So, what is a People Strategy, a People Strategy sets out the strategic direction for your people over a set timeframe. This can be 3 or 5 years, and it will depend on your strategic plan and priorities.
It sets out the interventions that are required to ensure you develop as an organisation and that you are continuously fit for purpose. It ensures that everything you do is linked to your values and mission and delivers its objectives.
It seeks to enable and equip people within the organisation with the necessary knowledge, skills, experience and attitudes to deliver outstanding service.
Please think about your school, trust or business right now. Do you have a problem with, for example, retention that you need to tackle? Are your recruitment processes efficient or is there a way in which your strategy could enhance the candidate experience? Do you have an engaged team? What development initiatives do you have in place to grow talent from within?
The simple way to answer these, and the many other questions that will inevitably arise, is to use the overall business strategy as the basis for your People Strategy. Here’s how to approach it.
Firstly, you need to:
- Understand the Goals of your business
Before integrating your People Strategy it’s crucial you know your business strategy inside out. Knowing the short, medium, and long-term goals of your organisation will help you decipher your People Priorities.
- Focus on the financials
Obviously, the first priority for any business will be to generate at least enough revenue to cover operating costs. Therefore, decisions you make should be compatible with organisational budgets.
To do this, ask a few financial questions about your People Strategy.
E.g. What is the financial impact of COVID-19 on your school, Trust or business?
- Use insights and data to influence decision-making
Ensure stakeholders across the organisation can contribute – including, most importantly, employees.
What have employees fed back previously, and how can you act on this? Are there certain trends? Use data to understand patterns and behaviours.
- Measure your success
Keep records of money spent against results achieved. Your ultimate aim is to show how your People Strategy fits into the overall Business Strategy by helping to generate revenue and return on investment.
For instance, if a recruitment campaign is successful and you manage to acquire a pool of highly-skilled new employees, you can measure output against the cost of recruiting them.
COVID-19 continues to bring significant changes to our lives, with many businesses and employees having to adapt to new ways of working.
It’s important for HR teams and business leaders to understand the situation, mitigate the risk for their organisation, and care for the health and wellbeing of their people.
If you need help developing a People Strategy or help with implementation, including job evaluation, policy reviews, structure evaluation and wellbeing initiatives, please get in touch with one of the team to discuss how we can help on 01924 827869 or contact us.
You may also benefit from watching the replay of our recent webinar on People Strategy. Click here and scroll down to select the replay. As you will hear in the webinar, consistent systems often assist a good People Strategy and if you want to see how our HR software is helping schools and trusts, especially during this time, then book onto our upcoming SAM (Staff Absence Management) or SAMpeople (HR system) demonstrations. You can also find out more about these products on our dedicated websites www.staffabsencemanagement.co.uk and www.sampeople.co.uk.
