Develop an Agile HR Strategic Plan That
Achieves Organizational Objectives
Use foresight to become the HR department that the business needs.
McLean & Company is a research and advisory firm that provides practical solutions
to human resources challenges with executable research, tools, and advice that will have a
McLean & Company is a research and advisory firm providing practical
to human
challenges
via executable
research,
tools and advice that
clear andsolutions
measurable
impactresources
on your business.
© 1997-2015
McLean
& Company.
have a clear and measurable impact on your business. © 1997 - 2014 McLean
& Company.
McLean
& Company
is a division
of Info-Tech
Research Group
McLean
& Company
is a division
of Info-Tech
Research
Group Inc.
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Our Understanding of the Problem
This Research is
Is Designed For:
This Research Will Help You:
 Heads of HR/CHROs who want to be more
 Craft an HR Strategy aligned with your
strategic in their organization and develop an
HR strategic plan.
organizational goals and objectives that has
agility to pivot around challenges as they arise.
 Translate business strategies into key people
tactics and programs.
 Implement measureable metrics to evaluate
progress against the plan.
This Research Will Also
Assist:
Assist:
This Research Will Help You:
Them:
 VPs of HR.
 HR Managers.
 Re-think HR priorities in terms of overall
business strategy.
 Design and develop mission critical HR
solutions.
 Focus on established and measureable
priorities.
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Executive Summary
Situation
!
• HR is in firefighting mode due to limited resources and increased
•
•
•
demands on the HR department.
HR has difficulty articulating its value to the business.
HR is misaligned with business goals.
HR lacks metrics and can’t adequately measure progress towards goals.
Complication
?
• Designing an HR strategic plan is a sizeable initial time commitment.
• Translating organizational objectives into HR deliverables requires new
•
and different skill sets.
Businesses require agility from their departments, meaning HR cannot
create a cookie-cutter strategy.
McLean & Co. Insight
CEOs consistently rank recruitment,
talent development, engagement,
and performance management as
their top HR priorities, yet they are
dissatisfied with HR outcomes. A
properly developed HR strategic
plan addresses the business
strategy when developing initiatives
that further aligns HR’s actions to
delivering business value.

