human resource section of a business plan

HR Business Plan Template: Everything You Need to Know

With an HR business plan template, you can help your company recruit new employees, retain existing employees, and guide the development of the workforce. 4 min read updated on September 19, 2022

With an HR business plan template, you can help your company recruit new employees, retain existing employees, and guide the development of the workforce so that you collectively meet your business objectives, regardless of any changes in the industry or economy.

When creating your HR business plan, you need to perform a needs analysis of your workplace to tailor the plan to your company's requirements. You'll also need to learn about the industry standards for your field to make sure you're competitive.

Without such a plan in place, your workers will feel unprepared and won't know how to work towards your company's overall goals.

Steps for Developing a Human Resources Department Business Plan

There are several steps to creating an HR business plan. They include:

• Clarify the requirements . While you might be tempted to create a detailed plan that encompasses the entire company's next 10 years, hold off. Always talk with your boss to see how much detail he or she would like in the plan. This will save you time and help streamline the process. However, there's no harm in creating your own personalized strategic plan for your specific department.
• Read through the HR job descriptions . The HR department typically has employees such as HR assistants, HR generalists, and an HR director . Read through the job descriptions for each worker in the department and see what kind of duties are missing. Brainstorm additional functions that each job role could provide to the company.
• Curate your list . Take the different functions you've brainstormed and compare them to what each member of the HR department is already doing. Are there functions you could add or subtract from each employee for more productivity? You don't have to go into detail here, but just think about how you could improve each role.
• Schedule a meeting with the executives . Before you make any changes, you'll obviously need to get input and approval from the company's executives. They may have more feedback on how the HR department can provide additional services and support the company's overall goals and mission.
• Create a feedback form . Come up with a list of questions to ask leadership about HR's role in the company and provide it to them in advance of the meeting so they have time to think it over and talk with their staff. You may even want to provide a rating and ranking format for the questions, as this will make their responses easy to understand and implement. Overall, this is a key process to understanding what management and employees want and need from the HR department.
• Look at external resources . While the internal information you're collecting is the most important, it also doesn't hurt to take a look at data from professional organizations and websites, such as the Society for Human Resource Management , The Balance , or HR Magazine . You can also ask colleagues from other local organizations for tips on creating your business plan.
• Use this information to make a plan . With your ideas, feedback from executives, and tips from external resources, you should have a clear idea of what your plan should look like. The things that are missing from the HR department should now be clear, and this should guide you on what to focus on to improve HR's contribution to the company.
• Identify goals for this year and next . While your plan can have long-term goals, keep the majority of them a little bit shorter in scope to see how things work out. This gives you the chance to reorganize and restructure if things aren't going right. Consider creating a list of accomplishments you can reach for the end of this year and into the next.

A Real Life Example

If you're seeking more guidance on how to create a successful HR business plan, look to Starbucks as an example.

As the world's largest coffee chain, Starbucks had $21.3 billion in sales in 2016.

Despite these massive numbers, Starbucks maintains the same approach to their human resources department. All of the HR planning is guided by the company's organizational strategy and brand.

Their strategy is to use specific interview techniques when hiring new employees. This lets them identify potential leaders and place them in a "New Partner Orientation and Immersion" training program. With this system, Starbucks has achieved the lowest employee turnover rate in the quick-service restaurant industry.

Starbucks also offers numerous employee perks and dedicates a lot of time to employee training through an online portal that teaches employees essential job skills.

If you need help with your HR business plan template, you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers on UpCounsel come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.

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Management and Human Resources Business Plans

The management portion of your business plan, the hr portion of your business plan, frequently asked questions (faqs).

As a startup, it’s never easy to come up with a business plan, let alone the management and human resources sections of a business plan. Despite that, it’s important that you start your business plan for human resources as soon as possible. Doing so gives your management goals a plan that will guide you and keep your business on track as it grows. 

The key components of your human resources business plan should include your organizational structure, the philosophy and needs of your HR department, the number of employees you want to hire, how you plan to manage them, and all the estimated costs related with personnel.

You’ll want to start your HR business plan by outlining your own managerial experience and skills as well as those of your team. Highlight the roles of each member of your team, and any particular areas of strength or deficiency in your personnel lineup. For example, your HR team may be strong in compliance and conflict resolution but weak in hiring. 

Don't worry if you don’t have a complete team in place when you write your HR business plan. Simply use this section to outline the organizational structure along with job descriptions, how you plan to recruit key team members, and what their responsibilities will be.

