Human Resources is not a rocket science, it is just quickly developing business function. It is not about a lot of theory behind Human Resources and the person with the business sense can quickly understand to basics of HR Management. It is the same story with the HR Strategy. It should not be full of the theoretical results and outcomes, but it should be practical and showing the impact on the main HR measures. Keep your HR Strategy simple (K.I.S.S. approach really works).

The HR Strategy should reflect the complexity of the organization and the complexity of HR Processes. The more complicated the organization is, the simpler the HR Strategy should be. The HR Strategy has to unify the organization, it should not bring new barriers to the organization. It is extremely important as the managers fight for their units and they are not interested in suffering of other parts of the organization. The HR Strategy should align the business units again on the same level, which can bring some conflicts into the organization and the relationship with some managers can be broken for some time.

The HR Strategy is a vision of Human Resources and the vision is just one for the whole organization. The vision cannot set barriers as the managers will fight for the benefits for their units and they will not cooperate. The simple HR Strategy can show a nice vision to the leader of the organization and the leader can make a tough decision about the unification of the HR Processes and HR Procedures for all. Again.

The simple HR Strategy help to unify the HR Processes as everyone can see the impact on the whole organization and it has to be definitely a part of the HR Strategy Story. The unification and the improvements are the main goals and benefits from the HR Strategy and Human Resources should not miss that point.

The hardworking idiots can destroy any company. They value their career most and they do everything possible to reach the goal. They usually do not understand the goal, but they generate a lot of unimportant tasks and documents to show their importance. The leader has to have a good sense to recognize the hardworking idiots in the organization as they can completely destroy it.

The hardworking idiots are well defined by the German Erich von Manstein who introduced four kinds of his officers. It is not that important, what four major groups, but he was definitely right with the group of hardworking idiots.
The leader has to be sensitive and the leader has to identify all the hardworking idiots around him or her. The hardworking idiots look like the best followers of the leader’s vision, but they do not manage its implementation, they produce a lot of pointless tasks for the rest of the group to demonstrate their buy-in.

The leader has to observe the whole group of the employees as the managers love the hardworking idiots as they look as the top performers in the whole organization. The rest of employees do not share the same opinion with the managers. They see the reality and they see no connection with the vision of the leader. The hardworking idiots can destroy the organization as the other employees have to fulfill their wishes, which are not connected with the vision and the strategy. They are produced and given to demonstrate the willingness to success.

The leader has to properly evaluate the effort and the real results against the vision and the strategy. When there is a mismatch, the leader has to focus on details and he has to ask clever questions to identify the real problem – the hardworking idiot in the team.

The HR Strategy is a document for Human Resources and the internal clients. Many times, the HR team forgets about the internal clients. Some experts or HR Gurus like David Ulrich recommends to connect the HR Strategy with the external clients as well, but the good and functioning connection of the HR Strategy and the overall business strategy should be fine. At least for the beginning.

The HR Strategy sets the vision for HR employees and the internal clients should benefit from the given vision in better services and new HR processes. The internal client is usually no interested in the HR Strategy, but the internal clients wants to enjoy the improved and new services provided by Human Resources.

The internal clients and the HR Strategy should be aligned. The HR Strategy is not a document against the internal clients. Generally, the internal clients pay the services of Human Resources and the clients have to be satisfied with the quality and speed of the services provided to them. The HR Strategy has to be approved by the internal clients as they have to accept the limits resulting from the HR Strategy and their own price limits. It is not possible to provide excellent services for a low cost. It does not work this way.

The internal client is the main receiver of the changes provoked by the new or updated HR Strategy. HR employees have to respect the wishes of the internal clients as they have to be happy with the changes and the changes have to be a positive adjustment for them. The HR Strategy and the internal clients have to be aligned.

The HR Strategy can be quite difficult document for the managers, even the top managers of the organization. The audience does not work in Human Resources area and they can be pretty confused, when they see the result of the HR team hard work. The HR Strategy needs a story. The HR Strategy Story should be the essential part of the whole strategy as the internal clients feel comfortable.

The HR team cannot forget about the easy HR story of the future, which represents the whole strategy. The clients are not interested in the internal HR structure and HR jobs, they are interested in real outcomes, they will see.

The interesting and funny story of the HR Strategy can also help to HR employees as on the basis of the story, they can find their own small stories, which help to understand and to act as the advocate in their small discussions.

