What You Don’t Know About Strategic HR

Many human resources professionals and SMEs want to join the ranks of the business world and become “strategic”, so what does that look like?  Does that mean that the HR Manager now attends the executive or business planning meetings? It’s more than that, and for HR to be truly strategic they must have a measurable affect on the bottom line.

This comes down to measuring the affects that the HR strategy, or the People Strategy, has on the organization. Metrics are the key and you need to show how improving programs will attract and retain employees and increase performance. It’s not enough to just say profits will increase you need to try and figure out a specific goal or metric with measurements to back it up.

Budgeting and putting plans in place may come from the management team but HR needs to create the strategy on how to get the employees to reach that goal. When working with the leaders, it’s HR’s role to hold the leaders accountable to the specific People Strategy. HR’s role becomes motivational and coaching and they need to step in when HR metrics are down. They need to ensure the leaders are making changes to support the strategy.

In the end the HR Strategy becomes the true business strategy. HR is not just a part of it but they are leading it.