This section should look like a pyramid with you at the top and will likely have lateral positions. Be as specific as possible when defining an employee's responsibilities because this is what will drive your business.

Do You Need an HR Manager?

If you’re a solo practitioner, you may not think of including an HR manager in your management business plan. However, if you expect to hire non-managerial employees (such as salespeople or clerical workers), you should consider recruiting a human resources manager.

If hiring a human resources manager can’t be done, consider a human resources consultant. Human resource management requires an immense amount of time and paperwork, and an experienced HR consultant will be able to quickly get your payroll and benefits program up and running, affording you more time to concentrate on growing the business. Human resource responsibilities should include:

• Handling FICA and unemployment taxes and paperwork
• Ensuring compliance with the Family and Medical Leave Act
• Staying on top of IRS filings

There are plenty of companies that offer HR management platforms tailored to each business's needs. Research these companies and be sure to include their estimated cost in your HR business plan.

When you develop the HR portion of your business plan, begin by including a brief overview of your HR strategy. Investors may be curious about how your payroll will be handled and the associated costs of administering it, as well as the type of corporate culture you plan to create. Specific items to highlight in the HR section include:

• Payscale: Show the salaries for managers and non-managers based on the market for those jobs.
• Vacation time: Describe your vacation-time policy. How much time do employees get? How quickly does it accrue? Vacation time is not required by law, but most firms offer vacation time to stay competitive and keep employees refreshed. 
• Insurance: Health insurance is a common staple benefit, although skyrocketing prices have forced many firms to cut back on this benefit. If you can’t afford a health plan, look into subsidizing one with employees paying the rest. Alternatively, inquire if a professional insurance representative can help you get a bulk rate.
• Additional benefits: Other things to consider include life insurance, a 401(k) and matching funds, bereavement leave, religious and floating holidays, and a bonus structure, if applicable.

In addition to the key elements above, it helps to have a framework from which to build your HR business plan. Here’s a basic outline that can help you get started: 

• Figure out what your human resources department would need. 
• Determine a strategy for recruiting talent.
• Formulate your hiring process. 
• Develop a training program for new employees. 
• Determine how much you want to pay your team (this is a good spot for payscale info)
• Create performance standards

It may be overwhelming to contemplate these benefits and their costs in the early stages of setting up your business, but in a competitive labor market, your firm needs to offer enough to entice qualified people and, more importantly, to keep them happy.

Consider revisiting your management and HR business plans every couple of years to see if you need to create action steps to refine your processes.

What should be in an HR business plan?

An HR business plan should include a mix of the steps you plan to take to launch an effective HR department, as well as specifics about how you plan to handle time off, insurance, and other benefits you plan to offer.

How do I write a human resources plan?

It helps to start with a simple framework. Try to break the plan down into sections: HR needs, recruitment, hiring, training, pay, and performance reviews. From there, incorporate other aspects of HR, like benefits and promotions.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce. " Does Your Small Business Need an HR Department? "

 University of Minnesota. “ Human Resources Management: 2.2 Writing the HRM Plan .”

Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. “ FY 2020-2022 Strategic Business Plan: Human Resources .”

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Blog Human Resources 6 Steps to Create a Strategic HR Plan [With Templates]

6 Steps to Create a Strategic HR Plan [With Templates]

Written by: Jessie Strongitharm Aug 25, 2022

The backbone of any successful business is the people and processes behind it — that’s why creating a human resources (HR) plan is key. This strategic document drives your business forward by evaluating where your workforce is at, and comparing it to future needs. 

Without an HR plan, organizations can suffer from issues that would have otherwise been avoided. From productivity pitfalls to costly employee turnover , there’s no shortage of risks you can sidestep if you do human resource planning in advance. 

Not sure where to start? No worries. I’ve outlined six steps you can take to create an effective HR plan that ensures your organization is well-staffed and well-served. You’ll also find a variety of  HR templates  that you can customize in just a few clicks — no design expertise required. 

Click to jump ahead:

What is human resource planning?

• Assess employees’ current skill levels
• Forecast your labor needs based on available information
• Revisit your organizational design
• Outline how you will manage, motivate and retain talent 
• Align your workforce planning with your budget 
• Establish KPIs for your human resource planning objectives

Human resource planning is the process of considering the current and future “people needs” of an organization.

