HR strategy and workforce planning for Housing Finance Companies: headcount by desk that expects the property cycle
Housing loans move through sales, credit, legal, technical and operations desks. Planning headcount for each desk, including the quiet months, stops the queues that frustrate customers and burn out staff.
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Share your requirementsWhy HR strategy and workforce planning matters in housing finance companies
Staffing in housing finance usually follows the last quarter. When volumes rise, the sales team is expanded first, and the legal and technical desks are asked to cope. Files wait, customers complain and the desk staff work late. When volumes fall, hiring stops, good people leave and the next surge arrives with a thin team.
A workforce plan starts with file counts by stage and how many each person can handle. It projects the next year, using the pattern of past seasons and the pipeline from builders. It then decides where to hold a core team, where to cross-train and where to add cover. Hiring lead times are built in, because a credit officer or valuer takes months to find and longer to become independent.
How to set it up
1. Count files by stage and by desk
For the last two years, chart how many files reached each stage per month and how long each took. Note the peaks.
2. Work out capacity per person
Ask each desk how many files one person can handle properly in a month. Use real figures, not targets.
3. Project the next year
Combine past patterns, builder pipelines and branch plans to estimate the load by desk. See HR strategy and workforce planning.
4. Decide the core, the cover and the cross-training
Set a core team that holds through quiet months, a way to add cover at peaks and cross-training so people can help another desk.
5. Add hiring lead times to the calendar
Start searches for scarce roles such as credit and legal early. Review the plan each quarter as the market changes.
Check these first
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These take an afternoon and use your own records.
- Find the month with the longest average file time and see which desk was stretched.
- Ask each desk how many files a person can carry and compare with actual load.
- See whether anyone in sales can help operations at a peak.
- Check how many months a credit officer vacancy stayed open last time.
GullyHR can do this with you. Read how we approach HR strategy and workforce planning in general, or share your requirements and we will tell you where to start.
Questions owners ask
A twelve month view, reviewed each quarter, suits most lenders. For scarce roles, start searching six months before the expected need.
Yes, within limits. Operations and servicing staff can learn each other's tasks fairly easily. Credit and legal need deeper skills, so cross-train for support work and checking.
Hold the core team, use the time for training and process work and avoid losing credit and legal staff, who are hard to replace. A plan agreed before the downturn helps.