Strategic human resource planning
CEOs everywhere would agree that the success of their brand depends heavily on staff performance. With that in mind, we ask the question, “Wouldn’t it be better to plan to meet business and customer needs, instead of reactionary efforts that hope for the best?”
Today, we’re going to be talking about strategic human resource planning. As with any strategy, we need a start point, a methodology to suit our needs, and a goal to review and monitor.
At this stage, it’s also worth mentioning that HR software can help you to automate many of your administrative daily tasks which could otherwise hamper your HR team’s ability to find the time to perform their duties. For further information, check out Sage.com hris systems.
Take stock of your current HR setup
Any strategy begins with a stock take. If you don’t know what you’re dealing with, you can’t plan to make the best start. Knowing where to begin helps you to know where you’re headed – the benefit being that the gap between where you started and where you progress to can be analysed in terms of whether things have improved.
How many HR team members do you employ? What is the management structure like? How well-trained are the various members of your HR team? Are they well-equipped to complete their tasks or are there significant insights that can be learned straight away by speaking to the people involved? Always take the time to investigate the ins and outs of your team’s current setup and performance.
Projections – what do you need from your HR department in the near future?
You need to know your business goals. Otherwise, your HR staff can’t directly support your actions. If you know a big recruitment drive is coming up, for example, factor this into your projections for what you require from the HR staff in the near future.
Strategies for talent acquisition, training, and staff retention
HR software can help you to automate talent acquisition, send out training reminders, and boost staff retention. If you fail to put in place the relevant strategies for attracting, supporting, and training top talent, your human resources department will suffer from being poorly staffed (the consequences of which will filter through to your operations).
Monitor your HR performance using relevant KPIs
KPI stands for key performance indicator. Depending on the nature of your business (and depending on what you wish to monitor), your KPIs could range from the number of channel-specific leads you achieve in a month, to a quarterly report on how many sick days your staff take.
When it comes to HR, your KPIs should include things like the number of hours spent on training per month, the number of hours spent on one-to-ones per month, and the number of staff handing in their notice over a 6 month period.
Whatever KPIs are important to you, monitoring the increase or decrease in measurable statistics is the only way to ensure that the efforts within your strategic human resource planning are given context. Otherwise, you won’t know if what you are doing is changing things for the better or worse.