October 2024 Strategies & Insights

Strategic Resource Planning

Do you effectively align the needs of your organization with the resources you have in place?? Resource planning can often be neglected, done reactively, or fail to focus on the business needs versus the people in the workforce.

When preparing your 12-18 month resource and succession plans it is critical to understand the organization design and structure as it pertains to the needs of the business.?

Specifically, what positions do you need to effectively and efficiently provide the products and/or services of your business?? Often organizations try to fit the current workforce into roles or assign duties to fill needs without a more strategic approach to first understanding the business needs and second ensuring the appropriate skilled resources are placed in those positions.? Another activity often neglected is succession planning to determine how you will be staffing the needs of the business over the next 3-5 years with current resources or external new resources.

Here are seven recommended steps to take when performing strategic resource and succession planning.

1.??? Evaluate your current organizational structure and ensure you have the type of positions necessary to support the goals of the business.

2.??? Determine if you need to increase / decrease the volume of headcount for each position and determine if new positions are needed or if existing positions need to be eliminated.

3.??? Determine what competencies are required for each of the positions in the updated organizational structure.

4.??? Analyze current workforce competencies and capabilities to effectively fill the positions needed by the organization today and over the next few years.

5.??? Develop training solutions to maximize the effectiveness of existing resources addressing competency gaps.

6.??? Develop a talent acquisition plan to mitigate gaps in headcount (new positions or vacancies created from workforce movement).

7.??? Leverage what you learn through the process to inform and develop your succession plan.

Insight: Aligning the business needs with the strategic planning of resources is critical to both growth and sustainability.? Execution of proactive planning avoids gaps in key critical roles and competencies within the workforce.

New Technology Implementation – Human Capital Considerations

Technology is always evolving and can be a tremendous value to a business when solving challenges in efficiency, performance, or compliance.

Unfortunately, strategic planning for technology initiatives can easily neglect human resources as a key stakeholder which will negatively impact the successful implementation and adoption of a new technology.

Change is already challenging enough for a workforce, and the lack of strategic planning for change management and identification of the impact on human capital resulting from a change in technology can lead to failure.

When embarking on implementing a new technology, recognize at a minimum the following impact on the workforce and business that can make or break the success of your initiative.

1.??? Communication and engagement influences adoption.

2.??? Skill and competency gap analysis to be successful with the new technology informs training and talent acquisition needs.

3.??? New required skills and experience impacts job descriptions, position qualifications, talent acquisition, compensation, training, onboarding, performance management, and more.

Insight: Failure to consider and plan for the “people impact” of a technology change can lead to failure and disengagement of a workforce as well as poor morale.? Recognizing the Human Resources is a key stakeholder in any technological initiative is critical.? If you do not have the human resource expertise within your organization, seek strategic relationships with subject matter experts who can advise on the people aspect of your initiative. Be cautious with technology vendors who provide implementation plans without including your human resources team or consideration of the impact on people.

Compliance Corner – Termination Practices

Separating an employee is never an easy decision and never enjoyable.? We want to share a few factors to consider when executing personnel activity such as termination to help you mitigate risk and potential liability in your employment practices.

Corrective Action – Develop internal practices that focus on a process of helping the employee achieve success.? This means performance management that begins with mentoring and coaching, then formalized corrective action which gives the employee the opportunity to improve and correct performance or behavior before taking final action.? This develops an effective defense against claims of wrongful termination or discrimination, especially when the employee claims “I didn’t know I was failing”.

Documentation – This means not just a “note to file” which is a bad practice.? Documentation is about creating communication evidence between the employer and employee on identification of performance or behavior deficiencies, set expectations, feedback and consequences.? When you notify the employee, they then have an opportunity to improve.? Failure to create documentation that evidences your engagement and communication to the employee exposes your personnel activity to scrutiny and risk.? When you have no documentation to prove your decisions are non-discriminatory, you open the door for allegations to become a liability for your business.

State Requirements for Final Pay – Different state law require employers to take different action with final pay for an employee based on the method of separation.? Specifically, there are generally different legal requirements for voluntary versus involuntary separations.? When employer initiates the separation, state obligations may be triggered and failure to comply can expose the business to risk that can easily be avoided.

Insight: Separations are generally not something a small business owner has tremendous experience with.? Lack of comfort with the process, lack of experience with the legal requirements, and the need to validate the decision is the right one plague business owners often causing a delay in taking action, holding staff accountable, or properly documenting the action taken.? Leverage the knowledge and experience of your human resource team or engage subject matter experts to ensure your employment practices are executed in a compliant manner.

DemystifyHR is a Human Resource and Business Advisory firm exclusively dedicated to the small business community.? With almost 30 years of human resource and business leadership experience across industries in public and private sector and with for profit and non-profit organizations, our customized solutions provide small business owners the peace of mind they deserve while learning how to mitigate the risks associated with their employment practices.? For practical solutions that fit your budget contact Warren Cook to schedule a free discovery consultation by calling 800.589.5303 emailing at [email protected] or by clicking here to schedule online.