Implementing Strategic HR policies
02/09/2022 0 By indiafreenotesThe Benefits of Strategic HR Planning
Human resource planning refers to the process of formulating HR strategies and designing programs and schemes to carry out their implementation. If done the right way, strategic HR planning results in several direct and indirect advantages for the organization.
Proactive Instead of Reactive Behavior
Proactive behavior refers to looking forward and having a clear vision and aims regarding the future of the company and how Human resources can be used to achieve the goals set. On the other hand, being reactive means dealing with issues as they simultaneously arise. In general, a reactive company could risk losing sight of the long-term course that should be set for the organization. In the past three years, the number of bankruptcies has greatly increased which is why any firm needs to make sure they keep a strong grip on their vital talent and try to introduce special incentives that would give a boost to any key performer going through a rough patch. While it may seem strange to be spending on employees when the company is going through hard times economically, it is necessary if the company wishes to keep its star employees on board. Strategic human resource planning allows an organization to formulate a clear set of objectives that capitalizes on its key talents and knowledge.
Managers tend to rely on their perspectives, experiences, and viewpoints to handle problems and make business choices. The assumptions on which their decisions are based are followed by success only if it has ecological validity in terms of the environment where the business operates. Conversely, this can lead to serious issues when the assumptions made are no longer of relevance. Strategic HR planning encourages critical thinking along with the creation of fresh initiatives only in the case of there being continued progress instead of a stiff process with a distinct start and a specific end date for completion. This is why many firms have designed an executive committee that is comprised of the CEO and an HR profession who discuss strategic problems regularly and alter the organization’s whole HR strategic and program structure every so often. Strategic human resource planning allows a company to understand where they stand presently and visualize where they aim to be in the future.
When the business strategy of the overall organization is combined with strategic human resource planning, organizations can identify any possible issues that may arise and any opportunities with consideration to the individuals responsible for the implementation of the strategy.
Companies, in general, hold a strong idea of who they tend to perform better than those who do not, especially when it comes to long-term performance. Strategic HR planning allows an organization to strengthen, modify and even readdress the present values of the company and maintain a culture that values aspects such as growth, innovation, teamwork and customer focus.
HR Strategies for Improving Company Performance
There is no textbook definition of what constitutes a good or bad HR strategy. Instead, the effect of an HR strategy always relies on how well it aligns with the rest of the factors involved. This statement leads to a basic yet important expectation from HR strategies that are broadly supported by research. When a company matches its HR strategies with other factors concerning the issue, it eventually results in better performance and if this alignment does not take place then there is inevitable incompetence and lack of consistency in the company’s performance.
The four factors that the company must keep in mind when deciding what HR strategies, they need to implement for there to be a positive impact on the organization’s performance: the firm’s strategies, characteristics, capabilities as well as its environment.
An HR strategy contributes to the positive growth of an organization. This is achieved when the company has a good fit between the human resource strategies and the general strategic direction of the company. The HR strategies applied in a company need to be in harmony with the environment in which the organization operates and be closely adjusted to the particular organization’s features. The strategies should allow capitalization of the key capabilities of the firm and be equally consistent and coordinate accordingly.
A corporation can have several businesses that are somewhat related or are entirely different. When it comes to corporate strategy, it refers to the unique combination of businesses every corporation chooses to take hold of and how resources are managed and inter-flow through these businesses. The key strategic business-related decisions that occur when a firm is at a corporate level involve factors such as growth, acquisition, diversification, and divestment. Business strategies in an organization refer to the development and application of strategies by fairly independent organizations, even if they belong to a bigger corporation.
Corporate Strategies
Corporate strategies with matching HR strategies are broadly divided into two main types. Companies that take on evolutionary business strategies tend to take part in the vigorous acquisition of new and upcoming businesses even if these businesses have no general relation to one another. Managing change in evolutionary firms is the key to survival. Entrepreneurship is reinforced and gaining control does not have a lot of importance considering each sector is generally autonomous. Fast responses, entrepreneurship, sharing risks and flexibility are all that proper HR strategy foster in businesses. Evolutionary corporations are not dedicated to a singular industry or business and may appoint employees from the outside market based on requirement and let go of them to minimize costs if necessary, with no promises of being rehired. Such HR strategies are suitable since they accept the reality that change, and development are constant in an organization. On the other hand, some corporations tend to be somewhat picky about their method of growth. They refrain from the acquisition of firms that are unrelated to their current industry and even companies in that particular industry that is not the same as them.
