How to choose the right workforce engagement model for your programme
A workforce plan needs to answer more than how many people are required. It needs to establish what the organisation is trying to deliver, which capabilities are missing and who will direct the work once those capabilities are in place.
For an employer planning a capital project, a life science programme or a technology transformation in Ireland, those questions should come before a list of job titles. They help distinguish a requirement for an individual specialist from a requirement for a sustained team or a defined professional service.
This guide offers a practical way to structure that decision. The starting point is the work, followed by the engagement model that can support it.
Start with the responsibility you need to fill
Write a short description of the business requirement before discussing resources. Be specific about the next milestone, the expertise it requires and the decisions the organisation wants to retain.
For example, “support the next stage of our validation programme” leaves several questions unanswered. Is there an established internal lead? Are the deliverables defined? Does the organisation need additional execution capacity, specialist knowledge or someone to coordinate a complete package of work?
Treat those as different requirements. A useful initial brief should cover:
- The programme objective and the next decision or delivery milestone.
- The work that needs to be done, including important boundaries and exclusions.
- The specialist capabilities already available internally.
- The work that external professionals or a service partner would undertake.
- The person responsible for setting priorities and accepting completed work.
- The expected duration, dependencies and handover arrangements.
There may be gaps in the brief at this stage. Make them visible. A workforce discussion is more useful when uncertainty is recorded than when assumptions are presented as agreed scope.
Understand Berkley’s three engagement models
Berkley’s Workforce Solutions offering describes three engagement models: Professional Service Engagements, Contingent Workforce Solutions and Specialist Placements. Their published descriptions provide the basis for the distinctions below.
Professional Service Engagements
Berkley describes this model around specialist teams that remain engaged through a programme’s lifecycle. It is relevant to a discussion about sustained team capability and continuity across related phases of work.
Where a managed work package is proposed, establish its specific scope, governance, deliverables and acceptance arrangements. Do not assume that every professional service engagement has the same contractual structure or transfers responsibility for the entire programme.
Contingent Workforce Solutions
This model centres on specialist contractor deployment. Consider it where the requirement is for additional expertise or capacity within a programme whose direction and priorities are already established.
The key planning question is how each specialist will contribute to the existing team. Identify the internal owner, interfaces with other disciplines and the support needed for an effective start.
Specialist Placements
Berkley’s third model addresses individual specialist requirements across business and technology disciplines. Consider this route when the need can be expressed as a specific role with a clear place in the organisation.
Discuss the appropriate terms and duration against the actual requirement. A role title alone does not establish the right engagement arrangement.
Test the model against four practical questions
1. Is the need for a role, capacity or a defined service?
Use a role brief when the organisation needs an individual to take on an established position. Use a capability brief when the immediate issue is a gap in expertise. If the intended purchase is a defined service, describe the outputs and the arrangements for judging completion.
These descriptions can overlap within a large programme. Make the distinction at work-package level rather than forcing the entire programme into one category.
2. Who has the capacity to manage the work?
Identify who will brief specialists, resolve competing priorities and review their output. Include the time these activities require in the internal plan.
If that management capacity is missing, record it as a separate gap. Adding delivery resources should not be treated as evidence that coordination and decision-making are covered.
3. What needs to remain consistent between phases?
List the decisions, system knowledge and stakeholder relationships that should carry forward. Then establish how continuity will be supported: through retained team members, documented decisions, planned overlap or a combination of these measures.
This is particularly useful when one phase finishes before the next team is fully mobilised. Agree who owns the handover and what the receiving team needs to accept.
4. How certain is the scope?
Separate work that is ready to brief from work that still requires discovery. For a clearly bounded package, define outputs and acceptance criteria. For an evolving requirement, agree how priorities, resources and commercial arrangements will be reviewed.
Avoid making certainty a condition of starting any conversation. Instead, make the level of certainty part of the conversation.
Compare complete proposals
Ask prospective partners to respond to the same brief. Compare the proposed expertise, management arrangements, mobilisation dependencies, review process and handover commitments alongside price.
Record what your organisation must provide as well: access, technical information, decisions, equipment or internal reviewers. A proposal should make those dependencies understandable before a start date is agreed.
The result should be a written explanation of why the chosen model fits the work. That explanation can then be revisited as the programme changes.
Discuss your workforce requirement
Berkley works across Life Science, Engineering and Business & Technology.
Bring the programme objective, current team structure and next milestone to the first discussion. Speak to Berkley about the specialist workforce capability your programme needs.