People Strategy Roadmap

The statement that the economy is changing faster than ever has become a platitude, but it has never been as true as it is today. Technologies, industries, and consumers evolve continuously in a digitally controlled market and businesses shift their strategic focus to keep up.

On top of that, organisations have a strong focus on formulating a go-to-market or business strategy: from brand positioning to product roadmaps and sales processes. Efficient business strategies often draw their strength from the input of stakeholders in various departments. And yet, HR is not always included in strategic discussions.

This is unjustified when we consider the fact that each business decision has a real impact on staff and every efficient HR initiative has the potential to boost the company and its business. HR could thus have an advisory role in elaborating the business strategy, it could align its own policy with those objectives, and help staff navigate the resulting changes.

In short: it is important to align your HR strategy with your business strategy.

• All teams aligned

Alignment and consensus between various teams within an organisation will always add to the feasibility of objectives.

• HR initiatives with a strategic focus

There are countless ways of recruiting, training, attracting, developing, and supporting staff. But it is impossible to address all HR initiatives at the same time. Alignment with the business strategy is a way of adding strategic focus to HR and helping prioritise objectives.

• The right talent at the right time

Insight and alignment with the strategic objectives of the organisation will help HR attract, deploy, and retain the right talent at the right time. This increases HR’s added value as well as its impact on the organisation.

Aligning the HR strategy with the business strategy is not a self-evident practice. Many elements need to be considered in order to make the right decisions and it is important for various parties to reach a consensus. In order to facilitate this process, Hudson and Vlerick Management School developed the People Strategy Roadmap©, offering a substantiated and strategic canvas to both large organisations and SMEs. 

When drafting an optimised action plan, it is important to obtain a clear understanding of your organisation and to identify any gaps and shortcomings in your processes as quickly as possible. 

Based on interviews, surveys and document study, our consultants get to know your organisation through and through and share their initial insights and concrete advice with you. Because Hudson only deploys senior consultants for these stages, they are able to draw conclusions quickly, assess situations and problem definitions correctly, and act swiftly based on prior experience and benchmarks.

The next step is to conduct several workshops where your own People Strategy Roadmap© is formulated:

• Business objectives

HR’s most important strategic role is to help the organisation achieve its key business objectives. These objectives may vary to a large extent depending on the company’s strategic plan. This is why a great point of departure is to identify the most important business priorities first, i.e. those that HR will be able to actively impact. 

• HR mindset

Once we are all aligned when it comes to the most important business priorities, the time has come to consider, together with our consultants, which HR mindset offers your organisation the best opportunities to achieve these objectives. This mindset may already be present to some degree. Or perhaps the organisation still needs to take some steps in order to grow into it. 

• HR clusters

In order to improve the efficiency of your HR initiatives, it will be important to focus on those HR areas that can have the greatest impact on the selected business objectives.

• HR actions

Now that we have a clear picture, we can develop action plans for the execution of this strategic HR vision. In doing so, we also ask ourselves whether the current initiatives should be continued or not. What potential obstacles may inhibit our progress and how can we remove them?

At the end of this process, our consultants add everything up in a People Strategy Roadmap©, fully tailored to your organisation. This report provides you with a clear roadmap, including all objectives, milestones, projects, and initiatives as well as an overview of all relevant benchmarks, the budgets to be allocated, and dashboards to be set up that will allow you to monitor and manage the performance of your HR initiatives.

HR manages a lot more than recruitment, onboarding, and employment conditions alone. Aligning HR with the business strategy is vital to help the company achieve its business objectives as well as to ensure that internal teams are aligned and satisfied, improve their performance, and expand their influence and decision-making authority throughout the entire organisation. Get in touch with us – at no obligation – to find out how we can help you.