Personal introduction
Between 2008 and 2014, I worked closely with Prakash Parab at Dulsco in the waste management sector – initially as a client, later as a colleague during my time as Commercial Director, and subsequently as a senior-level freelance consultant. His current series of articles focuses on the staffing business and, therefore, on another service sector that is also highly labor-intensive.
Summary of the original article
In the first chapter, Prakash Parab describes workforce planning not as an annual HR exercise, but as a commercial management task. A staffing company must identify its clients' future needs before a binding order is received.
The author identifies six key areas of action for this: The starting point is the clients' project and sales pipeline. Ongoing tenders, expected project awards, and seasonal peaks provide indications of future personnel requirements. In the UAE context he describes, visa quotas must also be planned well in advance according to professional groups and timeframes.
Another key focus is the actual mobilization period: selection, documentation, medical examinations, visas, travel, and the start of the assignment can take weeks or months. Planning should therefore be done in reverse, starting from the required deployment date.
For short-term requirements, Prakash recommends an appropriately sized pool of pre-vetted candidates. This increases delivery capability but entails costs and must be weighed against expected demand.
Employee turnover and absenteeism must also be included in capacity planning. The author illustrates this using the example of a site with 200 employees: with a daily absence rate of four percent, eight substitute workers would mathematically need to be accounted for. Weekly operational meetings and monthly demand reviews turn planning into a continuous management process.
Practical classification by ELB Services
This approach can be applied to many labor-intensive services. Building cleaning, facility services, logistics, or commercial outsourcing also require lead times for recruitment, onboarding, and replacement.
A practical management model therefore combines the sales pipeline, order probability, required qualifications, available capacities, attrition rates, and costs. In this way, workforce planning becomes an early warning system for sales and operational service delivery.
Author and original article: Prakash Parab – Workforce Planning: Reading Demand Before It Arrives
Overview of the 21 chapters: www.prakashparab.com
Independent German-language summary and practical classification based on an article by Prakash Parab. Not an authorized translation or joint publication. Source verified on October 6, 2026.