Does the evidence show a sustained or material gap?
03
Generate response options
Prevent hiring from becoming the automatic answer to every work problem.
- — Test stopping, deferring, or reducing lower-value work.
- — Test process redesign, workload balancing, and automation.
- — Test development, redeployment, schedule, or organization changes.
- — Test partner, supplier, or contingent capacity.
- — Define an employee role option only where durable accountable capacity is needed.
Responsible
Workforce planning owner or People partner
Output
Workforce Response Options
Decision
Which feasible responses merit comparison?
04
Evaluate economics, timing, and risk
Compare options on the same decision frame rather than preference or urgency alone.
- — Estimate fully loaded cost, lead time, duration, reversibility, and management burden.
- — Assess quality, delivery, safety, regulatory, knowledge, and dependency risks.
- — Test organizational fit and interfaces with current processes and systems.
- — Document material assumptions and ranges instead of false precision.
Responsible
Workforce planning owner or People partner
Output
Options Evaluation
05
Select the workforce response
Choose how the need will be met and make tradeoffs explicit.
- — Choose the preferred response or a staged combination.
- — State why the response fits the duration and nature of the need.
- — Define the intended outcome and leading indicators.
- — Identify the downstream process and accountable implementation owner.
Responsible
Business leader or workforce approver
Output
Recommended Workforce Decision
Decision
What response best meets the need within the company’s constraints?
06
Authorize and record the decision
Convert the recommendation into controlled authority to act.
- — Confirm budget or resource authority and timing.
- — Record approve, revise, defer, or decline and the decision rationale.
- — Assign the owner, review date, constraints, and expiration condition.
- — Publish the controlled decision in the system of record.
Responsible
Business leader or workforce approver
Output
Approved Workforce Decision
Decision
Is the response affordable, authorized, and ready to execute?
07
Route, measure, and review
Start the correct downstream process and test whether the decision solved the need.
- — Send the decision and required data objects to the named downstream owner.
- — If hiring, initiate role design without rewriting the need.
- — Track implementation, exceptions, and early outcome indicators.
- — Review the decision at the agreed point and improve the standard when patterns recur.
Responsible
Workforce planning owner or People partner
Output
Connected handoff · Decision review
Decision
Is the selected response producing the intended operating outcome?

Connections

upstream

Manage Team Capacity and Priorities

Supplies recurring demand, capacity or capability gap, attempted operating responses, constraints, economics, risks, and intended outcome.

Trigger · Evidence indicates a durable gap requiring a workforce response decision.

Carries · Capacity and Priority Review · Workforce Handoff

downstream

Define Role and Success Profile

Supplies the authoritative need, response rationale, owner, budget assumptions, timing, and constraints when an employee role is approved.

Trigger · Response type is Employee role or a combination containing Employee role.

Carries · Workforce Decision · Business Need

downstream

Redesign Work and Workflow

Supplies the documented need, gap, chosen work response, constraints, and expected outcome.

Trigger · Response includes stopping, redesigning, reallocating, or automating work.

Carries · Workforce Decision · Capacity and Capability Assessment

downstream

Build and Operate a Development Plan

May supply an approved development response, capability gap, timing, economics, and intended operating outcome.

Trigger · Development is selected as a workforce response.

Carries · Workforce Decision · Capacity and Capability Assessment

upstream · planned interface

Not accepted

Translate Business Plans into Workforce Demand

pr.05.15.02 · MGT-WFP-001

Would supply versioned business-plan demand, operating-model assumptions, capacity implications, timing, constraints, and confidence for workforce assessment.

Trigger · An approved business plan or material scenario changes required work or workforce capacity.

Interim boundary · Until this reference process is implemented and accepted, current operating demand enters through Manage Team Capacity and Priorities and planning facts remain source-bound inputs rather than an implied process handoff.

Carries · Workforce Demand Model · Business Plan Assumptions

downstream · planned interface

Not accepted

Allocate Work Across Employee, Contractor, Partner, and Automation Capacity

pr.05.10.10 · MGT-ORG-005

Would receive the approved workforce decision, defined work, capability and capacity gap, economics, control requirements, timing, and intended operating outcome for a non-hiring capacity-channel decision.

Trigger · The selected response uses redeployment, contingent capacity, a partner or supplier, or automation and requires a governed allocation decision.

Interim boundary · The client retains employment, procurement, classification, contracting, tax, security, system, and specialist authority. Lock may architect the interface but does not operate the supplier, contingent-workforce, or automation desk.

Carries · Workforce Decision · Capacity and Capability Assessment

Seams · 23 hops within 2 steps

Upstream and downstream neighbourhood over public reference processes only. Each hop shows the trigger, carried objects, and what the receiving process loses if the producing step is skipped.

downstream · hop 1

Frame the business need

Assess capacity and capability

Generate response options

Evaluate economics, timing, and risk

Select the workforce response

Authorize and record the decision

Route, measure, and review

Manage Team Capacity and Priorities

Define Role and Success Profile

Redesign Work and Workflow

Build and Operate a Development Plan

Translate Business Plans into Workforce Demand

Allocate Work Across Employee, Contractor, Partner, and Automation Capacity

Business leader or workforce approver

Requesting manager

Workforce planning owner or People partner

Finance partner

Operations or systems owner

Business Need

Capacity and Capability Assessment

Workforce Decision

Planning and budget system

Operating and workload data

Workforce and skills data

Controlled approval workflow

Decision cycle time

Decision completeness

Connected handoffs

Unauthorized starts

Need resolution

Work displacement guardrail

Strategic Workforce Planning Analytics

Workforce Ecosystem Orchestration Framework

Work response before headcount

Lock whole-system decision principle

Lock connected-process design principle