7 Steps to Strategic Human Resource Management

by Alex Dwyer, September 2, 2022 less than a minute read

Table of Contents

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What is strategic human resource management?

Strategic human resource management is the connection between a company’s human resources and its strategies, objectives, and goals. The aim of strategic human resource management is to:

Advance flexibility, innovation, and competitive advantage.
Develop a fit for purpose organizational culture.
Improve business performance.

In order for strategic human resource management to be effective, human resources (HR) must play a vital role as a strategic partner when company policies are created and implemented. Strategic HR can be demonstrated throughout different activities, such as hiring, training, and rewarding employees.

Strategic HR involves looking at ways that human resources can make a direct impact on a company’s growth. HR personnel need to adopt a strategic approach to developing and retaining employees to meet the needs of the company’s long-term plans.

HR issues can be a difficult hurdle to cross for many companies, there are all kinds of different components that can confuse business owners and cause them to make ineffective decisions that slow down the operations for their employees as well as their business.

To ensure that you never have to worry about being lost on HR related issues again, click the download button below for your one-page document of the 7 steps to strategic human resource management.

Why is strategic human resource management important?

Companies are more likely to be successful when all teams are working towards the same objectives. Strategic HR carries out analysis of employees and determines the actions required to increase their value to the company. Strategic human resource management also uses the results of this analysis to develop HR techniques to address employee weaknesses.

The following are benefits of strategic human resource management:

Increased job satisfaction.
Better work culture.
Improved rates of customer satisfaction.
Efficient resource management.
A proactive approach to managing employees.
Boost productivity.

Seven steps to strategic human resource management

Strategic human resource management is key for the retention and development of quality staff. It’s likely that employees will feel valued and want to stay with a company that places a premium on employee retention and engagement. Before you implement strategic human resource management, you will need to create a strategic HR planning process using the steps below:

1. Develop a thorough understanding of your company's objectives

Since the success of strategic HR is dependent on how well it links to your company’s goals, you need to have a thorough understanding of your aims, objectives, and mission. You’ll need to be able to articulate both your short and long-term plans for growth to the relevant HR personnel. Ensuring clear communication of your company’s goals will make it easier for HR personnel to formulate an effective resource management strategy.

2. Evaluate your HR capability

Evaluating your current HR capabilities will enable you to understand the employees you have and how they contribute to fulfilling your goals and objectives. Additionally, you should also undertake a skills inventory for every employee. Skills inventories help you to discover which employees are experts in particular areas.

It also helps you to identify the employees who have an interest in being trained in a particular aspect of your company. A great time to asses skills is during a performance review. However, the traditional performance review is dying. Check out our guide on how to conduct an efficient and results driven performance review while obtaining the skills inventory you need from your employees!

[Download] 9 Best Practices to Master the New Performance Review

3. Analyze your current HR capacity in light of your goals

An assessment of your HR capacity will help you to recognize barriers and implement a plan of action to capitalize on opportunities and effectively deal with threats. Strategic HR personnel will analyze the number of employees as well as their skills and will work with senior leadership to identify ways to better equip employees to serve the needs of your company.

4. Estimate your company's future HR requirements

After an analysis of your company’s employees and skills has been done in relation to your objectives, it’s time to forecast your HR needs. The forecast should be done in relation to:

Demand – A prediction needs to be made in relation to the number of employees with the associated skills that will be required in order for your company’s future needs to be met.
Supply – Looks at the employees and skills that are currently available to help your company achieve its strategic goals.

Forecasting your company’s future HR requirements also determines the following:

New jobs and roles required to secure the future of the company.
Skills required by current employees to undertake the responsibilities of new jobs and roles.
Whether your employees’ expertise are being sufficiently utilized.
Whether current HR personnel and practices can accommodate the company’s growth.

5. Determine the tools required for employees to complete the job

HR personnel need to liaise with the appropriate departments to find out how the tools used by employees impact on their ability to perform their roles. For example, an audit of hardware and software can be undertaken jointly with the I.T department to identify gaps in tools that will facilitate a more organized workforce.

For example, where a company employs hourly staff, it’s crucial to utilize workforce management software. This software manages important HR functions such as scheduling, holiday entitlement, and sick leave management.

