Step 1. Establish the Company's Vision and Mission

Know the company's business goal and the exact ideas on which you're planning. Some companies incorporate both vision and mission into one single statement or paragraph, while others create yearly mission statements in line with their business strategy for the year.

As you go about gathering ideas and developing your plans, understand these three basic principles to observe

• Formulate strategies that are aligned with the core values and the core purpose of the company's vision and missions.

• Human resources are not just workforces to mobilize. They are real people with personal desires and ambitions, which is why they went through years of education and training. Now it's up to the human resources department to recruit individuals whose interests, competencies and capabilities are attuned to the core values and purpose of the company. Nonetheless, the department is not expected to be always accurate in the recruitment assessment, which makes it important to keep assessment programs part of the staffing strategy.

• Every employee desires to become a part of a business organization that is well-organized, which they could perceive as soon as they submit their applications for the recruitment process. They will experience this as they undergo the training initiatives and benefit from this through management's performance. The best part about an organized company, is that the compensation being afforded to employees is paid as a form of recognition for their contributions.

Step 2 - Identify Strategic HR Issues

Once a clear understanding of the department's objectives, direction and key challenges is established, the next step in formulating the HRM Plan is to identify the department's strategic HR issues. These are the key HR issues that will affect the department's ability to achieve its strategic objectives. The HRM Plan will need to address how to manage these issues.

What to Do Assess the HR implications of the findings of the strategic analysis.

Identifying the HR issues Arising from the Strategic Analysis

• Do people have the competencies to meet the strategic objectives? What new competencies are required?

• How are superior performers differentiated from average performers? What systems are in place to track their performance?

• How can below standard performers be guided/developed to upgrade their performance?

• Are people being developed to meet the challenges of the future? What improvements need to be made?

• Are people motivated to meet the current and future challenges? What is impacting their motivation?

• Are the right people being attracted and retained to meet the future challenges? If not, what can be done to attract people of the right calibre?

• Is the current culture aligned with the vision, mission, and values of the department?

• Where is the misalignment?

• Is the manpower level sufficient to meet the future business requirements?.

Step 3 - Draw up the HRM Plan

Once the HR issues have been prioritised and the top management team have given their input into the direction of the HRM Plan, the Plan is ready to be drawn up. The Plan is unique and specific to the department. It represents the top management team's collective view on how the identified HR issues are to be addressed.

What to Do

Develop the HRM Plan consisting of several key programmes. Each programme should represent one of the key HR areas that needs addressing, e.g. training, culture, etc. Each department's set of programmes will be unique based on their own set of issues. Each programme within the plan should contain the following information :

• Strategic importance of the programme: Describe the background of the programme, why it is included as one of the programmes within the HRM Plan.

• Programme objectives: List out the aims of the programme. Be as specific as possible in terms of what the programme will achieve for the department.

• Programme recommendations: Develop the specific set of actions within the programme that will be carried out. The actions of the programmes, taken together, should be designed to achieve the programme objectives.