As you surely will know, the human resources department must be completely tuned to the companies mision and vision. Now, with the new year aproaching, the importance of this communications is critical.
To achieve your HR objectives you need a clear rute and a path all the organizarion must follow. Today we’ll talk about how to create an annual HR plan to reach all your goals.
Considerations to have in mind
HR plan goals
Define responsibilities
Staff planning
HR policy
Save time in your HR plan with Factorial
Create your human resources plan
Companies use the HR plan to analyze and determine all the elements related to the human resources policy of the company for the coming year. From staff’s dimension and structure and working conditions to the hiring process and onboarding of new employees.
That’s why it is important to have in mind some very important considerations before outlining your plan.
Know your surroundings
At the beginning of the year companies establish a strategic plan where the annual goals get fixed. Most of those depend heavily on the human resources department and to reach them one must know the answer to these questions first:
- What can we improve from last year?
Only by identifying your company’s problems and how to solve them will you be able to truly improve. Dragging your mistakes will just pile them one on top of the other until they tople and bury you. - What are this year’s challenges?
Analyzing what’s coming in your sector is also fundamental. You should know what changes, events and activities are going to take place in the next months and how will they influence your market so you can be ready for them, adapt and take advantage. For example, if your company is going to undergo a digital transformation you have to think how it will affect your employees. - What elements inside the company need more attention?
After looking around you have to look inwards and study the state of the company and the staff. With Factorial Pro, for example, you can create human resources reports that will show you a graphic vision of the company and will give you an idea of what you can do to improve it. A high turnover rate? Low motivation? Is important to keep track of it and find solutions.
That’s why is so important a good communication between the human resources department and the company’s higher ups, and for them to be completely clear and honest.
HR plan goals
The objectives on the company’s strategic plan are called long term objectives and will help measure the reach of the human resources plan. Those goals can be divided between:
- Explicit Objectives: Are the ones that focus on attraction and retention of talent, employee motivation and employee engagement improvement. To do so, in your HR plan you have to consider employee experience, oboarding process, career plans, etc.
- Implicit Objectives: Are the ones that follow the company’s philosophy and help creating company culture. The show the power of the HR department and how it can help improve productivity, work environment and quality of life for the employees while maintaining all labor regulations.
If you want more information regarding how to start a HR key results strategy in your company you can check our OKR post.
Define responsibilities
Once you have your objectives clear, both for the company and for the human resources department, it’s time to create the HR plan and analyze what will the department do in order to achieve those goals.
First you should assign a person in charge of creating and implement the plan. For the smallest companies it will probably be the CEO who is in charge of everything. In the slightly bigger ones it may be the person responsible for all the human resources related tasks, and for the medium companies, with several HR profiles, you will have to assign each one a task inside the plan with the corresponding goal. If it is necessary you may even have to divide the department in subcategories.
Ideas are always better understood with images, so creating an organizational chart of the company will be of help. The chart will show:
The hierarchic structure of the company: Directors, managers, intermediate profiles, employees, etc.
The different departments that make the company: Marketing, sales, product, human resources, etc.
Positions to fill.
The organizational chart will depend, of course, on the size and type of company, but it will be really helpful for your staff planning, it will show how many people you need to hire and for which positions to meet your goals.
Identifying open positions
Thanks to the organizational chart you have discovered the new positions to fill this year in order to achieve your objectives. In the HR plan you will define:
- Which positions are open. You’ll write a detailed descriptions of the position including department, place of work, responsibilities, functions, people in charge or supervisor and workload.
- Profile needed to fill the position. Here you’ll have to specify education, experience and skills needed. With that you’ll be able to evaluate if you have already an employee with that professional profile and give him a promotion or a relocation more suited to their skills, or if you have to hire someone new. Regardless of the decision you’ll have to start a selection process, formation, etc.
As you’ll see, these steps are always subject to the human resources policy of the company. But they are very important steps in your HR plan, so take your time studying and analyzing your company to get to the best solution.
Defining of the human resources policy
The human resources policy of the company must be updated to meet the demands and challenged from the general strategic plan and the HR plan. The policy will also dictate the day to day guides of the HR department and will include, like we said:
Guides for the hiring process:
In addition to detail functions, contract and compensation for each one of the different positions to fill, you must decide if the hiring process will be done by someone inside the company or you’ll externalize the whole process.
If it is a task for someone inside the company you’ll have to establish a strategic onboarding process to assure talent retention.
Guides for compensation:
You’ll have to decide on each new hiring salary and complements and economic pluses that will have to be settled before the hiring is effective to make sure all expenses are according to the budget.
Guides for personal and professional development:
Taking care of new hires is important, but also making sure your senior employees feel their work is valid. In your HR plan you should assign part of the budget to training for the personal and professional development of your employees and help them achieve their own goals and career plans.
Inside the HR policy you should include the good practices guide from the company, with its vision and mission, good conduct guides and conflict resolution.
Save time creating your HR plan with Factorial
A good HR plan is fundamental to the final result and achievement of the company’s goals. But it is a hard and time consuming job too if you don’t have the correct tools.
With Factorial you can create your organizational chart , fast and easy. Check who is in charge of what at a glance and decide which departments need help or a restructuring.
Furthermore, with Factorial you’ll get all kinds of human resources reports that will help you analyze the state of your company to make your HR plan more effective and efficient.
Register to Factorial today and start saving time from your HR tasks to use in your HR strategy.
