NWTS DecisionIQ™ Intelligence Before the Hire

Cost every workforce option before you commit to one.

Most hiring decisions are approved before anyone compares them with reskilling, outsourcing, automation or redesign. DecisionIQ puts every option side by side, with total cost, break-even month and cash at risk, from numbers you already have.

Free Preview: no card, no integration, nothing to install.

Your next hire, costed

Example numbers. Change any of them.
6
$95,000
$12,000

Open-role cost: the overtime, delays or revenue lost each month a seat is empty.

Hiring 6 people costs about

$793,250

in year one, fully loaded: salary, benefits at 43% (BLS) and recruiting, with 2 months to fill.

On these numbers, automating selected tasks comes out $368,050 ahead of hiring over 12 months. Worth comparing before you open the requisitions.

All six options over 12 months, against doing nothing

Automate selected tasksLowest total costBreaks even in month 9 +$223k
Redesign the organizationBreaks even in month 8 +$194k
Reskill existing employeesBreaks even in month 8 +$137k
Maintain current workforceThe baseline $0
Hire additional employeesNo break-even in 12 months −$145k
Outsource the functionNo break-even in 12 months −$154k
Adjust assumptions
60

Example assumptions: work grows 8% a year. Each hire costs 20% of salary to recruit, takes 2 months to fill and 3 to ramp up. Reskilling covers 30% of the team at $5,000 each for a 15% productivity gain. Outsourcing costs 115% of a loaded salary plus 8% oversight. Automation and redesign costs scale with team size. In DecisionIQ you set every one of these yourself.

Illustrative model on example assumptions, not advice. Nothing you enter here is stored or sent. See the math

Built by Nikita R. Steals, CTAS, PMP, SPHR, former talent acquisition executive at Capital One, Amazon Web Services and Conduent. Every formula is published.

Search and advisory clients of Northwest Talent Solutions include

  • Baker Tilly
  • Eaton Corporation
  • Caterpillar
  • Becton Dickinson

Why it matters

Headcount is one of the largest costs most companies approve without a model.

Finance models every capital purchase to the dollar. Hiring plans usually get a spreadsheet built once a year, and AI is now changing which work needs people at all. The cost of guessing shows up later, in payroll, in open roles and in projects that slip.

19%

of CHROs say AI’s expected effects are built into enterprise-wide workforce and financial planning.

The Conference Board, CHRO Confidence Index Q3 2026, via HR Dive
4%

feel very prepared to lead their organization through AI-driven change over the next two years.

The Conference Board, Q3 2026, via HR Dive
~40%

of the skills used on the job today are expected to change by 2030.

World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025
$1.43

is what each $1.00 of salary costs once benefits are added: benefits are 30% of private-sector compensation.

BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026

How DecisionIQ works

From your numbers to a board-ready brief, in one sitting.

No implementation project and no data integration. The free Preview takes you through all three steps.

Diagnose

A short executive diagnostic: headcount, labor cost, growth target, hiring plan and capability gaps. See your readiness score and risk indicators, each with the rule that produced it.

Model

Compare six options on one baseline: hire, reskill, outsource, automate, redesign and hold steady. Change any assumption and every result updates.

Decide

Export a decision brief with findings, options, risks, assumptions and a roadmap for your CEO, CFO or board. Rerun it next quarter as numbers change.

What leadership teams can rely on

Transparent by design.

The questions enterprise buyers ask first, answered before you sign up.

Every number shows its working

Results come from fixed, published formulas applied to your inputs. No AI estimates any financial figure.

The formulas

No decisions about people

DecisionIQ works on teams, functions and plans. It never scores, ranks or recommends action on an individual.

What it never does

Your data stays yours

Each company’s data is isolated by database rules and never sent to an AI service or used to train models.

Security

Public prices

A free Preview, then $149 or $499 a month, with annual billing at ten times the monthly price. No implementation fee.

Pricing

The judgment behind the model

Built by an executive who has made these calls at enterprise scale.

Nikita R. Steals

Nikita R. Steals, CTAS, PMP, SPHR

Managing Partner, Northwest Talent Solutions

More than 15 years leading talent acquisition and workforce transformation, including as Vice President, Tech Talent Acquisition at Capital One, and in talent leadership at Amazon Web Services, Conduent and PwC, across the public sector and private industry.

Career, recognition and press
  • Most Innovative Consulting Firm of 2024 (Northwest Talent Solutions)Best of the Best Awards, as published by CEO Weekly
  • Top Visionary Leader of 2024Best of Best Review
“We instructed Nikita and her firm to assist with filling two key roles in our US office. Since we were unfamiliar with the US market, we required a company that was knowledgeable and had access to a strong talent pool. Within four weeks, both positions were filled. Communication is one area that Nikita and her firm excel at. A pleasure to work with — we will be instructing the firm further in the future.”
John Hudson, M.A., F.R.S.A.Client · International US office expansion
“Nikita and I worked together during the build out of a new entity in EMEA for AWS. She was brought in to manage a highly ambiguous and unstructured global recruitment business. Nikita brought much managerial stability, direction and data use to the business reporting, and was able to use this data to demonstrate why decisions needed to be made. It was a pleasure working with Nikita, I highly recommend her ability to manage large complex businesses and deliver results.”
Duncan MooreProject Manager, Barclays · colleague at AWS

Read all nine testimonials

DecisionIQ in practice: executive use cases

Workforce decisions worth modeling.

