New Financial Year Opportunity: Make Staffing Plans Now

As we enter FY26 in Australia, many organisations are focused on budgets, forecasts, tax returns and reporting. But there’s one area that often gets overlooked or given little consideration – staffing.

July presents an opportune window to plan the year ahead and ask yourself:

• Do we have the right people in the right roles?
• What is our promotion or succession plan for the year?
• Do we have any “toxic” team members holding us back?

Why Staffing Decisions Made Now Will Define FY26

Planning your staffing requirements isn’t just the role of your HR department, it’s a leadership responsibility. To achieve your financial and operational goals for the year, you need your team delivering high performance, month after month.

From my 20+ years’ experience as a Recruitment Manager, I’ve learned few businesses effectively plan their recruitment activity, more commonly, they react to workload pressure, following a resignation, extended sick leave or winning a new contract.

Now is the ideal time to anticipate requirements for the new financial year. Here’s how:

• Assess your team’s capacity against your growth plans
• Identify potential bottlenecks or gaps in capability
• Plan for upcoming leave, expected projects, or “flight risk” team members
• Build in flexibility (temp/contract, or project-based talent) before demand spikes

Avoid Panic Hiring in August-September

Every year, we see the same pattern. The months of August and September are very busy with reactive hiring, often resulting in rushed hires, who don’t fit your business.

With so many companies hiring at the same time, active candidates can enjoy a buffet of job offers and opportunities to negotiate higher salaries and better working conditions. Ok, there’s nothing wrong with that, but you can avoid this panic hiring by spreading your recruitment activity across the July to December period, supplementing urgent needs with temps or contractors.

The benefits of proactively planning your hiring activity include:

• Better talent pipelines
• More thoughtful recruitment processes
• Time to onboard properly

Don’t Overlook Your Internal Talent

Staffing isn’t always about external hiring. The new financial year is a smart time to review your internal talent:

• Are there people ready for more responsibility?
• Could a change in role re-engage someone at risk of leaving?
• Do you need to rethink your structure as your business evolves?

Recruitment planning, internal promotions, and capability development should all be part of your workforce conversation now, not once it’s urgent.

 

Ben Walsh

General Manager, Recruitment

Ben is General Manager – Recruitment at Optimum Consulting Group, an Australian employment advisory firm. He has been actively recruiting and managing teams for over twenty years, with industry experience gained in Australia, Canada and Ireland.