Posted On: 4-15- 2016
Position Title: Team Leader – Strategic Planning Analyst
Job Location: Appleton, WI
Contact: Scott Boyd – scott_boyd@glic.com

 

Guardian Overview:

Guardian has a proud legacy, rooted in creating a better future for our customers and employees. Our reputation for integrity goes back to the company’s founding, over 150 years ago. We continue to succeed by improving the lives of the people we help and living our values:

  • We do the right thing
  • People count
  • We hold ourselves to very high standards

Do you want to be part of a team that prides itself on continuous improvement, develops its employees, and energizes you to meet your potential?

Do you find it rewarding to drive organizational changes by communicating the stories behind its numbers?

Are you innovative and bold enough to address challenges with creative solutions?

Does the opportunity to interact with business executives to improve financial and operational results motivate you?

If you can effectively communicate, build strong relationships and educate business partners on the importance of operations planning and expense management, then Guardian has an exciting career opportunity for you as a Strategic Planning Analyst!

 

Position Summary:

The Senior Strategic Planning Analyst position is responsible for the ensuring Guardian has enough resources available to service our customers while balancing the needs of our employees.  Strategic Planning Analysts partner with leadership and is responsible for leading a team of analyst to effectively plan a $25M to $30M service team per analyst.

Major Opportunities and Decisions:

Staffing Model Maintenance and Administration

  • Anticipates and addresses business needs for data, forecasting, and planning to protect the customer experience
  • Designs, maintains, documents, and updates Strategic Planning models and platforms to provide ongoing improvement enabling business partners to effectively manage their business
  • Comfortable interacting with databases

Forecasting:

  • Analyzes and interprets data using statistical procedures, research programs or other methods, and makes tabulations as well as projections based on statistical inference.
  • Provides long range forecasting (three to five years) snapshot to business partners monthly

Strategic Planning:

  • Designs, creates, and maintains staffing plans for over 500 FTE per Analyst
  • Designs and maintains solutions to ensure staffing models match business need, taking into consideration shrinkage, productivity, training time, progression periods, extended absences, and other factors that could impact capacity
  • Partners with other areas of Financial Planning and Analysis to recommend future budgetary adjustments to staffing considerations as necessary

People:

  • Provides guidance and direction on overall forecasting/modeling direction.
  • Responsible for the growth and development of exempt level Strategic Planning Analysts
  • Conduct performance assessments and provides feedback to direct reports.
  • Model Guardian’s values

Skills and Knowledge:

Competencies/Skills:

  • Strong leadership and development skills
  • Ability to translate strategic direction, key environmental and external factors, and business context into capacity requirements
  • Ability to effectively communicate capacity demand to managers, directors, AVPs, 2nd VPs, and VPs
  • Capability to drive decisions to align people supply with demand, including justifying need of additional capacity to senior leadership
  • Comfortable holding leaders accountable to expense savings associated with planning and ensures those savings are tracked and achieved
  • Advanced mathematical and analytical skills
  • Ability to work effectively with remote teams
  • Advanced Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, and Word skills
  • Ability to interact with data through statistical reporting tools (Cognos, SQL, Access, SAP Business Objects, or similar)
  • Ability to take historical data and combine business feedback to paint a meaningful picture of the future
  • Able to lead change, drive performance, and reduce operational defects
  • Self-driven; you have superior organizational skills, integrity, and great follow-through on tasks

 

Education and Experience:

Education:

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience

Experience:

  • Experience building relationships in a professional environment
  • Experience leading people within workforce planning areas.
  • Experience in logical analysis, problem solving, and decision making
  • Experience communicating effectively to drive change
  • Have communicated successfully with individuals, small groups, and large teams of people
  • 3+ years’ experience in Finance or Workforce Planning function performing mid-term or long-term headcount or financial projections
  • 3+ years’ experience interacting and planning for complex operations environments
  • 2+ years’ in a leadership/coaching exempt employees

Travel:

  • Some travel required – 20%