The story can tell more than the HR Strategy Powerpoint presentation with many slides and many transition effects. The story should be about the real issues and real people from the organization. The story tells positive messages to employees. The story can be explained quickly and the boring details about the HR Strategy can be always found later.

The HR Strategy can be easily designed for many organization, but it is more difficult to energize the employees to implement it with enthusiasm. The employees can look happy, but they do not progress in the implementation effort of the HR Strategy.

The successful HR Strategy implementation depends on the enthusiasm in the HR team. It is the most important and most difficult part of the successful change management implementation. The employees have to trust in the new HR Strategy and they have to follow the HR management in the implementation effort.

The HR Strategy cannot be changed frequently and the HR management team has to build a burning platform for the employees to believe and trust in the need of the change. The new HR Strategy is a change and the management team has to be aware of the risk of the change resistance from the employees.

The management team has to involve the employees in the process of the design of the HR Strategy as the employees feel closely attached to the whole process. The management team has to start the process of the development of the new HR Strategy as a small team task, but the team has to grow constantly during the preparation process as the HR management team can build enough advocates of the HR Strategy.

The HR Strategy implementation is not a task for a single day and it cannot be just easily written into the goals given to employees. It does not help, the implementation has to be done with love in the hearts.

The HR Strategy has to be alive. It can be extremely simple HR Strategy, but it has to energize the members of Human Resources as they implement it into the real life. The HR Strategy can be easily designed, developed, written and presented, but it can be really hard to make it alive.

The HR Strategy has to be prepared in a common consensus and most HR employees should be involved in the procedure of the development of the HR Strategy. The HR Strategy is not a job for one person (even the smartest person in the world), but it is a real example of a good teamwork.

The process of the development HR Strategy is a good exercise for the team building. The HR Strategy development can give to the HR team a new common vision. when the employees participate on the development of the HR Strategy, they feel committed and they want to introduce into their daily practice as they invested a lot of their effort.

The HR Strategy is a useless document, when it is not implemented and the employees will not trust to the development of the next one HR Strategy. The HR management team has to keep the strategy implementable as the employees can see a clear implementation progress.

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HR is challenged. By the financial crisis, the importance of the right human capital development increased and the HR Professionals are under a huge pressure to bring more and more as the organization keeps its competitiveness on the market. The general one and the job market.

The HR Professionals try to deliver more, but it is not the right answer. They have to get focused on the priorities with the best impact on the results of the whole organizations. The real effort should be focused on selection of the most important HR Processes, which will bring major benefits to the organization.

The main principle for the new reality is keeping the HR Processes simple and efficient as the managers can quickly react to the needs of the market. The HR Processes have to support the competitiveness and Human Resources cannot be a brake to their effort.

Human Resources is not valued for being too complex, but it is valued to take the workload from the managers in the area, where they are not experts. HR has to identify the main challenges of managers and the HR Processes have to be quickly support the effort to meet the goals.

It is quite common, the change in the organization needs a burning platform, but the members of the organization (or the employees and the managers) feel comfortable with the status quo and their wish to introduce changes to the company is minimal. They can be depressed from the last unsuccessful changes or the changes are announced too frequently, that they just ignore any new “Our Bright Future Initiative”.

The leaders cannot find the real reason to energize the organization as they accept the need for the change and the changes are done as nice presentations with no real impact on the performance and operation of the company.

The true leaders are excellent in building the burning platforms. Many organizations accept just the external burning platforms, when they have to fight for their own future as the competitors are too good and the products and services are not competitive enough.

The authentic leaders do not speak about the burning platforms, they develop them as the organization follows their ideas and brings improvement to their customers and employees.

The leader with no change in mind is not a true leader. The change and vision are the main value added by the leaders.

Year 2009 was extremely tough and HR Management was generally under a huge pressure to change the priorities quickly. We were used to spending money, not to make a proper HR cost cutting. The year 2009 was not about the development, it was about the savings and firing employees to save the company and to keep a positive cashflow. The HR Priorities for 2010 will change a bit as the main cost cutting changes are finished and the companies have to prepare for a new erra of a slow growth.

The main HR Priorities for 2010 will be:

1. Finding New Leaders
2. Setting a new low-cost HR Strategy
3. Introduce a true differentiating among employees
4. Change of the compensation schemes to support true performance
5. Focus on Top Employees

The priorities for 2010 are about a clear difference among employees as the investments are lowered and the results are not guaranteed. The HR Function has to invest limited funds into a smaller group of employees as they can move the company forward.