Director, Workforce Planning

Vertex Pharmaceuticals•Boston, MA

10h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Workforce Planning Director will lead Vertex’s enterprise workforce planning cycle, partnering with Strategic Finance, People Analytics, HRBPs, Talent Acquisition, Strategic Sourcing, and Digital & Technology on the long range plan (LRP), annual budget, headcount forecasts, and workforce reporting. The role will plan across internal, external, and digital labor, giving Vertex a consistent view of workforce demand, supply, capacity, cost, and mix. The Director will build the planning routines, models, and decision support needed to understand capacity, affordability, risk, and workforce mix across employees, contingent workers, vendor labor, and digital labor. The Director will also be expected to use AI as a core part of how they work, improving the speed, quality, and scalability of workforce planning, analysis, and decision support.

Requirements

Strong fluency in the financial mechanics of workforce planning, including total cost of labor, position management, and budget and long-range planning cycles.
Strong data and analytics skills, including statistical methods, scenario modeling, and the ability to connect workforce data to business dynamics, operating realities, and decisions.
Proven ability to partner across functions and business leadership to translate workforce insights into enterprise decisions.
Practical fluency using AI tools to improve analytical work, automate repeatable tasks, synthesize complex information, quality-check outputs, and strengthen decision support.
Ability to translate workforce plans into staffing, organization, capacity, and labor-mix decisions with senior business leaders.
Planning exposure across labor categories, including employees, contingent workforce programs, vendor capacity, and early models for digital labor.
Experience in pharmaceutical, biotech, or science-driven industry.
Bachelor’s degree plus advanced degree in industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology or a related field (organizational behavior, labor economics, applied statistics) strongly preferred.
Typically requires 10 years of experience in workforce planning, people analytics, strategic finance, workforce strategy, or a related field, including responsibility for an enterprise planning process at scale or the equivalent combination of education and experience

Responsibilities

Lead Vertex’s enterprise workforce planning cycle, including the long range plan (LRP), annual budget, position management, and monthly and quarterly forecasts.
Partner with Finance to develop planning assumptions, scenario models, affordability guardrails, and enterprise standards for executive decision-making.
Partner with HRBPs and Functional Finance to deeply understand business context, pressure-test planning assumptions, and ensure workforce plans and process reflect what is happening in the business.
Plan across all labor categories, including employees, contingent workers, vendor labor, and digital labor, with consistent definitions, cost treatment, and governance.
Partner with Strategic Sourcing to align extended workforce planning with vendor strategy, contingent labor management, external capacity, and total cost of labor.
Translate AI-enabled work redesign, productivity assumptions, and digital labor models into workforce plans, capacity models, and planning scenarios.
Drive automation, standardization and continuous improvement of workforce planning processes and reporting incorporating AI where applicable.
Partner with Talent Acquisition and HRBPs to connect workforce demand to hiring plans, recruiting capacity, pipeline priorities, internal mobility, build/buy/borrow decisions, and workforce risk management.
Partner with People Analytics to build dashboards, reporting, and insights that give leaders a consistent view of workforce trends and planning choices.