The secret behind every successful business lies in a proper HR strategic plan. Why is Human Resources management so important? For starters, it helps to measure your workforce and assess the company’s future needs. Many companies hire HR professionals to conduct an HR strategic plan template or have a dedicated HR team within their structures.

A strategic HR plan is inevitable for reaching milestones and strategic objectives. Your time and energy are critical, and a good HR department can work wonders when it comes to employee engagement. Not to mention several issues like productivity pitfalls or employee turnover, which can be easily avoided by following the HR plan.

But what is a Human Resource, exactly? And how to motivate employees to follow it? Here, you’ll find 6 tips for aspiring (and experienced) HR managers to ensure your company is well-served. We’ll also provide you with plenty of HR strategy templates so you don’t have to start from scratch.

It’s a process that identifies the current and future human resource needs to achieve its goals. It also helps with incorporating a “company culture” and has a significant impact on employee development. It’s crucial to include strategies that prevent staff shortages and reduce skill gaps.

The HR strategic plan usually has a form of a written document. They look similar to most strategic business plans, so if you’ve seen one, it’ll be easier for you to use them. Later on, we’ll provide you with some example templates, but before that, let’s talk about why even bother with HR strategy.

Implementing an HR strategy comes with several benefits. We’ll cover the most important ones when using such a plan, so you’ll know what to expect.

Here are the most important benefits:

• It fulfills the dynamic needs of a company.

Due to observable cultural shifts and growing globalization, the market situation changes dynamically. Thus, HR leaders need to adapt to the dynamic needs and act ahead of time to fulfill them. A good HR strategy template can help you with that.

• It helps adapt to technological changes.

Technology evolves faster than anything. If your company doesn’t take advantage of it, you are exposing yourself to losses. With an HR plan, an HR leader can manage and distribute employees across several technology groups and ensure the company’s growth.

• HR Planning is beneficial for small businesses too.

Growing up as a small firm in the 21st century can be a harsh experience. The competition is fierce, and big companies usually have the funds to sponsor huge marketing campaigns and kick out smaller players. Therefore, it’s crucial for them to balance team members’ needs and company functioning. HR strategy can help with things like recruitment or compensation, even for a small group of people.

• Absences and grievances.

When every employee is present, everything runs like clockwork. But what if someone’s going on vacation, taking maternity leave, or getting sick? Their position can’t remain empty. The workforce changes constantly, and you have to keep up with it. It isn’t always easy, but an HR strategy template can also help with that.

• Employee training.

With the ever-changing market and ever-evolving technology, training employees can become a daunting task. That’s why HR professionals use HR planning to identify underqualified employees and provide everyone with proper training.

As you can see, HR planning comes with valuable benefits you can’t just pass by. Therefore, it’s time to learn how to create one!

You can’t start without a plan, so we’ll provide you with essential information to include when creating a proper HR plan. These 6 steps are essential to make your HR plan valuable, so follow them thoroughly to reach your HR goals successfully.

1. Predict Your Future Needs

When developing any kind of strategic plan, you need to think about the company’s future. It’s the same for HR planning. One of the best methods is to create a list of questions and group them based on priority. For example, you could ask yourself: ‘what skills will we require in the future?’ or ‘how large our company is going to be?’ When you answer these questions, you can start creating your own HR plan.

2. Assess Your Company’s Capabilities     

Thinking of the future is important, but you don’t want to forget about the present. Think of what you can do right here, right now. It may not be the easiest task and it’s hard to come with specific examples since it varies between companies. One of the best tips to help you with that is a SWOT analysis. It helps to evaluate your company’s strengths and weaknesses and analyze your company’s workforce. The point of this is to set your goals realistically.  

3. Work on a Specific Plan 

Once you define your needs and capabilities, it’s time to think about a specific plan on how to achieve it. Once again, it highly depends on the type of business, but you want to keep everything detailed and realistic. Being aware of your present capabilities definitely helps with that. Easier said than done? If that’s the case, we highly advise using the SMART acronym to speed up the process. This will help to make your current plan specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic.

4. Adapt and Re-evaluate

Even the most thought-out plan needs reevaluation sometimes, so don’t ever think yours doesn’t require tinkering at all! Everything evolves so you’ll have to adapt sooner or later. This will obviously make your plans less than ideal. Therefore, adapt to any new circumstances that you and your company may find yourself in.

5. Use Key Performance Indicators

KPIs are measurable results that indicate whether your strategy is working or not. Therefore, a company can easily make adjustments and achieve milestones faster. KPIs can take several forms: headcounts, turnover rates, demographic information, and employee satisfaction scores.

6. Keep an Eye on Your Budget

Human resources planning isn’t cheap in any way. Implementation of plans can cost a pretty penny, so it’s easy to overspend on your initiatives if you won’t keep track of it. The best way to prevent it is to simply include financial information in your HR planning template. This way, you’ll easily control your budget and expenses, keeping everything in one place.

Now that you know how to prepare a good HR strategy plan, it’s time for some practice. Below, you’ll find several templates suitable for many businesses, so you’ll definitely find one that suits your needs. However, you need proper software to open and use them.

In this case, you’ll need Microsoft Word. It’s probably the best office-related software ever created, and you don’t have to pay hundreds for a license. At RoyalCDKeys, we offer Microsoft Office 2021 Professional Plus Key Retail Global for less than $5 for an entire package!

HR Strategic Plan Template

The key to every strategic plan is to implement your organization's goals and priorities effectively. It’s a fully customizable, basic template to learn the essentials behind Human Resources. You can easily write program objectives and an executive summary for everyone to follow.

Download:

MS Word document

Simple Strategic Planning Template

Another template suitable for HR beginners. The table of contents will show you what’s included simply and comprehensively. If you’re looking for a solution that drafts an HR strategy almost effortlessly, this one is for you.

Download:

MS Word document

Career Development Template

If you want your employees to outline their career plans, this template will definitely help. The document is self-explanatory, just fill in the important details and the strategy will be ready.

Download:

MS Word document

Performance Appraisal Template

From time to time, every company has to do a performance review of their employees. With this template, you can easily rate every employee’s performance from unsatisfactory to outstanding.

Download:

MS Word document

Is HR important in a company’s overall planning process?

Yes, it’s very important. HR professionals can work wonders with specifically designed tactics to improve employee interaction within the company. They also ensure the right people are involved in the company’s plans, so everything runs like clockwork. Therefore, certain objectives are achieved faster.

What types of strategies are employed by HR departments?

There are two general types of strategies HR departments deploy – overarching strategies and specific strategies. The first one is taken care of by the HR department only, while the latter can involve anyone within the company. The strategies will vary between companies.