About the client

As a leading global engineering and energy organisation delivering large-scale, multi-year infrastructure and technology projects across international markets, the business operates in an environment where workforce planning is business-critical.

With highly specialised teams working across multiple countries, complex project delivery timelines extending up to 10 years, and growing pressure to improve operational efficiency while protecting employee wellbeing, the organisation needed a workforce planning solution capable of supporting both immediate operational demands and long-term strategic growth.

Having relied on Retain On-Premise successfully for more than a decade, the organisation recognised the need to modernise its approach with a more agile, cloud-based platform that could provide:

1. Greater long-term workforce visibility across complex engineering programmes
2. Real-time reporting and financial oversight for faster decision-making
3. Improved collaboration between global and offshore teams
4. More proactive workload management to reduce employee overutilisation
5. Scalable workforce planning capabilities aligned to future business growth

The organisation required a solution that could not only handle the scale and complexity of enterprise-level project delivery, but also provide the flexibility and visibility needed to manage a globally distributed workforce effectively over the long term.

The Challenge

Managing large-scale engineering projects with long delivery cycles introduced several operational and workforce planning challenges.

The organisation needed the ability to forecast workforce demand years in advance while maintaining the flexibility to respond to changing project requirements, evolving customer demands, and workforce availability.

Several key priorities drove the search for a new workforce planning platform:

• Long-Term Workforce Visibility
• Projects frequently spanned multiple years, with some extending close to a decade. Leadership teams needed visibility into future staffing availability, capability gaps, succession planning, and projected workforce attrition without relying on disconnected spreadsheets or manual processes.
• The business required a platform capable of supporting accurate workforce forecasting both strategically and operationally across long-term programmes.
• Real-Time Reporting & Financial Oversight

The organisation wanted to move away from delayed, manually generated reports and instead provide leaders with real-time access to workforce allocation, utilisation, project budgets, and capacity forecasts.

• Seamless integration with Power BI was essential to support faster, data-driven decision-making across operational and leadership teams.
• Employee Wellbeing & Sustainable Workforce Planning
• As project demands increased globally, the organisation wanted to ensure workforce planning remained people-focused.
• Preventing employee burnout became a key business priority. Managers needed proactive visibility into overutilisation risks so workloads could be balanced before employee wellbeing or project delivery was impacted.
• Global Workforce Collaboration

Operating across multiple regions and offshore teams created additional complexity around workforce coordination and resource visibility.

The organisation needed a unified workforce planning platform capable of improving collaboration and enabling efficient cross-border resource allocation across global teams.

Why Retain Cloud Was Chosen

During the evaluation process, the organisation reviewed several workforce planning and project management solutions.

While some competitors focused heavily on automation and others offered broad project management functionality, none delivered the balance of long-term workforce planning flexibility, scalability, usability, and reporting capability required by the organisation.

Retain Cloud stood out for several reasons.

• Flexible Long-Term Planning Capabilities
• Retain Cloud enabled the organisation to achieve 7 years of historical visibility and 10 years of forward planning with minimal configuration.
• This gave leadership teams the ability to forecast workforce demand accurately across long-term engineering programmes while maintaining flexibility as project requirements evolved.
• Real-Time Reporting Through API Integration

Through API-driven integration with Power BI, managers gained immediate access to workforce allocation data, project budgets, utilisation reporting, and future capacity forecasts.

This significantly reduced the delays associated with manual reporting and improved operational decision-making across the business.

• Scalable Global Workforce Visibility
• Retain Cloud provided a unified workforce planning environment across both domestic and offshore teams.
• Managers could now view workforce allocation across regions in real time, improving collaboration and enabling more effective cross-border resource management.
• Human-Centric Workforce Planning

Unlike platforms focused purely on automation, Retain Cloud enabled managers to proactively identify employees approaching overutilisation thresholds.

This allowed workloads to be redistributed before burnout became a problem, helping the organisation maintain a healthier and more sustainable workforce.

Additionally, Retain Cloud’s AI-powered suitability matching helped managers assign the right people to the right projects based on skills, availability, and suitability without introducing unnecessary complexity.

Implementation & Migration

One of the most significant parts of the implementation process involved migrating years of legacy workforce and project data into the new cloud platform.

Ensuring this data was clean, structured, and suitable for long-term workforce planning represented a major project in itself.

Retain worked closely with the organisation throughout the migration, providing dedicated implementation support to ensure the transition was smooth and the data was correctly structured from day one.

The collaborative approach helped minimise disruption while ensuring the organisation could begin benefiting from the platform quickly and effectively.

The Results

Since implementing Retain Cloud, the organisation has transformed how it manages workforce planning across complex global projects.

Key outcomes include:

• Accurate workforce planning with visibility up to 10 years ahead
• Faster operational decision-making through real-time reporting
• Improved workload balancing and reduced overutilisation risk
• Better collaboration across international and offshore teams
• Reduced reliance on manual reporting processes
• Improved financial visibility and budget control
• More efficient workforce allocation across projects and regions

The organisation now has a far more connected and proactive approach to workforce management, enabling teams to respond faster to operational changes while maintaining employee wellbeing.

Final Thoughts

By moving to Retain Cloud, this global engineering organisation has modernised its workforce planning capabilities to support the demands of large-scale, international project delivery.

The business now benefits from:

• Long-term strategic workforce visibility
• Real-time utilisation monitoring to support employee wellbeing
• Improved global collaboration and unified workforce planning
• Automated reporting and financial oversight through API integration
• Dedicated implementation and migration support
• Scalable workforce planning aligned to future growth

The result is a smarter, more connected workforce planning strategy that improves operational visibility while putting people first.

Discover How Retain Cloud Can Support Your Organisation

See how Retain Cloud can help your organisation optimise workforce planning, improve resource allocation, enhance financial visibility, and support employee wellbeing across complex global projects.