Initiating Strategic HR Programmes to deliver value

Operationally efficient HR function invest significant portion of their time and money in the 'things that matters' and hence HR leadership need to deploy HR operational excellence principles to identify those key HR initiatives that will make a strategic shift, allocate the Hi Potential superstars to drive these initiatives to ensure these initiatives are successful.

We covered how to translate HR strategy into objectives and initiatives using strategic planning tool/ catch ball and creating a framework to strive for results using HR balanced scorecard.

Once the initiatives are identified, the next step would be to launch the program within a governance framework to ensure the scope of the initiatives are clear, outcome and timelines are outlined,  the resources are mobilised and investment secured to kick off the program.

Below is a 7 step approach for initiating strategic HR programmes, leadership engagement and key deliverables within each stage. 

Step 1: Finalise the key objectives and agree strategic programmes with the HR leadership teamStep 2: Agree indicative strategic roadmap for the short, medium and long termStep 3: Agree Executive sponsorship, identify key project lead (HiPo) to lead the projectStep 4: Agree Project charter, high level scope, deliverables, risk/issues and resourcing needsStep 5: Agree project organisation structure, roles and responsibilities and mobilse the workstream leads. Perform any RFP and engage vendors Step 6: Agree governance with the external and internal team. Review the budget and high level design including any approvals from the internal architecture teamStep 7: Manage and execute the program to deliver the value set by the program. We will talk about programme management and methodologies in a different blog.While executing strategic programmes, it is also important to give focus on continuous improvement initiatives, HR continuous improvement delivery model should be also deployed in parallel to ensure operational problems are dealt with and organisation do not compromise on the immediate critical short term needs. Note: Project Lead role is a key role usually ignored in functional HR projects, these are HR subject matter experts who has the organisation awareness and functional expertise to lead the program.