Strategic planning and associated steps
Strategic planning is an activity used by an organization in its management to set priorities, reorient their energy and resources, strengthen their operations and ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working towards achieving this goals. The company also uses them in setting an organizations direction in times of a changing environment and establishing a common agreement on the expected results (Simpkins, 2008). It aims at forming important decisions that shape what the company is, who it serves in the market, what its work is and why it does it and what its future goals are. If strategic planning is effectively done, it does not only show where the company is heading towards, but also the various ways it will know if it is becoming more successful in its endeavours. It revolves around the strategic plan, which is a document used to communicate the company’s goals, how they expect them to be achieved and the progress they make.
To create a successful strategic plan, HR leaders must have some background information prior to creating this plan. They must have knowledge on the various steps that must be allowed to create a successful strategic plan. One must understand the legacy and the history of the company before formulating the strategic plan (Lawler & Mohrman) . With this knowledge, one knows the kind of planning that needs to be applied. This knowledge helps to prevent any mistakes being repeated as their predecessors had done. The HR department has the power to undertake this research on all levels of the organization. They must become knowledgeable on the various methods of strategic planning and drive their knowledge to be accepted throughout the organization.
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The next step would be to create a diverse planning team that has intelligent individuals. Diversity in this case is of two types, which are based on skills and thought. There should be members of different races and gender on the team to ensure that no one is left out. Moreover, diversity should consider factors such as age, experience, knowledge, skills, regionalism, culture, education and personality. These are very important factors to consider since a team has to be made up of all these ingredients to make sure that it does not miss on a single ingredient required for its success (Cooke & Saini, 2010) . All these categories bring a particular advantage to the team since it has to be balanced and yet encompass all the subsets. If a company fails to recognize all these principles, it is assured that its plan will fail. Skills are also a major consideration.
Next, there should be alignment with the leader’s expectations of the company. The goals they hope to attain over time and what they want to achieve in due time. A close study should be made of the things that leaders hope to achieve in the company. If these goals are not integrated into the strategic plan, it is assured to fail since it does not reflect what its leaders want. Therefore, HR is required to create a stage in which they assess the leaders and find out what they want for the company. This will help in uncovering their thinking and aligning the plan with their thoughts (Bennett & Matthew Brush, 2007) . HR should not be the only team that conducts interviews on the leaders; rather, other members should also chip in and bring clarity to what is really needed by their seniors.
They should then analyse the organizational realities. The planning team is in charge of this whole process of knowing what has worked and has not worked in the past. Moreover, they have to gain more understanding of senior leaders perceptions (Simpkins, 2008) . The planning team must compare the company’s history with its current state to know what changes may be required and where they will be most effective. They will also be tasked with identifying actions that may pose as obstacles to the wholesome progress of the company. The SWOT process is used for this task. It helps in understanding the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that may be involved. Determining the opportunities and threats that a company might face in future can help a lot in trying to evade these problems and drive more towards the opportunities that are beneficial. HR can also present their expertise on laws that may affect the employees and more information acquired from doing employee surveys.
Next would be to create alternative performance options, which will help to fix any problems that may be hindering performance in the company. This involves finding more than just one way to fix a problem. This is essential since when one plan fails there is always an alternative to take. HR is also the only part of the company to determine what resources are available and where they may need some boosting. HR should then create a way in which they are able to measure the progress. This will help in backtracking and understanding where the company might be going wrong if performance is low. The next step involves deploying the new strategic plan. This involves creating better communication among employees so that they can encourage the workforce to adopt it, have faith in it, and respond where they do not agree (Simpkins, 2008) . The last step would be to place contingency plans to help sustain the steady working of the plan. This helps in keeping it alive and preventing it from fading away. This includes alternative ways of achieving a goal if realities shift or change due to unforeseen circumstances.
HR planning relationship with the Strategic planning and components
Human Resource planning and Strategic planning has a very close relationship. Both functions are dependent on the other in order for them to work effectively. When leaders want to develop a strategic plan they will have to incorporate different members and departments of the organization (Simpkins, 2008) . This is where the HR department will come in since they are familiar with most activities and resources of the company. This process involves impact assessments. HR is also in key in executing of the strategic plan. They are involved in informing individual in the company about the changes that are about to come. This might involve various tasks such as changing people’s job descriptions and also transferring people between job units and making of new policies to run the organization. HR is also involved in the monitoring process where they will observe the effects that the new changes might have on the company. This involves finding out if the policies are sufficient, affordable and sustainable.
Motivational Concepts
Different motivational strategies are required to reach the goals that an organization has set (Recklies, 2014) . To develop a motivated workforce, the manager must view every individual in the company as a single person and empower them to do better in order to achieve better results for the company as a whole. Various motivational concepts may be used to boost this growth.
The first motivation concept is empowering employees and giving them more trust, authority and autonomy in the company. This helps them to develop and have the faith they require in themselves to come up with their own ideas. It also gives them the power they may require to promote these ideas (Recklies, 2014) . The other concept involves redesigning jobs and the way they are done around the workplace. Most people wake up early in the morning to go to their workplace in an unenthusiastic manner. The concept of job redesign looks into changing how jobs are done around the workplace and bringing in motivational theories to increase the satisfaction and productivity of employees. A happy employee is a hard working employee. Giving more authority to workers may make them to become more responsible in the actions that they take but it also might make them misuse this power hence affecting the strategic plan that has been put in place. However, job redesign can help in promoting what a strategic plan stands for. It helps the goals of the company to be more attainable since workers are more motivated and satisfied under this concept.
A strategic plan takes many factors in to ensure that it becomes successful. It requires the joint effort of everyone in the organization for it to work. Everyone must accept it and work towards realizing the goals it has in place.
References
Bennett, D., & Matthew Brush. (2007). The Annual HR Strategic Planning Process: Design and Facilitation Lessons from Corning Incorporated Human Resources. Organization Development Journal , 87-93.
Cooke, F. L., & Saini, D. (2010). Does The Hr Strategy Support An Innovation Oriented Business Strategy? An Investigation Of Institutional Context And Organizational Practices In Indian Firms. Human Resource Management , 377-400.
III, E. L., & Mohrman, S. (n.d.). HR as a Strategic Partner: What Does It Take to Make It Happen? Human Resource Planning , 15-29.
Recklies, D. (2014). Motivation – Basic Concepts and Theories. The Manager .
Simpkins, R. (2008). Bringing Human Resources Back into Strategic Planning. Wiley Interscience , 43-52.
