Do you have the right HR strategy in place to achieve your business goals?
Most businesses write a business plan to drive business goals and expectations for the coming financial year and well beyond. Time and resources are invested to develop detailed financial plans, sales and marketing strategies, new product or business opportunities, and capital investment strategies. Not so common is, for businesses to invest in and consider, how best to align the organisational structure and individual team members to support business goals and strategy. This is Human Resource Planning.
HR Planning is fundamentally key to the success of your business plan. In fact, the Business Plan is all but useless without the Human Resource behind it. Investment in Strategic HR Planning identifies the organisational framework and how it will change and adapt to support and deliver business results.
The first key considerations to HR planning are:
• assessing the current team structure, capability, capacity, and staff engagement.
• identify strengths, weakness and skill gaps across the team and provide planning strategy to ensure the right person with the right skills, the right attitude will be ready to take up the right seat at the right time.
• predicting and adapting the organisation for future change.
• identify strategies for agility and flexibility across the organisation by formally considering cross skill opportunities and succession planning to minimise risks and gaps.
The strategic HR planning process starts with a review of the business plans and strategy, identifying the organisational structure to best support and achieve those future plans. It will highlight the gap between where your organisation wants to be in the future and where you are now. Identifying the number of staff and the skills and abilities required going forward compared against the current team.
• Do we have the right people doing the right things? Where are the gaps currently and moving forward?
• What are the additional roles needed to support planned growth and what is the timing?
• Identify productivity opportunities first, then consider if new roles are needed.
• What are the barriers and risk to hiring and or finding the right person to fill future planned roles?
• What are the risks to retaining key staff in the coming months and year? Contingency planning for key roles.
Strategic HR planning includes a review of an organisation’s HR management practices and identifies practices that could be improved and where new practices are needed.
• Organisational change management and communication plans.
• New hire processes.
• Accountability and KPI’s.
• Learning and Development opportunities.
Your strategic HR plan will communicate:
• how it ties into the business strategic plans and goals.
• sets out the current and future organisational structure.
• provides a review of each team member and how they contribute to the plan.
• accountability and contribution for each role in the organisation.
• opportunities for learning and development.
• succession planning and risk management.
• productivity opportunities.
• how staff will be supported through change.
• the timing and cost impact and payback of new hires.
• risks to transition the organisation for the future.
You can see how valuable the HR planning process is and how it travels naturally hand in hand with all other aspects of business planning, yet is overlooked by so many – realise the full potential of your team and the opportunity to achieve and exceed your business plans and goals!
Human Resource Strategy is a Vital Part of Business Planning