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19/05/2016The strategic role of HR!
How integral to central organisational planning is your HR department?
- Do you know what your organisation’s core KPIs are?
- Is your training plan individual, organisational or role focussed?
- Do you monitor how training interventions link to strategic goals?
Is human resources still seen as a separate function, or is it viewed as essential to the organisation’s growth?
The role of human resources has changed so much from the era of Personnel departments who were simply in place to administer the processes of recruitment and payroll to one where now ‘need to’ have a strategic focus, linked to organisational goals, that strengthens the organisation while also supporting its development.
Investment in staff training is essential to the growth of the company. I would recommend putting together personal training plans for all staff; this will boost staff motivation / performance and help align their needs with the wider business objectives.
Stirling Kimkeran, 2016, p23
Taking on the initiative to grow your own leaders, ensures that both training individuals and addressing succession planning are taken seriously within the organisation!
The majority of our people are developed from within the system. We take people on as a crew member or as a trainee business manager. … All of our operational hierarchy has started either as a trainee manager or as a crew member. We very much grow our own people.
Because of this ethos there is real business buy-in of L&D and ‘training has very much got a seat at the table’, meaning that learning is aligned to business needs.
Mark (McDonald’s), 2015, p33
Can you honestly say that your training and development plans fit perfectly in line with key organisational drivers?
- If not… why not?
- How far ahead do you look to establish what skills are needed to ensure organisational success?
With both immediate issues and the estimate that only 20% of staff have the skills that will be needed in 10 years’ time the key to human resources (learning and development) success is having a strategy that includes:
- Identifying and plugging gaps for individual, teams and the organisation that could cause immediate concern.
- Working with business leaders to understand what works best, and why!
- Recording contextualised best practice and replicating it across relevant teams.
- Future gazing, with business leaders, to ensure training and learning moves strategically at the same pace and in the same direction as the organisation.
With so many factors to take into account, the first is really to understand what success means to you and your organisation:
If success is defined as helping the organization make a profit, it muddies the issue. If success is defined as helping the organization achieve its mission, vision, strategy, and goals (MSVG), HR’s role is clearer.
… HR professionals must ensure that there is a direct connection between the policies, procedures, programs and services they offer and the organization’s larger purposes.
So it is clear to see that by proactively aligning the function and objectives of talent development, with the direction of the organisation, potential issues and gaps between skills needed and skills available become fewer and the organisation is able to not only grow more effectively, they are able to deal more easily with any major changes that occur within the sector and negative impacts are reduced – gaining a competitive edge in the marketplace!
The team at Advance have a wealth of experience in supporting process mapping workshops, skills analysis, learning resources development & effective sales training
Talk to us about your succession plans on 0113 823 2877! We can help you formalise or streamline the process; map and capture key process, product and sector information; and ensure you are “bottling best practice” that will take your organisation to the next level with confidence!
