Aligning HR and Business Strategy

Course details

71% of HR leaders today believe it is critical for them to align HR initiatives and strategies to their organizational strategies to become strategic partners to CEOs (Aberdeen Group’s 2013 study). Yet, only 18% of HR professionals see themselves as being able to anticipate business challenges, provide insights to CEOs and achieve organizational goals (DDI Global Leadership Forecast). This makes it challenging for HR to keep up with and support organization growth.

This highly interactive program will show you how to earn a voice in the boardroom by demonstrating business acumen, understanding your organization’s strategic drivers and moving successfully from transactional to strategic HR. Through group discussions and hands-on exercises, you will learn how to correctly identify your organization's business strategic priorities and how to align your HR strategies to support them. Participants will also find out why alignment programs fail and how to avoid common mistakes.

Renowned HR thought leader Dr Linda Holbeche will show you how to assess your existing HR initiatives and processes - such as succession planning and performance management - to determine critical areas of change or improvement based on your business needs. You will also have a chance to assess the current capabilities of your HR department and identify areas for development.

Gain insight into how HR professionals can contribute to strategic business challenges including mergers and acquisitions, globalization, change management and divestitures. Leave the program with a specific action plan for your top HR change priorities and how you will implement them successfully in your organization.

What You Can Expect

• Gain business acumen to understand your business strategy and how to align your HR strategy to support it
• Discover how to move from transactional to strategic HR
• Find out what kind of organization culture will aid or hinder your organization’s ability to achieve its strategic ambitions
• Relook at your current HR initiatives and processes to determine the right HR strategy to adopt to address critical areas of change and improvement in your organization
• Learn how HR professionals can contribute to strategic business challenges including mergers and acquisitions, globalization and divestitures
• Leave the program with a specific action plan on your top HR change priorities and how you will implement them successfully in your organization

Who Will Benefit Most

This program is designed for but not limited to all senior Human Resource, Organizational Development Managers and Directors who are responsible for ensuring that the organization's workforce is effective and capable of helping the organization achieve its goals. HR leaders who are constantly evaluating their HR processes and persistently seeking for fit or alignment of HR and business strategies will benefit from this program greatly.

Program Outline

DAY 1

• Welcome, introductions, ice-breaker, workshop objectives and ways of working
• What Does Alignment Look Like?
• How HR can earn a voice in the boardroom: understanding Business Strategy
• What does your business need from HR?

DAY 2

• Alignment in action - HR as change agent
• Transforming HR: Moving from Being a Transactional to a Strategic Business Partner
• Addressing strategic challenges (e.g. globalization)
• Shifting Organizational Culture to better enable successful Business Strategy implementation
• Action Planning
• Post-course Work