Why does a people plan need to start with a business strategy?

Two of our People Directors, Alison Cooper and Victoria Sullivan, explain why your Business Strategy is so closely linked to your People Plan, and aligning the two is critical for long term success.

Alison: You cannot have a people strategy or plan, without understanding the direction that your business is going in, they are just fundamentally linked. If you don’t do it in that order in terms of a strategic plan and then people plan, you will miss opportunities from a people strategy perspective to be able to drive delivery of the overall strategic plan. The two are so interconnected, one has to follow the other. Strategic plan first, followed by the people plan.

Victoria: I think anything that HR does can’t be done in isolation. You really need to look and see what the business is trying to achieve in the long term, and then anything to deal with people needs to come off of the people strategy, linked to business strategy. Otherwise you could go off on a tangent, doing some great work, but its never going to help the business.

Alison Cooper, People Director
Victoria Sullivan, People Director