How Everest Group transformed its workforce planning with Anaplan

At Everest Group, a global reinsurance company, the need for a more cohesive and efficient workforce planning process became apparent as the organization experienced rapid growth. In growing from less than 2,000 to over 3,000 employees across 115 countries and offices in 35 locations, Everest Group was grappling with the challenges of tracking headcount, ensuring finance budget and approval of positions before hiring, and maintaining consistency across departments.

Everest leveraged Anaplan for Workforce Planning as a single source of planning truth to bring finance and HR teams together in a collaborative solution to drive more accurate forecasting, alignment with strategy, and confident decision-making.

Growing pains: Uncontrolled growth and lack of visibility

In 2019, Everest Group's leadership underwent a significant change, with a new CEO and CFO bringing fresh perspectives and strategies. As the company expanded its insurance business, headcount grew rapidly too — by 25% in 2022 and 19% in 2023.

Ed Keane, head of FP&A at Everest Group, shared, "We were seeing a lot of unbudgeted positions added. We weren’t able to track who was being added, what was in the plan. Our CFO came to us and said, ‘Fix this.’"

This lack of visibility into the hiring process meant that finance was disconnected from approvals, leaving them to react only when salaries appeared in P&L statements, often resulting in unfavorable variances. There was no audit trail, no way to track who was approving positions, and no centralized system to ensure consistency across departments. Each team was working off their own spreadsheets, creating significant inefficiencies. 

Bridging the gap between HR and FP&A: Anaplan’s solution for integrated workforce planning

To address the challenges of fragmented workforce data and siloed planning processes, Everest Group implemented Anaplan to bring discipline to its operational workforce planning process as is now possible to achieve via Anaplan. This strategic move enabled the integration of their HR data from Workday into Anaplan, providing real-time access to headcount data and automating position tracking processes across functions.

By connecting the plan to hire process in Anaplan with Workday, Everest Group created a closed-loop process. Planned positions in Anaplan automatically sync with Workday for recruitment, while new hires and organizational changes flow back into Anaplan to keep forecasts and reporting up to date.

With Anaplan, Everest Group streamlined and standardized financial and workforce planning across its enterprise, from corporate to business units, with immediate access to performance metrics, and seamless scenario modeling and analysis. This integration ensures that workforce changes — such as hiring, cost variances, location, and timeframes — align with financial plans, providing a comprehensive view of their workforce activity across the organization and maintaining consistency between top-down and bottom-up planning.

Kyle Sakowski, Director of the Center of Excellence at Everest Group, highlighted the effectiveness of the implementation: "The HR model we have in place is one of the most intuitive and user-friendly apps that we actually have in our platform. It enables real-time updates, automated workflows, and consistent data, which has been a game-changer for our teams."

Empowering HR and finance with one source of truth

Kasha Thorkildsen, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis at Everest Group, explained how HR and finance now collaborate: "We’ve built a quarterly forecast in the model for staff expenses, which allows us to track headcount forecasts based on active employees and vacancies. This has helped us maintain a holistic view of our workforce in one platform."

The integrated data flow between Workday and Anaplan has also enabled the organization to maintain a single source of planning truth across systems, eliminating discrepancies between planned and actual headcount. This connection gives both HR and finance teams confidence in their reporting and decision-making, with fewer surprises and faster response times.

Plus, real-time synchronization of workforce data with Workday mitigates the risk of discrepancies that previously occurred between planned headcount and actual staffing. Dynamic update capabilities foster improved transparency and accountability across departments, enabling HR and finance teams to respond promptly to workforce changes. As a result, the organization has gained a comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date view of their human capital, which supports informed decision-making and strategic resource allocation. 

With the adoption of Anaplan, HR and finance are now aligned on a centralized platform that supports continuous, integrated workforce planning. The teams collaborate within a shared environment to ensure position approvals, manage staffing workflows, and maintain up-to-date records of recruitment progress. This centralized approach not only improves transparency and accountability but also ensures that data remains consistent and accurate across all business units and levels of the organization.

Keane confirmed the impact: "We’re not losing positions as we were in previous years. It all closes the loop."

Key takeaways for workforce planning transformation

• Collaboration is key. Bringing together HR and finance teams early on ensures alignment and provides a comprehensive view of headcount and staffing costs.

• Real-time data drives accuracy. With Anaplan, Everest achieved real-time updates, ensuring that headcount data remains current and relevant for decision-making.

• One source of truth unites teams. By integrating systems with Anaplan, Everest consolidated all workforce data in a single platform, eliminating data latency, inconsistencies, manual tracking and reconciliation.

• Scalable and flexible modeling drives growth. Anaplan’s flexible modeling allows Everest to adjust quickly to changes and forecast more accurately, improving financial visibility and planning.

What are your next steps in workforce planning transformation in your organization?