Strategising organisational development

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There is no question that in today’s business environment, human resources activity sets need to be aligned to an organisation’s strategic plan and be firmly rooted in specific business objectives.

Business strategy exists, whether it is stated or not. However, either way, human resource (HR) professionals can be facilitators of the strategy-building process by learning to question and providing information based on specific parameters that support the organisational strategy building process. The key tasks of business strategy development include formulation, environmental analysis and identifying opportunities for competitive leadership.

Strategy can be developed at five levels. The zero level takes into account a firm’s resources, and objectives and a plan for meeting them. A level-one strategy adds the complexity of rivals and looks at how they impact the business environment. At level two, strategy builds in further information about the markets in which it operates. Next strategy, at level three, includes review of transactors who also influence operating effectiveness. Transactors are vendors, buyers, competitors and collaborators who add value or can potentially detract from an organisation’s ability to deliver results based on their own strategy.

To complete the strategy-building activity, the organisation must also look at the institutional activities that could impact the overall ability of the organisation to deliver but may be outside the scope of the organisation to influence, for example, changes in tax code and legislation, and may detract from rather than support the strategy.

Human resource has the ability to help formulate an organisational strategy by asking questions that help get at these specific components of strategy and helping individual business heads move to align their business activities with the overall strategic direction of the organisation. During strategy sessions with leaders, human resources can facilitate and lead discussions that help align internal activities to promote and even motivate employees to proactively support strategic initiatives. At level one, strategy focuses on the clearly articulated goals and objects, employee understanding of those goals and objectives, and communication of a clear domain and competitive advantage for the organisation.