Three situations DecisionIQ is built for, and the plan that fits each.

A hiring plan that commits payroll for years

VP, Finance · Scenario context: United States

A department wants twelve new hires, and the business case is persuasive. The VP of Finance sees something else: salaries, benefits and ramp time that stay on the payroll long after this year’s forecast. Before approving, the team models the same capacity three ways, hiring, an outsourced team and better use of current staff, and compares total cost and cash at risk.

Individual plan · Executive Intelligence, $149/month

A board-ready answer without an analytics team

Fractional CHRO · Scenario context: United States

A growing client asks its fractional CHRO whether to hire a sales-operations lead or bring in a contractor. There is no workforce analyst, and no budget for a six-week consulting study. In one sitting, the CHRO builds the comparison in DecisionIQ and walks the founder through the trade-offs with a brief the leadership team can keep and revisit.

Individual plan · Executive Intelligence, $149/month

Three functions, three sets of numbers

VP, Workforce Planning · Scenario context: United States

Finance budgets for fully loaded cost, HR plans around time to fill, and Operations counts the cost of work that isn’t getting done. Each view is reasonable, so meetings stall. The VP of Workforce Planning puts all three into one shared scenario, with assumptions everyone can see and challenge, so the executive team debates the decision rather than whose spreadsheet is right.

Leadership-team plan · Enterprise DecisionIQ, $499/month for up to five users

Illustrative scenarios written by NWTS. They describe situations DecisionIQ is designed for; they are not customer quotations, reviews or reports of use, and the roles and countries are scenario contexts only.

One leader deciding alone, or a leadership team deciding together: both plans are below, billed monthly unless you choose annual.

Pricing

Start free. Choose a plan when the answer matters.

A free Preview, and two paid plans billed monthly or annually. Annual billing is ten times the monthly price, so two months are free.

DecisionIQ plans

Free Preview

Try DecisionIQ on your own numbers before you buy.

$0no card needed

Free for as long as you need it.

1 seat2 saved scenarios12-month horizon

  • The full executive workforce diagnostic
  • AI transformation readiness assessment
  • All six options compared: hire, reskill, outsource, automate, redesign, hold steady
  • Watermarked preview of your decision brief
Start the free Preview

Executive Intelligence

For one leader: a CEO, CFO, COO, CHRO, owner or independent advisor.

$149per month

Billed monthly. Or $1,490 a year, two months free.

1 seat10 saved scenarios12-month horizon

  • Everything in the free Preview
  • 10 saved scenarios with history, 1 company
  • Executive decision briefs as PDF, unwatermarked
  • The Decision Signal every Monday: what changed, and the assumption to update
  • Your monthly Decision Update: scenarios recalculated on the latest BLS data
  • Ask NWTS: questions answered in the app within one business day
Subscribe to Executive Intelligence

Secure Stripe checkout. Create your login right after paying; your plan is ready when you sign in.

For leadership teams

Enterprise DecisionIQ

For a leadership team of up to five users: HR, finance and operations working from one model.

$499per month

Billed monthly. Or $4,990 a year, two months free.

5 usersUnlimited scenariosUp to 36-month horizon

  • Everything in Executive Intelligence
  • 5 users with a shared team dashboard
  • 10 projects (business units, functions or plans), unlimited scenarios
  • 12-, 24- and 36-month scenarios
  • Board-ready briefs comparing every option
  • Monthly Decision Update across every project
Subscribe to Enterprise DecisionIQ

Secure Stripe checkout. Create your login right after paying; your plan is ready when you sign in.

Prices in US dollars, plus any applicable tax. Paid plans renew automatically until you cancel; cancel any time from your billing page and your plan runs to the end of the period you paid for. Consulting, search and RPO are not included in any plan.

Compare plans and limits

Questions

What leaders ask first.

Billing questions

What is NWTS DecisionIQ?

NWTS DecisionIQ™ is a subscription tool that shows executives what a workforce decision will cost before they make it. You enter your own numbers, and it compares hiring, reskilling, outsourcing, automating, redesigning and holding steady side by side: total cost, break-even month and peak cash exposure, with every calculation shown.

Who is it for?

CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CHROs, business owners and operations leaders of companies with roughly 50 to 1,000 employees, who need to make workforce decisions without a dedicated workforce-planning team or a six-figure analytics platform.

What does the free Preview include?

The full executive diagnostic, the AI readiness assessment and up to two saved scenarios on a 12-month horizon, with a watermarked brief. No card is needed. Paid plans add saved history, more scenarios, longer horizons, exported briefs and, on Enterprise DecisionIQ, five team seats.

Do I need to connect my HR system?

No. You enter a handful of numbers you already know: headcount, salaries, revenue, growth target and hiring plan. Nothing is integrated, so you can start in one sitting.

Does it use AI to make up numbers?

No. Every financial result comes from published formulas applied to your inputs. You can see and edit every assumption, and each result shows how it was calculated.

Will it tell me which employees to let go?

No. DecisionIQ works at the level of teams, functions and plans. It never scores, ranks or recommends action on any individual employee.

Cost out your next workforce decision before it reaches the board.

Start with the free Preview: the full diagnostic and two saved scenarios, no card. Upgrade when you want to save, share and export.