Strategic Planning Definition
Strategic planning is a smart approach in which an organization develops and implements strategic plans to achieve its goals in the long run.
Strategic planning is a well-known technique used by almost all businesses, regardless of their size, type, and industry.
Do you know that your entire organization can benefit from this strategic planning?
As an HR expert, it is crucial for you to have a comprehensive knowledge of its meaning, importance, and benefits.
So, let’s explore:
- What is Strategic Planning?
- Importance of Strategic Planning
- Benefits of Strategic Planning
- What are the Steps in Strategic Planning?
What is Strategic Planning?
Let’s start by understanding the strategic planning meaning!
In layman’s terms, the strategic planning process involves the formulation as well as implementation of effective strategies to help a business achieve its pre-defined goals. In most companies, HR managers along with the higher management make such plans and evaluate their effectiveness in the long run.
Importance of Strategic Planning
Having a vision and a clear sense of direction is a necessity for every business out there. When you tend to review your past achievements and make predictions for the time ahead, your entire workforce will have a plan to follow.
Do you know what happens when a business does not have a roadmap that outlines its current position and future goals? It fails miserably along the way.
So, strategic planning is a must. It will help you identify the top priority, potential challenges, and processes that can be removed for good.
Benefits of Strategic Planning
Here are the top benefits of strategic planning you must know:
Retains Employee
One of the best things about strategic planning is it leads to more employee involvement and productivity. It also creates a positive work environment where employees get plenty of development opportunities and perks. Strategic planning also eliminates micromanagement to a greater extent. Now, which employee will wish to leave such a workplace?
Facilitates Collaboration
The process of strategic planning itself starts with a meeting between management and employees from every level, where they put forward suggestions and opinions with utmost transparency.
Over the course of time, both groups work hand-in-hand to achieve the organization’s goals. This, in turn, improves communication and engagement across the workplace.
Promotes Sustainability
Another amazing benefit of strategic planning is that it empowers HR professionals to find out issues and resolve them more promptly.
Also, it is no news that the needs of customers and industries keep growing with every passing year. In such a scenario, the company that fails to implement a strong and clear strategy will find it extremely difficult to stay ahead of the curve. In simpler words, strategic planning also helps businesses meet all the latest needs with a bare minimum effort.
Improves Bottom Line
Studying and understanding what’s going on in the market is also a part of strategic planning. By doing the same, you can learn a lot of new things about your market and end customers. You will be able to come up with effective sales and marketing plans, which can lead to higher business profitability.
More Involvement
When people at every level can talk to each other and work together well, they feel like they are being valued and are more motivated. For organizations to plan their strategies effectively, managers and team members at lower levels of the hierarchy need to be involved. Such involvement empowers every individual in the workplace.
What are the Steps in Strategic Planning?
Here is the step-by-step process for the strategic planning process:
Identify
First things first, you need to understand where your business stands at the present time by having a closer look at your business operations.
Some do this step by reviewing the current strategic plan and long-term strategic goals while others use the SWOT analysis method. You can choose the technique accordingly.
Make a List
Secondly, you have to figure out what exactly can be done to help your organization achieve its goals. To do this, make a list of all the important, relevant, and urgent goals of your business.
While making the list, do not forget to note down the resources that you need like automated software and more funds. In addition to this, you should also set a timeline and KPI to track the overall progress in the future.
Build
This is when you actually plan the strategies. For this, sit with the respective individuals, brainstorm, and develop some effective strategies that will eventually help your company achieve the strategic goals you set in the earlier step. Of late, a number of HR professionals are also using several automated tools/software to develop strategic plans, review them, and update them whenever required.
Implement
After making the overall plan, it’s time to implement the same. In order to set roles, make investments, and make changes to policies and procedures, you will need to ensure clear communication throughout the organization. This step basically includes strategic management as well as regular strategic reviews to make sure that plans stay on track.
Revise
Periodically, a strategic plan should be reviewed and revised in response to shifting business conditions and the emergence of new opportunities. You should consider quarterly evaluations of key performance indicators (KPIs) and annual modifications to the strategic plan.
And, we’re done!
We are sure you will be prioritizing strategic planning for your organization now. Do you know how you can make strategic plans effortlessly? By using HROne software! HROne streamlines every step involved in strategic planning, thereby saving time and energy for every individual involved.