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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of a great HR Strategy

How HR Directors can create a meaningful HR Strategy

During the shift to hybrid and remote working being quite normal a huge shift in the ways of working means that HR has had to run to keep up. HR Strategy usually doesn’t get updated during periods of drastic change, because you are so busy being reactive…

That probably means that now, you’re also starting to take a breath and consider how your HR strategy should evolve, or how you should go about creating a new HR strategy that is fit for purpose in the “new world of work”.

Make a plan on a page with Let’s Talk Talent’s HR Strategy Triangle Model

The good news is that we think the end result should be quite simple. At Let’s Talk Talent we often talk about a HR Strategy being nothing more than a plan on a page. Ultimately a HR Strategy should be a document that helps you and your team deliver work that aligns to your business objectives and helps you get, keep and grow great people.

But first let me show you the good, the bad and the ugly of an HR strategy?

The good HR strategies

Well, the good is where it’s absolutely linked to business strategy, so the two are completely in sync. You cannot create an HR strategy if you don’t know where the business is, and where it wants to go. 

The bad HR strategies

The bad is where you do it in the absence of reality, where you’re actually not linked to the SLT,you don’t know what’s going on in the business, you don’t have the data, and therefore you’re just creating a load of stuff that you need to deliver.

The ugly HR strategies

And the downright ugly is what you have to create something at amazingly top speed. And you don’t really know what the output is and you’re not going to measure any successes. 

HR Strategy & The Let’s Talk Talent Triangle Model

So the way to think about an HR strategy is to ensure you know your business objectives, align your thinking and everything you do in HR to meet those. Once you are living and breathing and talking the same language we’ve devised a simple way to get your HR strategy to fit on a one pager.

Welcome to the Let’s Talk Talent Triangle model.

Your Exam Question

A great HR Strategy starts with your exam question: what is it that you’re trying to solve? 

Is it that you’re trying to create an employee experience that’s inclusive? Do you want to be a great place to work?

And laying that up is basically two things, how you get great people and keep great people. They’re going to ultimately be the reason why you’re creating that because it’s from your exam question. 

Building Blocks of HR Strategy

So now you need to create your building blocks. They are the strategic drivers. 

So it could be that you want to improve your employee lifecycle, it may be that you want to upskill your management community, it might be that you need to put in HR systems and processes. 

They’re the building blocks that ultimately answer that question and enable you to get great people and keep great people. 

Workstreams of a HR Strategy

So from your building blocks, you’ll create a number of work streams. 

These are the projects that you and your team will deliver to answer that exam question. They could be your EVP, they could be creating a leadership and management programme, they could be looking at your onboarding process. 

They’re the actual tangible timelines and projects that you’re going to deliver. 

Conclusion: How to write a great HR Strategy

So it sounds super simple, doesn’t it? If you have an exam question, you have an ultimate goal in terms of getting great people and keeping great people. 

All you need to do is figure out your building blocks and your work streams. 

And the way that you do that is through communication: communicate, communicate, communicate through your senior management team and the business because they’re going to tell you what they need and what they want and when you need to deliver it. 

So building an HR strategy does not have to be complicated: keep it super simple. 

Focus on the good, and ditch the bad and the downright ugly.

If you want more help in writing your HR strategy we have created this free HR Strategy whitepaper which will help you get much further ahead. If you need external support to help you align to your business goals and focus, then book a meeting with my team directly and we’ll discuss your needs.

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