Case · 06·Supporting·Workforce intelligence

Workforce cost as it actually behaves — not as payroll prints it.

Every employee has a cost curve that starts before day one. Recruitment · mobilization · visa · iqama · work permit · contract · onboarding. Then monthly payroll + allowances + employer obligations. Then annual periodics — bonus, leave travel, iqama renewal, medical. Then total cost to date, per role, per project. That is what management needs to see.

ScopeFull lifecycle · sourcing → active

Cost categories11 · one-time + recurring + periodic

ViewsMonthly · Annualized · To-date

CutsRole · project · compliance

Employee cost lifecycle Sourcing → Active

01 · Sourcing

Bring them in

Recruitmentone-time
Mobilizationflight + per diem
Onboardinginduction

02 · Authorize

Make them legal

Visa / Iqamaone-time
Work permitMOL fees
Contract / docsdocumented

                  03 · Active
                  Monthly cost
                  Base + allow.payroll
Employer GOSIobligation
Medical ins.prorated

                

04 · Periodic

Annualized

Bonus targetyearly
Leave travelyearly
Iqama renewalyearly

Sample workforce45 employeesAcross 11 roles, 4 projects

Cost categories11One-time · recurring · periodic

Views3Monthly · Annual · To-date

Compliance signals62Iqama · med · permit · contract

Break-even viewPer roleOne-time ÷ monthly

Why this mattered

Workforce cost was a payroll line. The real cost lived in ten places.

Finance saw the monthly payroll. HR saw the visa folder. Site saw the headcount. No one had a single defensible number for what an employee actually costs, over time, per role, per project.

Operational problem

Payroll ≠ true cost. One-time and periodic costs hid in AP, HR, and government fees.

Sourcing investment (recruitment, mobilization, onboarding) never made it into the "cost per employee" number — treated as sundry AP expense.
Work authorization costs (iqama, MOL work permit levy, contract translation, medical for iqama) were scattered across government fee journals.
Employer obligations (GOSI, medical insurance, leave travel) were accrued monthly but rarely paired with the employee they belonged to.
Role benchmarks didn't exist. "Should a Quantity Surveyor cost 17,000 or 22,000 per month?" had no defensible answer.

System & data gap

No lifecycle model. No per-employee anchor. No compliance signal.

HR master, payroll, AP, and government relations were four disconnected data sources — no shared emp_id key with cost lineage.
No "total cost to date" view — leadership could not answer "how much have we invested in this employee so far?"
Compliance (iqama expiring, medical lapsing, contract in its last 60 days) wasn't an operational signal — it sat in an HR file until it broke something.
Project-level workforce cost was backed into from payroll exports, not derived from a model.

What I built

A per-employee cost model that answers four executive questions.

Workforce cost intelligence · model shape Per employee · per role · per project

01Employee master

02Cost components

03Monthly · annualized · TTD

04Role · project · compliance

05Executive views

Four executive questions answered

Total per emp?

Cost by role?

Cost by project?

Compliance risk?

Logic & control

Three rules anchor the model.

Rule 01 · lifecycle bucketing

One-time ≠ recurring ≠ periodic

Sourcing + authorization costs capitalized separately from recurring payroll and annual periodics. Mixing them hides the real cost curve.

cost = { one_time, monthly_recurring, annual_periodic }

Mixed

"Cost per head"payroll only

Sourcing hiddentrue

Bucketed

"Cost per head"lifecycle

Defensibletrue

Rule 02 · employer obligations

GOSI + medical + leave travel belong to the employee

Every employer obligation is allocated to the emp_id it was triggered by — no "HR overhead" bucket that drifts.

employer_cost = GOSI% × base + med_ins + leave_travel

Pooled

Allocationby headcount

Accuracyrough

Anchored

Allocationby emp_id

Accuracyexact

Rule 03 · compliance signal

Every renewal window has an owner and a deadline

Iqama, medical, work permit, and contract windows produce scored alerts with owner and action — not a folder to check quarterly.

alert = fn(category, days_to_expiry, owner)

Folder

When seenat expiry

Outcomefines

Signal

When seen60d ahead

Outcomerenewed

Traceability

A cost line traces to an employee, a category, and a policy.

If leadership asks "why does this Site Engineer cost 240K per year?", the answer walks through every bucket.

EMP-5037 · Site Engineer · Aurora → Monthly direct · 20.0K → Employer GOSI · 230/mo → Medical (prorated) · 433/mo → Periodics (prorated) → Annualized · ~259K SAR

Sourcing investment · one-time → Recruit + mobilize · ~13.7K → Visa/iqama + permit · ~5.3K → Contract + onboarding · ~3.6K → Total one-time · ~22.6K SAR

Outcomes as signals

What shifted in how workforce cost is read.

"Cost per employee"Defensiblelifecycle, not payroll

Role benchmarksPublishedone-time + recurring + periodic

ComplianceA signal60-day look-ahead

Project viewModel-derivednot backed out from payroll

Artifacts

Proof artifacts — live and planned.

Excel · live

Workforce Cost · full demo workbook

45 employees · 11 roles · 4 projects. Employee master + cost components + monthly + annualized + total cost to date + role benchmarks + project allocation + compliance alerts. Integrity checks run in a validator.

Download Excel → Available · portfolio sample

HR dashboard · planned

Executive HR command view

Headcount · compliance heatmap · expiring windows · per-employee profile with contract / medical / insurance linkage. Dashboard mock + Power BI model contract planned.

Phase 5

Policy library · planned

Cost category rulebook

Redacted policy catalog: which cost categories capitalize vs expense, GOSI rates per nationality, medical tiers, leave-travel policy bands.