Developing and implementing an effective HR strategy:
Align to business needs
A business strategy dictates how a business will achieve its goals and grow in both the near- and long-term. An HR strategy complements this by creating the internal infrastructure that can effectively activate its people and processes to reach those goals.
It goes without saying that building an HR strategy cannot be done in a vacuum. In fact, it must cascade down from an organization’s broader business strategy and, more importantly, position an organization’s employees as the glue that connects HR strategy to business strategy.
Identify what success looks like
As with setting any goal or objective, simply putting a strategy together is only half of the battle. It’s never a ‘one and done’ process by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, everything else you do once the ink has dried on your HR strategy is all about what needs to happen in order to drive incremental success until you reach or even surpass your stated goals.
So as you develop your HR strategy, you should repeatedly ask yourself, “What does success look like?” After all, it’s easier to build a strategy around a desired end state versus coming up with a strategic framework and then leaving the rest to chance. To help keep this goal-setting process a bit more organized, consider building your HR strategy around four key internal levers:
- Culture: How will this strategy fix, change, amplify, or even transform certain aspects of the day-to-day leadership and employee experience within your organization?
- Organization: How will this strategy optimize the hierarchical structure of your organization, refine reporting lines, and identify new job role needs?
- People: How will this strategy support the ongoing development, growth, success, and happiness of the people within your organization?
- HR Systems: How will this strategy streamline the processes used across the talent management spectrum, from recruiting to training to compensation (and beyond)?
Focus on collaboration
Even though you’ve taken the necessary steps to align your HR strategy to broader business goals and objectives, you still need support and buy-in from key stakeholders and other business partners across the organization. After all, HR is a lever of support for every department in an organization. How you end up achieving your strategic goals will depend heavily on every department being active participants in that effort.
In other words, you must work with stakeholders to collaborate on priorities, identify what is most important or achievable in the coming year, and then chart a clear path towards achieving those goals as well as the KPIs you’ll use to measure progress against those goals.
Drive engagement through communication
In a similar vein as the above, not only do you need key stakeholders across the organization to bless your HR strategy, but you also need them to be its most active supporters. Otherwise, even the best strategies to ever see the light of day will fall flat from day one.
Not everyone in an organization needs to hear HR’s strategic elevator pitch directly. But there always are people in every department who can carry the torch on your behalf. These are the people you need to reach out to first and eventually convert into ambassadors and advocates of your strategy, vision, and properties. These are the people who can then cascade that information across their leadership ranks and down the line to their teams, ensuring that everyone is on the same page in terms of what HR will expect from them throughout the year.
Just keep in mind that everyone’s communication styles are a little different. Some people digest information like this better in a one-to-one setting (even if that just so happens to take place over a Teams video call), while others just need a detailed email to get the wheels in motion. The likely case is that you’ll end up using multiple communications channels, including workshops and even text-based chats, to create a ‘domino effect’ that eventually gets the HR strategy firmly ingrained in the minds of everyone within an organization.
Measure results in real-time
This part might sound obvious especially after what we outlined in point number two above but the key takeaway here is simple: Measure, measure, measure!
You’ve established KPIs in order to have a consistent way to track progress against your goals. Now you just need to make sure that regular reporting, either monthly or quarterly (or both!), on key data and analytics is part of your broader and ongoing strategic plan.
But don’t let this simply become a regular data dump that gets buried in the depths of your team’s email inboxes. Take the time to study what the data is telling you, pull together some actionable insights from it, and make a point to present your learnings regularly. Doing so will only make your HR strategy stronger and reinforce its importance among all key stakeholders.
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