This involves evaluating an organization’s workforce structure and protocols to ensure operational goals are met, productivity stays high and future demands for labor and talent can be fulfilled. Staying updated with industry trends using the LinkedIn People Directory can help achieve this.

The result of this process is the creation of an HR plan, which typically takes the form of a written document sometimes autogenerated using HR software . These documents tend to follow a similar structure to most  strategic business plans  and are created on an annual basis, by HR managers or company leaders.

Check out the template below for an example. 

This eye-catching, one-page  HR Strategic Plan Template  offers a concise summary of your human resource planning efforts, so you can easily share info with colleagues. 

Just swap out the text and visual assets for those of your choosing in  Venngage’s editor , and you’re off to the races. 

6 steps to create a strategic HR plan

Ready to create a strategic plan for the human resources that power your business? Here are six steps to help you succeed at the human resource planning process.

1. Assess current employees’ skill levels

The first step to creating a future-forward HR plan is to assess employees’ current skill sets, and compare them to your operational needs moving forward. This will help you identify gaps and inform any hiring of new employees.

Employees’ skill levels can be assessed by reviewing their work history, hard and soft skills and professional growth over time. 

Using a matrix is a great way to understand where the skill gaps in your current workforce exist. Below is an example that describes the skills needed for different marketing roles. 

Don’t need it for marketing specifically? No worries — you can fully customize this template by swapping in your own text to examine any human resource gaps. 

Another way to assess skills is by giving employees a questionnaire they can fill out. This  Employee Competency Assessment Template  does just that.

Based on the information collected, you’ll get a sense of what positions best suit each individual, and whether any upskilling or hiring is required. 

2. Forecast your labor needs based on available information

Next in your strategic strategic HR management plan, you’ll want to consider the future. This involves accounting for any upcoming changes to your workforce, so operations can continue without error.

When forecasting labor needs, the following should be considered: 

• Planned promotions
• Upcoming retirements 
• Layoffs 
• Personnel transfers 
• Extended leaves of absence (i.e. maternity/paternity leave) 

Beyond those, it’s a good idea to assess the impact of external conditions on your labor needs during your human resource planning. For example, new technological developments may decrease the amount of employees you require to operate your business. 

3. Revisit your organizational design

Organizational design is the process of structuring the way a business operates so it can best achieve its goals. This is hugely important when it comes to your human resource planning process! 

With a clear understanding of your organization’s strategic objectives in mind, reviewing your organizational design allows you to understand the staffing requirements you’ll need to succeed at them. This means taking into account your  organizational structure  and chains of command, as well as how work gets done and the way information flows.

 From there, you’ll be able to see which departments need more team members so it can accomplish the organization’s objectives. 

An easy way to get started is by using an organizational flow chart. 

With its color coding and layout, even a new manager can quickly look at this chart to identify the people responsible for leading teams and making decisions. 

And if there are any changes, it’s easy to to reflect them in the chart itself. All you need to do is customize the text and visual assets in  Venngage’s Chart Maker  as desired. 

Not quite your style? There’s plenty of other  organizational chart templates  to choose from. 

Here’s an organizational chart that’s perfect for small businesses that have limited employees. One quick look, and you’re good to go. 

The bottom line is, no matter how big or small your business may be, you should always revisit your organizational design to optimize your workforce management and business operations. 

Related:  Types of Organizational Structure [+ Visualization Tips]

4. Outline how you will manage, motivate and retain talent 

In this day and age, it’s a known fact that companies must provide more than just a paycheque to attract and retain talent, and encourage growth. 

It’s true —  studies have shown  employees are more engaged in their work when they feel it is meaningful, fulfilling and slightly challenging. So your human resource plan should consider how to inspire such feelings, and what actions you can take to motivate employees to stay. (Hint: a strong HR training and development program is key.)  

The  talent management infographic template  below is a great way to begin. 

Using this  process chart , you can detail the steps you’ll take to retain the talent you have. Reference it as needed in your human resource planning.

 Another great way to keep staff motivated and geared towards their professional growth is by coming up with  ideas for employee development . Facilitating a company culture that champions continuous learning guarantees your team will feel supported and challenged in all the right ways.

The two employee development plan templates below will help you do just that. 

Though both templates are geared towards healthcare organizations, it’s easy to customize their content in Venngage to promote the continuous learning and development of employees in any industry.

 As a result, your employees will be able to reach their full potential, while simultaneously supporting the long-term goals of your organization. 

Related:  6 Employee Development Ideas for Efficient Training

5. Align your workforce planning with your budget 

 Let’s face it, human resources ain’t cheap.

