In your department, the volume of work has grown, people have ceased to have time to do what they were supposed to. You ran to the authorities to ask to expand the staff - with numbers and arguments. "Go away!" - such an answer from the authorities will be the mildest. In pursuit of you, they will add more loads. This is staff optimization: personnel management solves such problems as well. And many others are no less complex. Today, a personnel management strategy is indispensable: a lot is changing.
Let's start with a general wording and try to make it shorter: a personnel management strategy is a system of actions for forming a professional, loyal and competent team of employees of an organization. The personnel strategy is aimed at three objects:
- Company employees.
- The structure of human resources as an integrated part of the entire business.
- Working conditions.
At the start, it will not hurt to recall the problems that hinder the creation and, in particular, the implementation of a personnel management strategy:
- Old-fashioned attitudes in the minds of senior executives that HR is an auxiliary function.
- Weak communication technologies leading to a huge gap between the top and bottom levels of staff: employees, not being aware of strategic changes in the company, do not support and do not implement new rules, guidelines or functions of new strategies.
- The backwardness and professional incompetence of the employees of the personnel management departments themselves, as a result of which personnel work remains outside the scope of general business tasks, and there is simply no need to talk about a competent strategy. The confrontation between the concepts of personnel policy and personnel management strategy - "old versus new" - is a sad and not uncommon situation in many companies.
Two features of HR strategies
- Serious organizational HR strategies have never been short-term-they cannot be, by definition. Any changes in the sphere of human resources are always difficult: new behavioral attitudes require patience, time and competent communications. Changes in the human resource system cannot be accelerated, this must be remembered and taken into account when planning the timing.
- To say "close connection" with the company's overall business strategy is an understatement. The correct words in this context are “full integration” with the overall strategic goals of the organization. So, and only so, the interaction of the human resources department with any other departments and the company as a whole should look like. Andonly by observing this principle, it is possible to develop competently the basic strategies of personnel management. Such integration must necessarily be accompanied by an assessment and analysis of a wide variety of factors of the internal and external environment. The planned strategic changes in the company will in any case entail a deep revision of training and development plans, restructuring of personnel in departments, recalculation of its number, required skills, qualification standards, and so on.
Basic management strategies
Instead of the word “types”, it would be more correct to say “trends” in personnel management strategies, which completely depend on the specifics and state of the company’s strategic development.
- Innovative strategies are distinguished by the priority of the component of personnel work on personnel assessment, its certification, training and career advancement. Such events go hand in hand with renewed work motivation – this is a classic “personnel pair” of work. Any innovation requires a motivated, suitable and competent staff, without which nothing will work.
- Entrepreneurial strategies involve finding and supporting as much as possible people who are able to work in high-risk environments and make quick decisions. The priority is to create conditions for the work of such people.
- Strategies for improving performance have always been "calm" with a minimum of risky decisions. ATin this case, the priority is the loy alty of employees to the company and their high involvement in the work processes. Ethical norms, constant training in the traditional format, and observance of the principles of social equality are especially important here. Such companies and HR strategies can be roughly called “socialist.”
- The toughest variant of the strategy is often seen in companies with a large staff of salespeople. The priority is the results of the work - the volume of production of the product. Any risk is minimized. Plans are drawn up for a relatively short time, study is given in the very minimum amount for the necessary qualifications. The main methods of management are the control and monitoring of the actions of personnel.
Relationship between organizational strategy and HR strategy
Using a common skeleton of strategic activities, which usually does not change, HR managers can apply different types of interaction with the overall strategy of the company:
- The traditional way of interaction, in which the company's personnel management strategies are a dependent part of its overall strategic plan. With this option, the HR department should be well versed in the business tasks and strategic goals of the company. Only after getting acquainted with the overall strategy, the development of a personnel management strategy begins - as a result, personnel work is of a secondary nature. Unfortunately, this approach is still very common, despite its obvious "old-fashioned" and inconsistency.modern formats of work with personnel.
- Both the general and personnel strategies are created at the same time. In such an integrated document, there is no (and should not be!) separation of “this is business, and this is personnel”. HR managers take an absolutely equal part in the development and development of the overall strategy. Recently, in the staffing tables of advanced companies, you can increasingly see the name of the position for a HR specialist - “business partner”.
HR strategy goals, examples
- Providing the company with human resources: competent, professional, as loyal as possible. Do it on time and with advance plans.
- Development and implementation of special targeted programs for employees of all categories to develop their leadership qualities.
- Formation of a talent management strategy involving all components of personnel work: training and development, staff assessment, compensation and benefits.
- Formation of an internal communications system with new channels for disseminating information among all categories of employees.
- Restructuring of departments with a comprehensive assessment of personnel, certification, revision of functional duties and new appointment of department heads through a transparent competition.
Factors affecting HR strategy
The classic approach to creating any strategy has always been a comprehensive analysis of the external and internal environment. The labor market and wages, social tension in the country (if any), the presence orthe absence of crises of various calibers and profiles, the emergence or disappearance of competitors, the development of new technologies, political processes - these and many other external factors must be taken into account very seriously. At the same time, internal factors cannot be ignored: it is still a big question which factors influence the formation and implementation of strategies for personnel management systems more. Internal factors are as follows:
- Company size. In small organizations, there is not enough space for deployed strategies. Typically, in such companies, the strategy is written according to what is already available: goals depend on resources. In large companies, the picture is the opposite: human and other resources are planned depending on the strategic objectives of the company.