Resolution
• Use McLean & Company’s blueprint to walk you through the process with a step-by-step guide full of practical knowledge
and advice. An agile HR strategic plan using McLean & Company’s process:
◦ Aligns HR tactics to business objectives and goals.
◦ Spends the time to craft a robust strategic framework that can handle changing objectives later.
◦ Develops and delivers HR services and capabilities that today’s organizations need in the changing competitive
environment.
◦ Promotes getting ahead of the curve so that HR can influence key organizational objectives.
◦ Encourages focus on priorities to eliminate non-value-add tactics.
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Develop an agile HR strategic plan – Project overview
1. Make the Case and
Develop Desired State
1. Make the Case
3. Assess the Current State
2. Develop Desired State
4. Prioritize Initiatives and
Develop Strategy
Best-Practice
Toolkit
Guided
Implementations
2. Assess and Develop
Strategy
Discuss making the case, the
importance of developing an HR
strategy, and selling the project to
executives.
Review tools and templates
completed during current state
assessment; address challenges and
questions.
Review tools and templates
completed during second step; create
action plan for the next two steps.
Identify prioritized initiatives and
review how the strategic plan
template is filled out; address
questions and concerns.
3. Execute and
Evaluate
5. Execute Strategy and
Evaluate Progress
Discuss preparedness for strategy
execution; review communication and
execution plans.
Post-evaluation discussion of HR
scorecard and adjustments to plan
based on business objective
changes.
Module 1:
Make the Case and Develop the Desired
State
Module 2:
Assess and Develop Strategy
Module 3:
Execute and Evaluate
Phase 1 Outcome:
• Make the case plan.
• Thorough understanding of the desired
state based on business objectives.
Phase 2 Outcome:
• Complete current state assessment
and gap analysis.
• Prioritized initiatives and HR Strategic
Plan Template completed.
Phase 3 Outcome:
• A fully completed and executed HR
strategic plan.
• A strategic maintenance and review
plan.
Onsite
Workshop
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Phase 1
Phase 2:
Make the Case
and Develop
Desired State
Phase 3:
Assess and
Develop Strategy
Execute and
Evaluate
Make the Case and Develop Desired State
Steps:
•
•
•
•
•
Understanding HR Strategy
The Importance of Planning Ahead
Consider Outside Factors
Look to the Business as a Starting Point
Translate Business Objectives into HR Deliverables
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Make the Case: Align HR strategy with organizational goals
and objectives
What is an HR Strategy?
• An HR strategy provides a holistic view of the current HR environment within an organization, the future
direction, and the tactics required to achieve the desired future state.
• It should be nimble, reliable, and efficiently respond to broader organizational strategic objectives.
• The output of this process should be an HR Strategic Roadmap, stemming from an analysis between
current and desired states.
How HR Strategy Impacts HR
How HR Strategy Impacts the Business
Defining an HR strategy means organizing HR's
numerous strategies and plans around providing
business value.
An HR strategy ensures the wise investment of
business dollars for HR initiatives to help the
business achieve its goals and objectives.
HR initiatives are prioritized and ordered to
recognize dependencies and synergies, leading to
increased efficiency in the HR function.
The HR strategy drives lower costs, increased
output, and competitive advantage when HR
activities are aligned with business drivers.
McLean & Co. Insight
HR strategy is an overarching plan with many components. Initiatives are the goals and programs within the
roadmap, and tactics are specific actions that must be taken to ensure the success of initiatives. An HR strategic
plan is also sometimes referred to as a “Human Capital Management Strategy” or a “Talent Strategy,” depending
on organizational nomenclature.
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Craft the HR strategic plan around the functions of the HR
department
• HR strategy integrates all HR functions and explains
the value delivered to the organization.
• The HR strategic plan is the overarching plan that
ties and guides the direction of outputs of each
function.
Talent
Management
Plan
Performance
Management
Plan
Employee
Engagement
• Each function may have its own strategies and
tactics stemming from the overarching HR strategic
plan which is developed from business objectives.
• Not every company will have a strategic plan for
each function. A company could have one strategic
HR plan incorporating all of the functions.
• Employee engagement is crucial to the success of
any initiative; McLean & Company’s Employee
Engagement Survey will help you get a read on your
engagement levels.
HR Strategy is the overarching plan for the people
side of the business.
– Kevin Mason. Director of Business Development, Genesis
HR Solutions.
Talent
Acquisition
Plan
Total
Compensation
Plan
Learning &
Development
Plan
HR Strategy
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Eliminate “firefighting” activities with an HR strategic plan
that proactively delivers business value
Business leaders are dissatisfied with HR’s performance
• 16% of business respondents viewed HR as very effective overall.
• 14% of business respondents thought HR strategy in specific was effective, as opposed to
38% of HR respondents.
Source: McLean & Company 2015 HR Trends and Priorities Survey
Business leaders are challenging HR to step up its game
• 73% of business leaders want increased HR efficiency.
• 53% of business leaders want HR’s quality to improve.
• 34% of business leaders want HR to cut costs.
Source: McLean & Company HR Business Vision Survey
HR is unsure of how to overcome obstacles in creating the plan