 Meaning, if you struggle at organizing and monitoring your HR budget, you’re bound to overspend on your initiatives —and no financially savvy business wants that. 

That’s why I recommend including financial information in your HR planning process, so you can reference your budget and expenses as needed. This includes not only hiring and training costs but also the complexities of managing a global payroll for diverse teams.

Ensuring this allows you to stay within range as you work towards achieving your strategic goals for human capital . Plus, you don’t need to use one that contains walls of text and wack-loads numbers. Check out the clean and cheery option below — it’s as easy to fill out as it is to understand. 

And if you’re looking to compare a forecasted budget to previous annual spending when strategizing your HR budget, the  Budget Comparison Infographic Template  below will help. 

The bar graph is a great  data visualization  of annual expenses, organized by category. Just add (or import) any values to Venngage’s editor, swap out the text, and you’re ready to compare with ease. 

Related:  10+ Expense Report Templates You Can Edit Easily

6. Establish KPIs for your human resource planning objectives

Measurable results are important when it comes to your HR planning processes, because they indicate whether your strategy is working or not. 

Keeping those metrics in mind, your company can make adjustments and improve upon any future plans — AKA strategize for future success in business. That’s why your human resource plan should include info re: the specific key performance indicators (KPI) you’ll be measuring. 

KPIs are established to help determine if HR strategies and plans are working. Much like those used for evaluating the performance of  marketing  or  sales plan , KPIs for human resources are measurable results that indicate an organization’s success at achieving predetermined goals.

These may take the form of headcounts, turnover rates, demographic information, time to hire and employee satisfaction scores. 

Here’s one employee satisfaction survey you can use to understand your workforce better. 

When you’re ready to organize those HR KPIs in a document, the  recruiting template  below is perfect for keeping tabs at a glance. 

Related:  10+ Customizable HR Report Templates & Examples

How do I make an HR plan? 

After you’ve collected the data you need, you’ll want to convey this info in an engaging, professional manner for easy referencing and sharing amongst colleagues. Given this, using Venngage is the best route to go. 

Here are the simple steps to help you bring an actionable HR plan to life: 

• Outline the information you would like to include in your strategic hr plan
• Pick the human resource planning templates that best suits your needs 
• Customize the templates’ text and visual assets so they speak to your organization 
• Apply your company’s brand guidelines with a few clicks using Venngage’s automated branding feature,  My Brand Kit
• Download and share as desired

Note: sharing is available free-of-charge. However, the option to download your creations and access features like  My Brand Kit and Team Collaboration  are available with a  Business plan . 

FAQ about HR plans

How long should an hr plan be .

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to the length of an HR plan. That being said, if you’re going to share it with colleagues, you probably don’t want to create a 20+ page document. One to five pages should suffice. 

Try to be as concise as possible when relaying the facts, and use  data visualizations  wherever possible to save room.

Do I need an HR contingency plan?

In the same way creating an HR plan is a proactive move that helps your organization account for future needs, it’s a good idea to devise an HR contingency plan. This ensures there’s a back-up plan in place should your initiatives not go as expected. 

For example, if you’ve identified that you need five new hires to keep up with consumer demand, but the talent pool is lacking, a contingency plan could house suggestions for restructuring your workforce to mitigate this. 

In other words, it’s best-practice to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. 

Is an HR plan different from an employee development plan?

Yes. While an HR plan is a strategic document describing how an organization addresses its personnel-related needs at a high-level, an  employee development plan  outlines the processes needed to help an individual achieve their professional goals.

 Even though the human resource planning process may involve outlining some employee development tactics, it is not unique to each employee as in the case of an employee development plan.

Make your HR planning processes effortless 

You don’t need a crystal ball to feel confident about your people moving forward. With a solid HR plan and strategy in place, you’ll prime your workforce — and all business endeavors — to succeed in even the most competitive of markets. 

Just remember this: human resources planning, and creating strategic business plans in general, doesn’t have to be exhausting. 

With Venngage’s huge selection of  professionally-designed templates  and easy-to-use editor, all it takes is a few minutes to produce a polished document perfect for all your needs.  Sign up for free today ! 

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How to Develop a Human Resources Department Business Plan

What Is Management Plan in a Business Plan?

The management plan section of your business plan will give more focus on defining your management team, as well as your staff and business ownership. This section highlights the individual skill of your team and their contributions to your business and simple business plans .