- Planning horizon. With short-term plans for a period of no more than three years, the goals of the organization's personnel management strategy depend on resources and adapt to them. Priority is given to improving the quality of work, optimizing existing processes, etc. With a planning period of more than three years, all resources will depend on forecasts. The focus will be on working on competitive advantages and creating innovative ways to invest.
- Competence and motivation of employees. With a smart modern pay and reward system, you will have more room for maneuver and innovative strategies: this has always been the case. So it is today.
Formation of strategy
There is no fundamental difference between the technologies for creating personnel or any other strategy. Therefore, before starting to develop a personnel management strategy, it will be useful to answer the following questions for yourself:
- What is the current staff of the organization? At this point, professional personnel statistics will help with information not only on age, gender and educational characteristics, but also with detailed breakdowns of staff turnover and reasons for dismissals, reviews of labor markets and average wages in the country, industry and region.
- At what stage of development is the team at the time of the formation of the personnel management strategy? Employee engagement events will help answer this question - annual surveys with their most serious analysis.
- How and in what direction should human resources change (and they should change along with the transformations taking place in the company) in order to contribute to the achievement of the overall goals of the company? Everything is simple here: you need not only to know this general strategy, you need to participate in its development.
- What additional steps need to be taken to ensure that the team of employees meets the new challenges of the company? Here we are talking about new requirements for the competence of personnel and the revision of training and development programs.
Problems of strategies, examples
Unlike the mission and goals, the objectives of any strategy should be as clear as possible and always with numbers:
- Upgrade the composition of the company's top management by 20% throughsearch for new employees who meet the professional standard and are not older than 35 years.
- Reduce staff turnover by 5% among the sales team by developing and implementing a new system of remuneration and motivation of the best salespeople.
- Reduce staff training costs by 40% by introducing online learning formats on a new educational platform.
What needs to be done to successfully implement the new strategy
The first and most important condition is understanding and support of changes by all employees. Change management is one of the most difficult areas of management. The introduction of any new component in the usual course of things is always a painful process. This is especially true of changes associated with human factors. New responsibilities or an increased amount of work (in today's crazy-dynamic business, this amount will never decrease, but on the contrary, it will only increase rapidly).
The main principles of change management should become the indispensable tools of an advanced human resource manager. Communications, clarifications, formation of a team of change agents, maximum informing of employees about any innovations are essential components of work when implementing changes. This is especially true of issues related to adequate remuneration of employees and evaluation of their performance. Each employee must know perfectly well how he needs to work and what to do during the year, so that he, for example,upgraded with a corresponding salary as a result of a high score on the agreed criteria. No surprises with personnel moves at the end of the year - this principle should become one of the most important principles for the work of personnel departments.
Classic components of a strategy
Regardless of the type of strategy, the degree of advancement of the company itself and the depth of integration of the personnel component into the overall business strategy, there are always classic professional components of personnel work that no one has canceled yet.
- New technologies in the recruiting part: in the search, selection and hiring of personnel.
- Changing the conditions and requirements for staff adaptation.
- Revision of the personnel assessment and certification system.
- Special strategies for the development of personnel management: new methods and formats for training and career planning within the company.
- Updating and developing new professional standards and job requirements in accordance with new business challenges in the company.
- Formation of a new talent pool, adapted to possible changes and forecasts of competition in the market.
- Improving the quality of methods for forecasting and planning human resource needs in the short and long horizons of overall strategic planning.
- New methods of motivating and stimulating staff, taking into account the analysis of labor markets and new requirements as part of a new overall strategy.
- Formationnew payroll strategy, revision of employee compensation and benefits software.
- HR records management in new digitized formats.
Additional components of the strategy
The modern human resource management system implies new components of the personnel department. In addition to the "classic personnel", these components are by no means related to secondary actions. They include:
- He alth and safety.
- Measures to update and support a package of documents related to business ethics, corporate conduct standards (various codes).
- Developing new forms of internal communications.
- Implementation of new forms of social development and social support for employees.
- Introduction of methods of mediation of labor disputes and conflicts.
- Search and implementation of new legal ways to solve labor issues.
Stages of creating and implementing a personnel strategy
First of all, it is worth remembering: the strategy and policy of personnel management is always repeated, it is cyclical.
- Mission and strategic vision of personnel management (in case there is a need to formulate them separately from the overall mission).
- Conversion of mission and general declarations into specific goals for priorities and main components of personnel work.
- Analysis and assessment of the internal and external environment, the salary market, competitor statistics, own personnel statistics.
- Choosing the type of personnel management strategywith the designation of the main focus of personnel work in the coming period.
- Planning work with deadlines and responsible persons for each part of the strategy.
- Performing planned activities with monitoring and periodic control.
- Assessment of what has been accomplished with subsequent adjustment of strategic objectives and ways to achieve them.
