Staffing plan template

When teams grow quickly, resource management can become a juggling act. Without adequate planning, your upcoming projects can stall because of unknown staffing needs or uneven workloads. A staffing plan template helps you visualize roles, responsibilities, and capacity in one place. With this template, you’ll create a plan to find the right people for the right work at the right time.

Asana’s staff planning template simplifies organizing your workforce by skill set, timeline, or department. Whether you’re managing seasonal hiring, a major project launch, or daily team scheduling, this simple staffing plan template helps you allocate resources strategically and adapt as priorities evolve.

Who benefits from staffing plan templates?

Here at Asana, we’ve seen every kind of team use staffing templates to coordinate priorities. A detailed staffing plan prevents team member burnout, supports hiring decisions, and ensures that every role contributes directly to business goals.

Human resources and people teams

HR professionals use staffing plans to forecast hiring needs, budget for salaries, and maintain a balanced team structure. The template provides a transparent overview of current and future staffing requirements.

Project managers

Project leads rely on the staffing matrix template to identify skill gaps and assign resources efficiently. It’s an essential tool for coordinating people with project timelines, especially in cross-functional environments.

Department heads

Team leaders use the template to coordinate workloads, evaluate performance, and make informed decisions about reallocating staff or approving new hires.

Finance and operations teams

Operations specialists and finance managers use staging templates to understand how resources are allocated and the associated costs.

Why use Asana’s staffing plan template

When you can see your entire workforce alongside your project timelines, it’s easier to spot bottlenecks, address capacity issues, and plan your staffing strategy proactively.

Benefits of using a staffing plan template include:

• Align people, skills, and priorities in one central workspace

• Forecast staffing needs and hiring timelines

• Balance workloads to prevent burnout and missed deadlines

• Improve visibility into resource allocation across teams and projects

• Save time with an adaptable, simple staffing plan template that scales with your organization

How to use this staffing plan template

This staffing plan template helps human resources teams, managers, and business owners align people with organizational goals. It organizes every element of workforce planning, so you can build a staffing plan that supports both short-term and long-term priorities.

The template’s sections and columns provide a roadmap for evaluating your current staffing situation, addressing gaps, and preparing for future staffing needs. Follow these steps to make the most of the Asana free template.

Step 1: Align your staffing plan with business strategy

Start with the Strategic Alignment section. Outline how your staffing objectives connect to company goals and upcoming initiatives. Add business goals to each task to ensure that staffing decisions directly support your overall business strategy.

Include any planned specific projects or growth areas that will influence your hiring process. This early alignment helps guarantee that every staff member is placed in the right roles to achieve organizational priorities.

Step 2: Analyze your workforce and forecast needs

Move to the Workforce Analysis and Forecasting section to evaluate your current workforce and predict what’s ahead. Use the columns for Key Skills, Performance, and Tenure to capture valuable insights about your existing team.

This section helps you identify the number of full-time employees you have, the number needed for growth, and how to optimize staffing across departments. By mapping talent data here, you can anticipate shortages and prepare for future expansion.

Step 3: Conduct a gap analysis

In the Gap Analysis section, compare your current staffing against projected needs. Use the Required Skills and Success Metrics columns to highlight where additional training or hiring is necessary.

Gap analysis supports proactive succession planning by clarifying which areas lack specific skills or depth. It’s also a useful tool for business owners and HR teams to plan targeted development or recruitment efforts.

Step 4: Build staffing strategies

Under Staffing Strategies, define how you’ll address the gaps identified. Create tasks for new hires, internal transfers, or contractors to balance workload and capacity. You can also add details for your training plan and initiatives that improve employee engagement or retention. 

Step 5: Plan your budget and resources

In the Budget and Resources section, estimate salaries, benefits, and overall labor costs. Add tasks for reviewing funding approvals and tracking progress toward resource allocation goals. This budgeting section ensures your staffing model aligns with financial limits and growth projections. 

Step 6: Implement, monitor, and review

Use Implementation and Review to finalize your plan, assign responsibilities, and track outcomes. Include recurring tasks to measure staffing success against your project plan and workflow milestones.

Add review points to monitor progress on retention and performance over time. This ensures your plan remains flexible and effective, even as priorities shift, the firing process changes, or restructuring occurs.

Asana planning and goal-setting features

Asana features turn your staffing plan template into a fully interactive workforce management tool. We’ve included a few go-to goal-setting and planning features in this template, but you can customize it with any feature in our library.

Custom fields

Use custom fields to track department, job title, capacity, or project assignment. Custom fields make it easy to sort and filter your staffing data based on role or workload.

Timeline

Visualize your staffing plan with a Gantt-style view. See who’s available, who’s overbooked, and where future hiring gaps may occur.

Workload

Monitor team capacity in real time. The Workload feature lets you identify imbalances and redistribute work before burnout occurs.

Automation

Use Asana Rules to automate staffing updates. Automatically assign tasks when roles change or send notifications when new hires are added to your plan.

Dashboards

Turn staffing data into insights with customizable dashboards. Track hiring progress and role fulfillment metrics to make strategic decisions.

Recommended integrations for staffing plan templates

Integrations make your Asana staffing plan template even more powerful by connecting it with the tools your teams already use. Visit our integration app hub to find the platforms you regularly use.

Slack

Send staffing updates and hiring reminders directly to Slack channels. Keep communication between HR and department leads quick and transparent.

Google Sheets

Sync staffing data to Google Sheets for deeper analysis or headcount reporting. Perfect for creating quarterly summaries or visual reports.

Workato

Connect Asana with Workday to update employee data, new hires, and role changes automatically within your staffing plan.

Outlook Calendar

Sync employee schedules and PTO directly to your staffing plan. 

Tableau

Generate advanced reports and visualizations on team utilization, workload trends, and staffing forecasts for executive reviews.

FAQs about staffing plan templates