Updated in July - 2026 | Subscribe to watch greytHR how-to video
Annual headcount planning is a critical exercise for growing organizations. Before a new financial year begins, HR leaders must plan how many employees to hire, which departments need them, and what the expected budget is. Today, this exercise typically happens outside the HR system — through Excel sheets and long email threads — with multiple stakeholders involved. Teams spend significant time chasing department heads for submissions, and approvals happen in an ad hoc manner as different versions of files keep circulating.
The Manpower Planning module in greytHR brings this entire exercise into a single, governed workflow. Every stage — planning cycle creation, submission of hiring requirements, and multi-level review and approval happens within the system, making the process structured and transparent for everyone involved.
The workflow involves three roles:
Plan initiator (CHRO/Head of HR): Creates and initiates the planning cycle from the admin portal.
Submitters (Department heads/Directors/Senior managers): Submit the manpower requirements for their departments.
Assessors (Reviewers and final approver): Review, modify if required, and approve the submitted plans.
Once enabled, the Manpower Planning module appears in the application launcher of the greytHR Admin portal.
The planning cycle page displays all existing cycles, categorized by status such as Draft, Active, and Cancelled.
From the greytHR Admin portal, hover over the 9 dots and go to Manpower Planning. The planning cycle page opens.
Click Create Planning Cycle.
Note: If a similar cycle was created earlier, you can clone an existing completed cycle instead of creating one from scratch. Select the required cycle from the list and complete the flow.
Enter the Cycle Name.
Select the Cycle Preparation Window. This defines the overall duration within which the entire planning exercise such as cycle creation, submissions, reviews, and final approvals — must be completed. Click Apply.
Select the Fiscal Year for which the planning is being done. The fiscal year is linked to greytHR Payroll, so if multiple plans are created in a year, they can be filtered easily by fiscal year.
Optionally, add a Description and upload supporting documents such as planning guidelines or instructions for submitters and reviewers.
Click Next.
Select the required Employee Filter. All employees matching the filter become the submitters for the planning cycle. The dropdown lists the employee filters already created in your account.
To create a new filter, click the + icon. You are redirected to the Employee Filter page in the main menu. (Link to the existing Employee Filter KB article.)
Define the Submitter Timeline. This is the submission window within which submitters must prepare and submit their manpower plans.
Click Next.
Note: As the employee filter is directly linked to the greytHR employee master, the submitter list updates automatically. For example, if the filter is based on designation and an employee in that designation exits, the replacement is included automatically. No manual update is required.
Select Assessor 1. You can choose Manager or Manager's Manager. The assignment is dynamic — the plan submitted by each submitter is routed to their respective manager as per the employee master.
Add more assessor levels if your organization requires multiple levels of review.
Select the Final Assessor. The dropdown values come from the workflow reviewer types configured in your account, such as Admin or a named user. To set up reviewer types, navigate to Workflow > Setup Workflow Review Types in the main menu. (Link to the existing Workflow Review Types KB article.)
Define the timeline for each assessor level.
Click Next.
Define the actions each role can perform, such as create, view, update, delete, approve, and view comments.
Submitter: The create permission is enabled by default and cannot be removed. Approve and delete are not applicable. The View Comment permission controls whether the submitter can view the comments added by the assessors.
Assessor 1: All permissions can be enabled or disabled as required.
Final Assessor: The approve permission is mandatory. Other permissions can be configured as required.
Review the configurations and click Submit. The planning cycle is saved in the Draft status.
When ready, click Initiate Plan.
The system automatically sends an email notification to all the configured submitters, prompting them to submit their manpower plans.
Submitters receive an email notification with a link. Clicking the link takes them directly to the plan page. Alternatively, they can log in to the greytHR ESS portal and navigate to the Manpower module, which displays two options — Plans and Reviews.
To submit a manpower plan:
From the ESS portal, navigate to Manpower > Plans.
Open the planning cycle initiated by the CHRO.
Add the hiring requirements for your department:
Select the Department and Designation. These values are fetched directly from the greytHR employee masters, ensuring consistency across the organization.
Enter the Planned Headcount — the number of employees to be hired for the role.
Select the Hiring Quarter to specify when the hiring is expected — for example, one employee in Q1 and two in Q3.
Enter the Per Head Cost — the estimated annual cost for each employee in the role.
Add Notes to provide justification or business context for the request.
Click Add to add the row. You can add any number of position rows in the same way.
Once all requirements are added, click Submit Plan.
The plan automatically moves to the first assessor configured in the approval workflow.
Once a plan is submitted, the assessors review it in the configured sequence.
From the ESS portal, navigate to Manpower > Reviews. The plans pending for review are displayed.
Open the required plan. All the manpower requests submitted for the department are displayed, including the department, designation, grade, headcount, and per head cost.
Based on the permissions configured for the cycle, the assessor can:
Edit the requested details, such as the headcount.
Add new position rows.
Add comments to a request.
Click Approve. The plan moves to the next assessor level, if configured.
The final assessor typically a senior leader such as the CFO, CHRO, or CEO — can access the planning cycle either from the admin portal or from the ESS review workflow. The final assessor views the plans submitted by all the departments as individual cards and can review, edit, comment, or add new requests before approving.
To approve all the positions of a department's plan in one go, click Approve All.
Once the plans are approved, the consolidated data is available for download:
From the Admin portal, hover over the 9 dots and go to Manpower Planning and open the required planning cycle.
Click Approved Plans. All the approved plans of the cycle are displayed.
Click Export to download the consolidated Excel report containing the submitter details, positions, budget, and hiring quarters.
It is a module that digitizes an organization's annual headcount planning. HR leaders create a planning cycle, department heads submit their hiring requirements with budgets, and reviewers approve the plans — all within a structured workflow in greytHR, replacing Excel sheets and email threads.
The module is available with the Growth and Premium plans at no additional cost. It is not available as a separate add-on for other plans; organizations on lower plans need to upgrade to Growth or Premium to use it.
To enable the module for your account, contact the greytHR support team. Once enabled, it appears in the application launcher of the Admin portal.
The planning cycle is created and initiated from the Admin portal, typically by the CHRO or Head of HR. Submitters and assessors participate from the ESS portal.
Submitters are selected using an employee filter. All employees matching the filter become submitters for the cycle. As the filter is linked to the employee master, the list updates automatically when employees join or exit — no manual changes are needed.
For each position, submitters select the department and designation, and enter the planned headcount, hiring quarter, estimated per head cost, and notes for justification. Any number of positions can be added in a single plan.
Yes. You can configure Assessor 1 as the manager or manager's manager and add multiple assessor levels, followed by a final assessor such as the CFO, CEO, or an admin.
Yes, based on the permissions configured for the cycle, assessors can edit the requested details, add new positions, and add comments before approving.
Only if the View Comment permission is enabled for submitters while configuring the planning cycle. Organizations can control this based on their requirements.
It is the overall duration within which the entire planning exercise — cycle creation, submissions, reviews, and approvals — must be completed. Separate timelines can also be set for submitters and each assessor level.
Yes. While creating a planning cycle, you can clone an existing completed cycle instead of setting it up from scratch.
Open the planning cycle from the Admin portal and click Approved Plans. All the approved plans can be exported into a single consolidated Excel report with the submitter, positions, budget, and hiring quarters.
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