Future-proofing your workforce strategy: Planning for growth in turbulent markets

You continue to see the headlines: the market is in steep decline, global trade tensions are escalating, and tariff policies are shifting. For financial services firms, this volatility directly impacts your bottom line. Your previously optimistic growth plans now seem unrealistic, forecasts lack reliability, and boardroom conversations have quickly shifted toward cost control.

In turbulent markets, reactive workforce decisions can increase costs, lead to budget overages, and create long-term misalignment — undermining future growth. Instead, financial services firms must adopt proactive strategies that balance short-term cost pressures with long-term business viability.

Let’s explore workforce strategies that help navigate market volatility, plan for the unpredictable future, and maintain your competitive edge.

Workforce planning under pressure: Rethinking the hiring freeze

While a hiring freeze may seem like a logical first move, today's complex talent landscape demands a more nuanced, strategic approach. Hiring freezes alone often creates capability gaps that slow recovery when the market rebounds. 

Resilient firms move beyond blunt cost-cutting measures, embracing workforce planning that continuously align talent with evolving business needs. Even in a downturn, not all roles are equal – some are essential to compliance, risk management, innovation, or client trust.

Rather than viewing your workforce as a cost center, treat it as a portfolio of capabilities. This shift in mindset allows for targeted adjustments. For example, you may pause hiring in support functions but continue investing in high-impact areas like digital transformation, cybersecurity, or client experience.

Forward-thinking organizations use scenario modeling to assess how different workforce decisions affect both immediate goals and long-term objectives. During the pandemic, one global investment firm modeled tens of billions in revenue impact over a single weekend — giving them unprecedented agility to adjust operating plans.

When under pressure to cut expenses, remember: your workforce holds your institutional knowledge, internal networks and client relationships, and innovation potential. The choices you make today determine how quickly and effectively you’ll seize opportunities tomorrow.

Smarter talent and technology alignment for profitable growth

When market volatility threatens revenue projections, financial services leaders naturally focus on their two largest expenses: people and technology. But a blunt cost-cutting approach can erode competitive advantage. The key is to optimize — not eliminate — these investments to preserve critical capabilities and future readiness.

In today's interconnected environment, how you plan and manage your talent and technology portfolios shapes both your current cost profile and your long-term success.

Workforce strategies that drive business impact

• Map talent to value: Identify roles directly tied to revenue, risk, compliance, and innovation. Protect these positions — even cost cuts.
• Optimize location strategies: Reallocate top talent to high-priority initiatives, eliminate redundancies, and optimize headcount by cost, region, and seniority. 
  
• Redesign contingent workforce approach: Review contractor spending, renegotiate rates, consolidate vendors, or convert key contractors to FTEs to reduce costs.
• Implement talent actions: Focus on voluntary separation programs where there is excess capacity — not broadly — so you retain your top performers.

Driving efficiency through smarter IT spend

• Audit and optimize your tech portfolio: Look for redundant systems, manual processes, unused licenses, or overlapping apps to unlock quick savings.
• Renegotiate contracts: Start with your largest vendors. Many are open to restructuring contracts to retain business. 
• Rationalize your app landscape: Retire legacy systems where modern solutions already exist.
• Govern cloud spending: Without oversight, cloud costs can spiral. Implement cloud expense management for immediate impact.

Effective cost management requires distinguishing between expenses that can be trimmed with minimal impact and those that serve as enablers for future growth. Scenario modeling helps you craft that mix of short-term actions and long-term investments to maintain momentum.

The goal isn't just cost reduction — it's building a more agile, efficient operating model ready to scale when the market rebounds.

From strategy to execution: Operationalize workforce planning

Workforce planning today is less about moving faster and more about moving smarter. To do that, firms need modern planning tools that improve data accessibility, accelerate decision-making, and drive more accurate forecasts. 

One major investment management firm moved away from fragmented, error-prone spreadsheets and adopted Anaplan — unlocking real-time modeling, streamlined decision-making, and cross-functional alignment across HR, finance, and operations. This shift resulted in faster planning cycles, reduced risks, and improved collaboration with100 stakeholders.

How Anaplan leads you through uncertainty

Anaplan gives finance and HR leaders the power to:

• Dynamically model “what-if” scenarios.
• Collaborate in real-time.
• Align workforce plans with business strategies enterprise-wide.

Whether you're managing cost pressures or positioning for growth, Anaplan enables forward-looking workforce decisions — made with confidence.