Strategic Decisions in Spite of Short-Term Driving Forces

Imagine your organization has a plan in place to expand its services in its home country over the next five years. However, a competitor has announced intentions to expand into international markets. Things change; new trends emerge that attract our interest, especially when the competition is interested and even moving on the trend. In HR, after our HR Operating Plan written to support the direction of the organization is implemented, trends can arise that look attractive, but when looking at where the organization is headed, warrant no change in our plan.

Often, plans do not need to be changed at a high level, i.e., a strategy, but rather, action steps planned to make those strategies happen can easily accommodate many trends and do some seamlessly, but when the CEO wants change, HR needs rationale and process.

For this Discussion, review the week's Learning Resources. Then, for context, think about the many short- and long-term drivers, e.g., new competitors, pending legislation, etc., that might impact an organization's plan.

Trends can easily attract the attention of the C-suite, who then push to forget plans and go for it. So, on what basis can HR leadership provide a logical rationale for holding firmly to a plan and ignoring the trendy new thing happening, despite the push from the CEO?

Write specific criteria (4-5) that could be used to assess potential opportunities that warrant change in the HR Operating Plan brought to HR by the CEO and provide rationale for your assessment criteria selection, e.g., alignment with the business direction of the organization, new legislation, etc.