Fundamentals of Human Resources Strategic Planning

• Setting the vision statement and mission statement of the company, as well as the business goals and objectives.
• Learning the executive summary of the business plan.
• Know and understand the business strategies and how these strategies can develop a company.
• Establishing the objective statement of the human resource strategic planning.

How to Create a Human Resource Department Annual Strategic Plan?

The human resource strategic plan, if organized well and properly will be the key element to the success of any business, small or big. This strategic plan should focus on how it can increase the proficiency of this area and not harming the best interest of the company and the employees.

The human resource strategic plan has four functions:

• Selection and training.  It involves finding applicants and hiring the most qualified individual for the position.
• Training and development.  Improving the skills of the employee and meeting the employee’s need.
• Benefits administration.  Providing benefits package to the employees can increase the chance of retaining them
• Employee relations.  The human resource strategic plan should focus on the maintaining safety and work-friendly environment.

How to Design and Implement an HR Strategy?

Many companies may not know this but establishing, designing, implementing an HR strategy will ensure that your company will run smoothly and efficiently. Here are the steps:

• Define the company’s vision statement.  The company’s vision statement will serve as a guide on how the HR can help the company in reaching the smart goals .
• Establish the HR department’s role.  The role of HR in the company is countless. The company must set what specific role an HR must do.
• Implement the plan.  After the strategy has been developed, the implementation plan is now ready to implement. With the help of the HR strategy, the plan can be developed to help the business improve.
• Measure the success.  The success of the strategy must be measured to make the HR strategy more effective.

Steps to Develop a Human Resources Department Business Plan

Here are the steps in developing a human resources department business plan in pdf .

• Understand what your boss needs and wants from you.  It will be painful for you to have developed a plan that the boss didn’t want or need.
• Create a list of job descriptions.  Find out if there are job descriptions your department is not performing but would value to the company if it is performed.
• Add to the list the functions that your human resources department is already performing.  You can also add those functions that you want to add or subtract.
• Consult with your fellow executives.  Get an assessment plan of their satisfaction with your services.

The Link Between Strategic Planning and Human Resource Planning

All companies have three critical resources that must be used effectively to achieve the success of the quality plan of business. These three resources are:

• The technologies used in manufacturing and producing a product
• The finances in the financial statement that is used to pay what the expense report of a company.
• And the people with skills and talents that are used achieve the work that is crucial.

With that, the company must have a business and strategic plan to manage and utilize these resources.

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Human resource planning: Your guide to workforce management

Learn more about human resource planning (HRP) below, including the key steps to start the process.

What is human resource planning?

Human resource planning (HRP) identifies and plans for your organization’s current and future human resource needs. It’s a core part of strategic human resource management. HRP is an ongoing process that can be used to address short-term hiring needs and plan for future demand.

You set business goals. You create strategic plans. Therefore, you must engage in human resource planning. This ensures your workforce can keep up with your organizational goals. If you wish to enhance your social media strategy or expand your company’s products or services, you need employees with the right skills to support those initiatives.

Human resource planning can address many employee management, hiring, and training needs to prepare your future workforce for success, such as:

• Planning for a significant expansion, such as opening a new location.
• Upskilling or reskilling workers due to changes in technology or operational processes.
• Addressing staffing shortages or skill gaps.
• Developing a more robust talent pipeline through university and early career outreach or programs.
• Identifying succession planning needs.

Human resource planning steps

Ready to try human resource planning for your organization? Follow the key steps below.

Evaluating current talent

Start by taking an inventory of your current talent. Consider their current roles and skills while also looking ahead at what gaps they could fill in the future. Which of your current employees can you help upskill to meet the evolving needs of your business? Ideally, you should have career development plans or conversations about future goals during performance reviews to keep this information up-to-date and readily available.

You’ll also want to consider job satisfaction and turnover rates. Are any of your top performers showing signs of disengagement, or do you routinely struggle with high turnover in a particular area? You’ll also want to consider these issues when inventorying your current staffing resources and future needs.

Forecasting future needs

Next, start forecasting your future staffing needs. This step often focuses on growth. What roles will you need to reach your business’s next level and meet future demand ? You’ll also want to consider how technology evolves and what that means for your talent needs. What roles will shift due to automation, or what new technological skills will you need to have within your workforce to stay competitive?