6. Implement the human resource management strategy

After the analysis and forecast of your company’s HR requirements have been completed, it’s time to start the process of expanding your workforce and developing current workers to equip your company for future growth. You can achieve the implementation of your human resource management strategy by doing the following:

Start with the recruitment stage – At this point, HR professionals begin searching for candidates who possess skills that have been identified during the HR strategic planning process.
Organize a selection process – Interviews and other selection criteria take place at this time. Interview questions such as “what are your salary requirements?” and relevant tests will be used to assess whether the candidate is suitable to carry out the role.
Begin hiring applicants – Your company will make the candidate a job offer after all appropriate checks have been carried out.
Design onboarding and training – Employee Onboarding is a key determining factor as to whether an employee remains with a company. A comprehensive onboarding and training package must be put in place to increase employee retention. Once you have onboard your employees well, another important step to retaining them is to keep them engaged! Easier said than done, but our guide on employee engagement will help! You can download it by clicking the button below:

[Download] The Employee Engagement eGuide

7. Evaluation and corrective action

HR personnel should decide on a timeline to carry out a strategic HR management review. This review will track the progress made and also identify areas for improvement. The review should be measured against whether changes are helping your company to achieve their goals. Corrective action must be taken if strategic human resource management is failing to meet its objectives.

Strategic human resource management articles

Several articles have been written about strategic human resource management to help companies to implement this process. Check out two of our favourites below:

Emerald Insight published an article about whether strategic human resource management practices have an effect on performance. The paper is based on research, which found that training, development, and pay are the strategic human resource management practices that had the greatest impact on employee performance.
Another strategic human resource management article, published by Sage Journals, looks at whether there’s a relationship between strategic human resource management and organizational commitment.

Human resource strategies examples

With more than two million employees, Walmart is the world’s largest employer. This retail giant places a premium on the role of HR to drive and grow its business. The emphasis on the value of employees has been evident from the start when Walmart’s founder, Sam Walton, named the HR department the ‘people division.’

HR Magazine uses Walmart as an example of how strategic human resource management can be used to establish a profitable company. The article provides details about how Walmart aligns its seven overriding strategies (price, operations, culture, key item/products, expenses, talent, and service) with human resource strategic management, for example:

Operational success is achieved because Walmart invests in continuous training and learning for its employees. Walmart also seeks to empower its employees to take ownership of their work for more successful teamwork.
Company culture is emphasized because Walmart managers attend cultural training at the Walton Institute. The Walmart culture is defined by managers having an entrepreneurial mindset that encourages a problem-solving approach. For tips on creating an amazing culture, download our guide on creating a healthy multi-gen workforce below:

[Download] 10 Tips for Creating a Healthy Culture for a Multi-Gen Workforce

Connecting people to products is where everyone at Walmart, irrespective of their position, has to focus on how to provide a better customer experience. Part of Walmart’s HR strategy is to train managers to make decisions in relation to customers in their store as quickly as possible.

In addition to Walmart, Human Resources MBA compiled a list of 30 of the world’s most innovative HR departments. This list contains examples of companies that use human resources strategically to grow and strengthen their market position. These companies include:

FedEx has a ‘People-Service-Profit’ philosophy that demonstrates its belief that. if employees are taken care of, they’ll take care of customers in return. As part of fulfilling this slogan, FedEx undertakes a yearly survey and feedback program where employees provide their opinions on different aspects of the organization. The results are analyzed and, where possible, action is taken to improve employee conditions.
Nissan uses a philosophy called kaizen to help its employees to always keep striving to make improvements to how they work. This approach starts during the recruitment stage and new hires are encouraged to keep improving so that they can stand out. Other strategic human resource management practices at Nissan include leaders being given the independence to hire and build their team.
Alliance Boots GmbH is founded on the philosophy that Boots employees are part of a family. Boots encourages a stress-free work environment and assists managers in being supportive of their teams. Boots values vocational education and was one of the first companies to provide formal accreditation for its employees.

Strategic HR services

Strategic human resource management is important for every company. Your company doesn’t need to employ a specific number of employees before you start to consider implementing strategic human resource management principles. In fact, if you have a plan to grow your business, you should be thinking about linking this growth to strategic human resource management.

Some companies outsource this part of their business because they don’t have an in-house HR function. Strategic human resource services provide full-service HR functions including developing a human resource management strategy. Strategic HR services help to take away the burden of both operational and strategic management to facilitate the growth of your business.

To facilitate your company’s future growth, you should use tools and software that free up your time. Sign up for a free trial of Deputy below to see how we can help you with the time-consuming aspect of employee scheduling, so you have more time to work on the strategic aspect of your business.

Important Notice

The information contained in this article is general in nature and you should consider whether the information is appropriate to your needs. Legal and other matters referred to in this article are of a general nature only and are based on Deputy's interpretation of laws existing at the time and should not be relied on in place of professional advice. Deputy is not responsible for the content of any site owned by a third party that may be linked to this article and no warranty is made by us concerning the suitability, accuracy or timeliness of the content of any site that may be linked to this article. Deputy disclaims all liability (except for any liability which by law cannot be excluded) for any error, inaccuracy, or omission from the information contained in this article and any loss or damage suffered by any person directly or indirectly through relying on this information.

About the author Alex Dwyer is the Director of Marketing Programs at Deputy. She's passionate about building collaborative high performing teams, and amplifying customer voices.

7 Steps to Strategic Human Resource Management

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