•
•
•
•
Only 41% of employees feel they know what the company stands for on average.
44% of HR departments do not use a defined process when creating an HR strategic plan.
44% of HR departments do not have a plan in place.
41% of HR departments say business alignment is a key obstacle to developing an HR strategic
plan.
Source: McLean & Company Webinar Survey n=45
McLean & Co. Insight
Making this time investment now means you will be more aligned with
business priorities going forward and fewer fires will start in the first
place. It also means you can be agile at the back-end and simply
refresh or stay on top of business changes instead of making structural
changes every time.
Not having an HR strategy is like sawing a log
with a dull saw – taking the time to sharpen
your saw might seem like a step back at first, but
it will make you much more efficient going
forward. The same thing applies to HR strategy.
– Cindy Dopson. Director of HR, BC Cancer
Foundation.
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Look outside the HR department to interconnect the strategic
plan with the overall business strategy and other departments
The HR strategic plan must be aligned with all
departments in the organization.
• The operations strategic plan is important because operations and
HR both influence day-to-day tasks. Front line managers typically
deliver and communicate HR programs to employees. A good
business relationship is key to ensure they are champions of the
programs.
• HR needs to help finance understand the business rationale for
HR initiatives and how this will impact organizational results. Speak
the language of the organization rather than using HR speak.
HR
Strategy
Operations
Strategic
Plan
Finance
Strategic
Plan
Sales &
Marketing
Strategic
Plan
• Sales & marketing strategic plans can support the HR strategic plan
by assisting or teaching HR how to internally market the plan to
gain stakeholder and employee buy-in.
• Technology strategic plans are important because of the increasing
convergence of HR with technology. IT can support HR by
developing online platforms for HR initiatives.
Working with stakeholders in every department in the
business is a necessity, to be very honest. For instance,
Finance wanted spend information on one of our initiatives,
but they owned many of those metrics to begin with. The key
is to look for who owns the information you want, and then
partner with them to figure out how to improve.
Technology
Strategic
Plan
Business Strategy
– Jessica Phinn. VP of People and Engagement, Nelson Education Ltd.
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External factors affect the business; your HR strategy must be
structured and agile in order to pivot around these challenges
When analyzing factors affecting HR, be sure to consider how they will affect
the business or HR’s ability to deliver business value.
Demographics
Cost-Cutting
The population aged 45-64 will
increase by 42% in the next 20
years.
64% of global CEOs are cutting
costs in FY2014.
Technological Shifts
48% of teens have a smartphone.
25% plan to outsource parts of
their processes or functions to
save money.
69% of employees in a survey said
that new technology will
enhance productivity and
facilitate employee/manager
communication.
Source: PewResearchCenter and the Berkman
Center at Harvard University
Source: PwC 2014 Global CEO Trends Survey
Source: PewResearchCenter and the Berkman
Center at Harvard University
Skill Gaps
Learning & Development
Population Power Shifts
By comparison, youth groupings
have barely increased in size
since 2005.
McLean & Company’s HR Trends
Survey identified that addressing
looming skill gaps is a top
priority both for HR and for
business leaders.
Source: McLean & Company 2015 HR Trends
and Priorities Survey
Learning & Development ranked
first in spend by the HR
department.
There is an estimated 72%
increase in the world’s urban
population by 2050.
60% of HR respondents say L&D
is outsourced to a third party.
Growth in developed countries is
stalling or reversing for 83% of
global CEOs.
Source: McLean & Company 2015 HR Trends
and Priorities Survey
Source: PwC 2014 Global CEO Trends Survey
The entire skillset of HR is changing… HR has to be strategic to meet these
changes; it cannot afford to be reactive.
– Ron Thomas. CEO, Great Place to Work – Gulf Countries [Dubai].
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Failing to have an HR strategy exacerbates business challenges
Effect
Issue
Lower employee engagement
According to a McLean & Company study, disengaged
employees have lower productivity 55% of the time,
which leads to lower organization-wide profits.
Lack of integration with other
departmental strategies
HR will be unable to anticipate their needs and help
them ward off potential challenges.
Lack of knowledge of business needs
This will lead to misaligned HR decisions that could
affect the bottom line for the organization.
Ad hoc responses and a misaligned
learning & development program
This will lead to job confusion among employees,
causing higher turnover.
Increased time-to-fill for critical positions
This will lead to higher costs in recruitment, lost
productivity, and an inability to reach organizational
goals because the right talent is not present.
HR strategy is about driving business results and helping the
business strategy cascade to other departments.
- Director of HR, Insurance Industry.
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McLean & Company Helps HR Professionals To:

Empower management to
apply HR best practices

Maintain a progressive set of
HR policies & procedures

Develop effective talent
acquisition & retention
strategies

Demonstrate the business
impact of HR

Stay abreast of HR trends
& technologies

Build a high performance
culture
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•
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