Conduct a GAP analysis

Then, you’ll want to conduct a GAP analysis to look for gaps between your current human resources and your demand forecasting. What skills do you need to build, or what roles will you need to fill with new hires? Are any key roles needing succession planning to ensure that they remain filled in the coming year? Are there skilled employees whose current roles require them to fully utilize their abilities and strengths?

List these gaps and try to prioritize them in urgency and necessity. Smaller businesses may only sometimes have the resources to fill every skill gap, so identify your most pressing needs and look for cheaper solutions like contract labor or internal upskilling to address gaps that can’t be filled with new hires.

Develop and implement strategies to address human resource need s

Once you’ve identified your needs, it’s time to develop HR strategies to address your external recruitment and internal development needs.

Think about what recruitment strategies and channels you can use to build up a recruitment pipeline to provide ongoing access to top talent or where you can better develop internal talent. If you need more staff members for managerial roles; you may want to work on building a leadership development strategy or program. If you need more early career talent in the coming years, offering internships or leveraging campus recruiting may help you connect with incoming talent.

You may also need to target more significant issues like employee satisfaction to maintain the necessary number of employees. You can build planned turnover into your HRP based on your current turnover metrics to forecast how many team members you’ll need to replace. Still, ideally, you’ll also want to develop strategies to reduce that turnover.

Review your plan regularly

Your needs and plans can change due to many internal and external shifts, such as changes in the labor market, funding, unexpected departures, and technological advancements that require new skill sets. Set regular reviews for your HRP documents, with at least one review scheduled yearly.

Benefits of human resource planning

Learn how HRP can benefit your organization.

Supporting business growth

Conducting human resource planning alongside your general strategic planning can ensure you have the staffing resources needed to support your business goals and desired growth. Whether expanding a specific department or mass onboarding employees to open up a new location, the HRP process can support your business growth.

Developing a long-term hiring strategy

Identifying and reallocating surplus labor

Part of the human resource process is reviewing your current employee population to see where shortages or surpluses occur. Without proper HRP practices, businesses may sometimes operate with a surplus in a particular area for too long, which is unsuitable for your budget or your employees (who are likely underutilized and may be at risk of being laid off eventually due to redundancy). HRP allows you to identify surpluses and get a clear view of deficits and upcoming needs, helping you better understand how to reallocate and utilize your surplus employees.

Bridging skill gaps

An effective human resource planning process is beneficial. It gives you a clearer view of your workforce’s skills. Additionally, it shows you which competencies to focus on. You need these competencies for talent acquisition . You also need them for employee performance development. This allows you to take a proactive approach to talent management, where you can help your team gradually build the skills they’ll need to support future company needs. It also can inform your hiring decisions by clarifying what skills to prioritize for new employees.

Common human resource planning challenges

While HRP can offer a competitive advantage and plenty of benefits, there are also some common roadblocks.

Forecasting accuracy

Getting an accurate demand forecast of your future needs (and whether you’ll have the budget to address those needs) can be difficult. The market and internal factors like turnover can be unpredictable. Your product might go viral on social media, which is unexpected. Consequently, this leads to rapid growth, which may be more than needed. Alternatively, unexpected world events may occur. For example, a pandemic could sideline your growth plans. For this reason, you need to regularly review your human resource planning and forecasts and adjust as needed.

Adapting your plan when needed

One issue in human resource planning is overly rigid workforce plans. HR managers or business leaders sometimes create these plans. However, adaptability is crucial. Whether you write a business strategy or a human resource plan, you must adapt to changing business needs and budget adjustments. Be prepared for resources and needs to shift. A profitability dip or disruptive new technology could quickly alter your plans.

Getting buy in

Both employees and leaders often need help understanding change, which can be a barrier to adequately implementing human resource planning (HRP). One of the end goals of HRP is to develop strategies to prepare your workforce for future needs. However, getting buy in on these strategies can be challenging. This is especially true when more significant issues are involved. For example, these issues could include poor employee engagement and retention. As a result, more extensive adjustments may be necessary. These adjustments would be within the work environment and company culture. This is to address the issues correctly.

The HR planning process may also uncover the need to upskill or reskill workers to ensure they have the competencies needed for the future business environment. You may also find a surplus in a particular area and upskill or reskill current employees to help them transition to a more in-demand role within the company rather than being let go. Again, employees must be willing to engage in this training and development process to have a positive outcome. Additional Resources: Skills gap analysis in 4 steps: How to identify and bridge talent gaps Talent shortage: Addressing the growing gap in the workplace Employee skill gaps: What they are and how to address them

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