The strategic planning in times of crisis
The pandemic brought us not only negative economic consequences; it also caused a lot of personal stress, changes (both in the workplace and in private life), and unpredictability. These factors have made drawing up strategic planning anything but easier. How companies worldwide deal with their strategic planning in a crisis becomes clear in the research report ‘Collaborative planning in an uncertain world’ from MIT Technology Review Insight in collaboration with Oracle. 860 executives were surveyed across various departments, including human resources (HR), finance, supply chain & logistics, and information technology (IT). One thing is clear: HR plays an important role in the strategic planning for 2021.
What is personnel planning?
Your staff forms the foundation of your company, which means that as an entrepreneur you must take personnel planning into account with every strategic initiative. Whether it concerns technological innovation or sustainability: as an organization you must determine future staffing needs. It is therefore of great importance that HR is involved from the outset. They can advise on the availability and redistribution of talent across the organization, but also on how the engagement of current staff can be maximized. In doing so, you as a company must answer several questions: do you want to retrain current staff or hire people with specific skills? Are those future roles suitable for full-time employees or are they better outsourced? What will the compensation look like? As an organization you must determine future staffing needs. It is important that HR is involved from the outset.
Different forms of strategic personnel planning
Research shows that organizations use different types of workforce planning: more than half (51 percent) choose a strategic workforce planning approach, in which they examine required skills, competencies and costs. 45 percent focus on financial planning, such as the costs of the workforce. Another option is shift scheduling, but this is industry-specific (31 percent), such as in healthcare or in manufacturing.
What will our future workforce look like?
HR can, with its knowledge, expertise and insights into the workforce, take the lead in personnel planning. The earlier and more effectively you do that, the better. The workforce is always dynamic. When the organization decides to recruit new people, HR plays an important advisory role. The department determines what type of recruitment should be carried out: do we need someone temporarily? Or do we want a new permanent employee? HR establishes how you will organize the front end of the recruitment process to bring in the right type of employee.
HR is not only concerned with new employees, but also with the existing workforce. In some cases a major structural change requires a new approach to personnel planning. Think of the move to the cloud, which requires new skills from your staff. Here HR will also advise: do we offer these people training? Or are they assigned a different role?
When we talk about the current workforce, HR also takes its outflow into account. Personnel develop along with the needs of the organization, but when someone still provides little added value, it is important that HR guides these people.
Soft skills
The planning may perhaps be completely ready, but you must also prepare your people for it. Collaboration is a combination of soft skills and technical competence, which is becoming increasingly important, it seems. The skills that are most popular today are data visualization (56 percent), AI and machine learning (49 percent), and interpersonal skills (45 percent), such as empathy, assertiveness and body language.
HR finance
Due to unforeseen circumstances, priorities within the organization shift. Companies in sectors where the coronavirus crisis hit hard had to lay off staff. Organizations that are reorganizing must consider the question of when these people can return to work and in which roles. Therefore, close cooperation between HR and finance is essential for strategic planning, with timely execution of such plans also being crucial.
Integrated platform
Every HR objective is linked to finance. Think of revenue targets or staff performance. Such data must be consistent, accessible and above all accurate: they drive business planning and its execution. Therefore it can be useful to share the data from both on the same platform. In the 2020 survey, 52 percent of organizations already used a single common integrated application platform from one vendor for finance and HR. This can break down the walls between finance and HR data, which is crucial for successful planning.
Your strategic planning will be a success when:
HR asked to be involved in the process, so that they can provide advice on talent and productivity needs, involvement of the current staff, but can also indicate what the costs are for recruitment or retraining.
There is a close collaboration between HR and finance. The departments go hand in hand, with each HR objective linked to finance. Therefore it is good to integrate the data of both into one common application platform from a single vendor.
