What’s the plan?
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I’m going to tell you a personal story. Years ago I interviewed for a big role in a small company. The job itself was well within my capabilities, and in some ways it was a step backwards. But I didn’t get it, and I didn’t get it for reasons you might not get jobs in the future, and you could learn from my mistake on this.
My error was thinking that the CEO wanted someone good in their work, an expert, a high flyer, someone good, at HR. So I was prepped and ready to explain and demonstrate my HR capability. But that wasn’t what they wanted; they barely asked. That was minimum requirements for the job, that was almost a given. They wanted to know what value I could add to the business at a strategic level- how I was going to be an asset at the executive table. Because the management team is more than just the heads of department- it’s the team at the helm of the company, it’s navigating tough seas, it’s plotting the strategic path to success.
The higher you go in the organisation, the less you need to think about your department, and the more you need to think, and be able to contribute to, questions of strategy. There is so much written both academic and business related, on strategy that I can’t even begin to educate you, but I can get you thinking down the right tracks.
What is your company trying to achieve?
This should be easy, read the mission statement. Done. Next question. Oh, it’s very nice but lacking in detail? How surprising….
This is a very large question that we can only just scratch the surface. For some organisations, particularly not-for-profit, or public sector, this is clear (provide healthcare to the city, provide services to this professional group), but for-profit based companies, this can be a little vague, and often nothing more than vague ambitions, and/or specific profit targets (e.g. 11% ebitda).
Perhaps a better question is; what are we trying to do right now? Or in the short term- e.g. over the next 1, 2, or 3 years? This will give the specifics of what you organisation is trying to achievement now, or soon. Ask your manager, your mentor, or an approachable senior manager- what are the plans? Are we developing new products? Are we reducing costs? Are we diversifying our product range or markets? Almost every organisation has plans to go somewhere different, but where and when are interesting questions.
What strategies are they using?
Again, there is so much to know in the area of business strategy, but here are some beginnings for you. Michael Porter, probably the biggest name in organisation strategy, identifies three generic strategies; cost, focus and differentiation, all of are means to the end of competitive advantage- something your company does better than others.
Cost is the easiest and most obvious- a strategy of cost leadership is being able to provide the product or service cheaper than your competitors.
Differentiation could be roughly simplified as quality- making your product stand out from others by unique and distinct features of the product.
Focus is targeting specific segments on the market only, and looking to capture small sections of a market only- by providing tailored solutions to specific segments, the organisation keeps
If you understand (or at least have the broad gist if they’re not sharing corporate secrets with you) how your organisation seeks to succeed versus its competitors, you can understand what part people play.
What are the current human requirements to achieve this?
So what does this mean for HR? What can you do to help? Firstly, start with what you have got- what does your organisation have that means they can do well? If it’s a big factory, that a good advantage for making things cheaply. If it’s a strong brand for a good association with quality/environmental responsibility/trustworthiness, then that’s a good place to start.
Then ask yourself- what people are needed to keep that going? Is it your product development team? Your production team? The marketing dept? Avoid the trap, or cop-out of ‘everyone is important’ because when it comes to strategy, some are more important than others.
What are the future human requirements to achieve this?
So if (and I know we are laying ifs upon if here, but bear with me) we know a) what we are good at, b) who we need to be good at that, and c) what our plans are, then that begs the question: who will we need to succeed in these plans? Simple, but also complicated in application.
But if you want one takeaway from this that you can apply easily, here it is. Like rolling pizza dough, if you’re going to grow in an area, you need some depth first. You can roll thin much further. In HR planning terms- before an area (e.g. product, sales, marketing, product development) can stretch to take on more load for organisation success, it pays to build some depth there first. If the plan is to grow in an area in 6 months, start building some fat in that area first.
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