Why is the HR department playing a more significant role in Organisational strategic planning processes today than it did 20 years ago?

Business strategies are long-term goals that require different tactics, plans and procedures to achieve. All of these require the right people in place to make sure these efforts help the company reach its objectives. Evaluating the success of your business strategies involves assessing your employees’ ability to deliver outcomes in a timely, profitable manner.

Integrating human resource management into your strategic planning process enables you to ensure that as you identify goals, opportunities and competitive advantages, you can recruit, hire and develop the right workforce to achieve them, explains the Society for Human Resource Management. Reviewing the benefits of strategic human resource management will help you create the right staff for your needs.

Ensuring Effective Training

Employees usually require training to implement new strategies. The HR department develops processes to manage organizational development and prepare personnel to implement new initiatives and programs. You can hold in-house training via meetings and mentorship programs. You can offer tuition reimbursement to employees who take college classes or pay for trips to workshops, seminars, lunch-and-learns and conferences.

Once you identify the capabilities needed by the organization, you can define, design, develop and deliver workshops, lectures and seminars that educate the workforce and fill any skill gaps present in the organization. By evaluating skills and knowledge before and after training, you can assess employee readiness to implement new strategies.

Monitoring Employee Capabilities

By implementing effective performance management systems, anticipating the types of roles needed to fulfill the strategic plan and responding to demographic changes in the workforce, HR keeps track of the organization’s capabilities and matches workers with the right tasks to achieve strategic goals, points out the APPA.

Keeping your company’s job descriptions and architecture current ensures that you only hire and retain essential personnel, which makes your operation cost-effective and efficient. By evaluating employee retention, satisfaction and absentee rate, you can assess how employees feel about their role in achieving strategic goals. You should also create an effective performance evaluation process to make sure your staff members are performing at the levels you need them to perform.

Tracking External Forces

In addition to managing the workforce, you need to keep track of the external marketplace and competition, which is a key human resource concern when implementing strategies. By analyzing the competitive environment, you monitor economic factors, technology changes, political issues and other trends. To maintain a presence in industry professional organizations, exchange information and network with colleagues in your field to validate the strategies you strive to achieve make sense in the long run for succeeding in your industry.

Recruiting New Talent

Evaluating upcoming staffing needs effectively depends on understanding what your company's strategic plan entails and aspires to achieve. This usually means hiring a diverse workforce to provide innovative and creative solutions to complex problems. Evaluating strategies may include ensuring succession plans are in place, so that as employees leave the workforce due to retirement or other opportunities, other workers are ready to take their place.

HR plays a critical role in ensuring that strategic plans can be maintained over time. By integrating the HR department into the strategic planning and evaluation process, programs that inspire, motivate and reward employees can reinforce your leaders’ values to manage human capital effectively.

Gone are the days of listing job postings on bulletin boards and keeping thick files of paperwork on every employee. HR has gone digital and that technological shift, along with a younger workforce, has changed the role of human resources departments.

The history of human resources dates back to the late 1800s, when industrial welfare workers inspected factories and helped to regulate hours for a workforce that included children. In the early 1900s, the National Cash Register Co. created a personnel department to manage grievances following a series of strikes. This was the beginning of HR as we know it.

But how is HR different today than it was even 10-20 years ago? Here are four areas in which human resources is changing radically.

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HR as Strategic Business Partner

Then: HR was almost a separate entity from the rest of the company. They were there to handle payroll, benefits, and resolve conflicts when needed. The human resources department was more of a cost center than a revenue producer.

Now: More and more companies are utilizing the HR business partner model, where human resources works closely with senior management to develop goals and a strategic plan for accomplishing those goals. It’s a big-picture role that adds tangible value to the company.

Powerful human resources tools can now automate many of the tasks that used to consume HR’s time. Now, HR can focus on the tasks that add the most value, such as recruiting the best talent, developing programs to retain top in-house talent, and analyzing data to identify inefficiencies or problem areas.

Culture Building

Then: Company “culture” pretty much entailed free coffee, an Employee of the Month plaque, and the annual holiday party. HR was in the business of processing paperwork and personnel management.   

Now: Personnel management has shifted to people management. HR focuses on building a company brand that will attract the best people. Once they’ve gotten talent in the door, HR needs to ensure that those people stay engaged, feel a sense of purpose, and see a path for personal and professional growth.

A strong company brand, healthy culture, and high employment engagement are three sides of a triangle. It’s hard to be strong in one area without the other two being equally strong. And because HR is responsible for recruiting employees and fostering a positive workplace, they’re pivotal in achieving this triangle of success.

Reinventing Reviews

Then: Employees would have one or two reviews per year. They would often go into reviews not knowing whether management was happy with their performance.

Now: Companies are adopting more agile feedback and performance management processes. Regular manager-employee check-ins and real-time feedback provide opportunities for coaching, encourage employee growth, and eliminate the stress of annual reviews.

In fact, 85% of millennials say they would feel more confident if performance conversations with managers happened more frequently.

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Managing the Remote Workforce

Then: Working remotely meant business trips, racking up frequent flier miles to meet with clients or visit satellite offices.

Now: Working remotely means working from the comfort of home. Or your favorite coffee shop. Or your Airbnb in Europe. Gallup research shows that 43% of American employees work remotely at least part of the time, and the ability to work from anywhere is a major selling point for recruiters. But that also means that HR needs to ensure remote workers are staying engaged and integrated in company culture.

[bctt tweet=”Gallup research shows that 43% of American employees work remotely at least part of the time” username=”@reflektive”]

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June 1, 2018 • 3 min read

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