Crafting the perfect commercial strategy: how a strategic people plan supports your business goals

At People Puzzles we often get enquiries from business owners seeking help to determine what kind of HR support they need for their business. Fractional People Director Rob Cook explains why the absence of any detailed context to those requests typically reveals a lot about what they might expect of their HR function.

It’s a bit like trying to choose a car for someone without knowing the main purpose and destination, how many passengers, and the typical journeys likely to be taken. That would definitely leave me shooting in the dark!!

Questions about your business

Determining the shape of your HR function must start with the plan for the business:

• What is the purpose of the business?
• What’s the mid-term strategy that’ll get you there?
• What’s the key elements of years 1, 2 and maybe 3?

In essence, what are the key elements of the plan needed to fulfil strategy?

Questions about your people

Building a business strategy will inevitably generate fundamental questions about your people issues:

• Do we have the right roles?
• Do our people neatly fit the requirements of those roles?
• How many more roles – existing and new – do we need, and by when?
• Is our culture going to help us achieve strategy?
• Is what we value in our people practiced day by day?
• Do we have the right leadership and management practices that will keep our teams engaged, inspired and change-orientated?
• Do our teams have the capacity to grow and adapt at the same pace as the change we anticipate externally?
• Do we need to reorganise key processes and how we are structured?

The key point is that a successful business needs a capable HR function which can operate well at different levels and areas and is able to respond to any of the questions above.

At People Puzzles, we have a cadre of experienced HR Directors who can work with you in the development of business strategy and who can then help identify the people implications that need to be addressed to achieve your commercial goals.