The human resources department is always humming with activity. Responsible for hiring and managing the talent that drives a strong business, the HR department is usually juggling many projects at once. How to keep track of all the relevant initiatives? A plan of work template can make project management in HR much easier.
Without proper organization, projects can quickly become unfocused and inefficient. The Project Management Institute estimates that around 15% of projects ultimately fail. Of those that succeed, nearly half fail to meet their original deadlines, 43% run over budget, and 32% fall short in some aspect of product delivery. Optimize your project tracking with a working plan template that will keep your team on task.
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 What is a Plan of Work Template?
A plan of work template is a simple tool that keeps teams on track to meeting their goals. A project roadmap ensures that all employees are on the same page when it comes to their objectives and priorities. It also helps them to track progress and celebrate milestones.
It also adds transparency so that workers can see the progress their colleagues are making and adjust their schedules accordingly. Managers too benefit from the insights as they can tailor the plan to fit the needs of team members. A comprehensive project tracker will integrate many different systems. For instance, it may include time-tracking, performance management, and information sharing.
 Why is a Project Roadmap Important for Project Management in HR?
HR professionals are constantly engaged in projects in people management, from attracting new talent to optimizing onboarding, to ensuring compliance with local regulations. Here are just a few of the projects HR managers might take on:
- Orchestrating internship programs: Your business has a lot to teach newcomers to the workforce! Internship programs are valuable to young learners and help businesses to maintain a vibrant workplace culture. It often falls to HR managers to recruit interns every quarter, support them as they move through the program, and organize training and events.
- Planning of company-wide events: All-hands meetings, summer picnics, winter Christmas parties— HR professionals are always preparing for the next holiday. Project tracking will be key to making sure every box is ticked along the way.
- Executing team-building events: It is important that colleagues have opportunities to work together in a non-work setting. HR managers are in charge of seeking out and booking new activities and getting everyone to show up.
- Offering training and development programs: The HR team is also responsible for organizing development opportunities that would be beneficial for everyone in the office. This can be a big responsibility.
- Overseeing workplace operations: When it comes to project management in HR, managing, and optimizing daily operations like payroll, time-tracking, and attendance is very important.
Rember, the success of a project may be dependent on having a great project roadmap. Use project tracking to make sure your team stays on track.
 How to Start Tracking Projects Like a Pro
So, how can an HR team tracking projects stay on top of everything that needs to get done? Here are our best tips for project management.
- Make it a team effort.
Everyone on your team needs to contribute to the success of a project. With that in mind, make sure to get everyone involved. Call a meeting in order to share goals and objectives as well as brainstorm about possible milestones or alternative routes. Further, make sure everyone understands the “why” behind important decisions. This will help keep everyone committed to the same outcomes. If you make sure your work is unified, it will be more effective and more efficient.
- Establish SMART goals.
In order to track progress, make sure you are making SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. It is important that you can quantify progress concretely so that you are always on top of what has been done, what needs doing, and what should be done in the future. In teams, team members must have a sense of how each person is meeting their goals.
- Make the project visible with a plan of work template.
Visualizing progress toward a goal is very motivating! A working plan template keeps a running tally of accomplishments and your team will be inspired when they see how far they’ve come.
- Utilize reporting tools to monitor project progress.
In addition to a project tracker, many teams may find project management software very useful. With software, teams can use a task list to stay on track, as well as time-tracking capabilities to see how much time has been spent on each step. Regular check-ins with performance management tools can make sure that every member of the team is on the same page.
 Working Plan Template Tools
What tools can you use to maximize the effectiveness of your working plan template? There is a lot of software out there, but we can promise that not all of it is created equal. HR managers need to choose tools that best align with their various projects and goals. Here are some capabilities to look out for in order to optimize your project management for HR.
- Organizational chart: This useful tool maps out the people in your company so that you can create teams and projects with the click of a button.
- Task management: Use a task manager in order to assign tasks to various team members and keep the ball rolling.
- Time-tracking: Keep track of employee hours in order to boost productivity. Measure hours projected versus hours actually worked, reduce absenteeism, and aggregate data on time and attendance.
- HR Analytics: Gain insight into how things are progressing on a daily basis by running reports on time and attendance, performance, and productivity.
- Document management: Managing various projects always leads to a paper trail. Keep all relevant documents in one centralized space with a document manager.
- An intuitive interface:Â There’s no need to constantly switch tabs! Find tools that offer easy navigation and efficient multi-view design.
Our beautiful plan of work template will only get you so far. In order to optimize your success in projects, you need to implement the right tools and take advantage of your team’s data for your project roadmap.
 Using a Project Tracker to Boost Success in Projects
What makes a project successful? We all want a project that meets its objectives within the projected time frame and budget. But there are other metrics of success that can be more difficult to measure. A well-managed project will be more efficient and more effective, boosting employee confidence and engagement. These developmental benefits aren’t always our main goals, even though they can have the biggest impact on the business’s long term success.
When completing a new project, businesses should strive not only to complete that project well. They must also create and implement a consistent, repeatable, and predictable methodology that they will be able to apply to future projects. We know our plan of work template and helpful HR tools will help your team to succeed, and even exceed your own expectations.
