The good and exciting HR Strategy has a strong impact on the motivation of the employees of Human Resources. They feel, they have to design and implement extremely important HR Processes and HR Procedures, which will help to build the successful company.

The HR Strategy brings the unifying idea to the group of people and it helps to make them a working and efficient team. The HR Strategy helps to explain to the individual people their new role within the team and how important they are for the common success. The people can feel inspired and they want to work hard to produce the best results, as they want to become the part of the successful team.

The design of the HR Strategy is the unique moment for the leader of Human Resources as the leader has the chance to test his or her HR Managers in their commitment to the new strategy and their inspiring role in the teams. The managers will explain the details of the HR Strategy and they will guide the employees on their way to develop new HR Processes and helping them to overcome the problems on the way.

The HR Strategy is not a piece of the paper, the HR Strategy has to be realistic and it has to set the realistic expectations of employees as they can feel their skills and competencies will be pushed to the limits, but they have a chance to reach the goals and to satisfy the managers. The employees usually work for their manager as they feel the manager inspiring and supporting their needs.

The HR Strategy development and the communication of the HR Strategy is the unique moment for the HR leader to unify the team among several simple HR ideas, which will drive the whole effort of Human Resources in coming several years. Do not miss this opportunity to build one HR team. Not the HR Group.

The HR Strategy should not be a one-man show.  The HR Strategy has to be teamwork and it has to bring a huge consensus in the whole Human Resources team. The HR Strategy is not a dream of a one man, it is a shared vision among all the team members, with many advocates among the HR employees.

The HR Strategy development is a good chance to bring some fun into HR daily job. The employees are pushed to think out of the box and they have to bring new fresh ideas.

The design of the HR Strategy is about the clever brainstorming and collecting the ideas from the employees and making them to prioritize their own ideas, as they have to set the organization, they would love to work for. They would love to work for; it is not they would like to work for.

The HR Strategy has to be fun to develop, the employees have to feel, their ideas are included in the final document and they have to find their place in the implementation phase of the HR Strategy, which is not such fun, but it challenging and ask the employees to deliver more for the HR Function.

The employees have to be encouraged to bring the proposals to the HR Strategy as each accepted proposal increases the acceptance level of the HR Strategy and the employees will love to work on the implementation.

The HR Strategy has to be born in tough discussions, as the discussions will bring the buy-in of the HR employees. As  they have to implement the HR Strategy, their buy-in is an extremely important success factor.

The HR Professionals have to redesign their HR Strategies as the New Reality Era has new challenges for Human Resources. It is not just the case for the Western World, but China and India will be the next HR Challenge. Soon. The next challenge is in the right HR Strategy for the successful and slim global organization. The world changes quickly and the behavior of employees will follow the trend. Each HR Professional tries to find the simple HR Strategy Model to copy and paste.

The HR Strategy cannot be simply transferred across the organization. The HR Strategy Model is not sexy and sounds boring to the target audiences in the company, when it is not made for it. The managers and employees do not recognize their stories in the HR Strategy and they refuse to believe such strategy, as they have no benefits from it.

The HR Strategy has to answer the most painful questions of the organization as the managers can accept the HR Strategy as the basic document for the development of Human Resources in the company. The HR Strategy Model from the internet (or the general HR Strategy Document) can be used as the inspiration, but it is not the solution. Trust me.

It is a simple question, but the HR Strategy is usually not aligned with the business strategy or any other strategies in the organization. The HR declares, the HR Strategy supports the business, but there is no other alignment with the business strategy. It is a program of the employee care, but it is not the HR Strategy.

The HR Strategy aligned with the business strategy is about the growth of the business, increasing the performance of the employees and keeping the costs under a control. The HR Strategy aligned with the business strategy is not much about the employee satisfaction and benefits provided to the population as they are not the strategic goals, but they are tools to reach the goals important for the whole organization.

The process of the alignment of the HR Strategy with the business strategy is about going deeper and finding the real root components of the successful human capital management in the organization. The HR Managers have to identify the real goals of the business, the business way how to reach the goals and the real needs of the business from Human Resources. The HR tends to take care of employees, but it is not what the business asks for usually.

The HR Strategy alignment with the business strategy needs many discussions inside Human Resources about the real goals of the organization and how the organization will utilize its human capital to reach the goals. It is not about the employee satisfaction, it is a side effect. The HR Management has to understand, how the business wants to reach the goals and then the HR Strategy can be developed and fully aligned with the business strategy.

The aligned HR Strategy misses the nice words about the retention, the employee satisfaction and other nice HR initiatives. These are the tools, the real business goals are different. The HR Strategy has to respect it.

The HR Strategy is unique for each organization and there is no general HR Strategy Template, which can be used for all organizations. The HR Strategy has the goal of a differentiation of the company from others, it cannot be reached by using the HR Strategy Template.

The HR Strategy template generally does not exist, but there are some questions, which have to be answered by the HR Strategy and these questions are pretty general and they can be used as a template for the HR Strategy design and development.

As each organization is unique, the answers for the general questions about the HR Strategy will have different answers. There is no general HR Strategy template to cover all answers, but the clients like the pictures more than the written documents. The picture can explain more in less words and HR employees should spend their time with Microsoft PowerPoint translating ideas and words into pictures.

The HR Team can take the following questions as the template for the HR Strategy as they should be answered. Maybe, they are not interesting for the HR Team itself, but the internal clients and top management will ask them. Leaving them unanswered will decrease their trust in the new HR Strategy. The questions are general, but the answers have to be specific and they have to fit perfectly into the organization and its corporate culture:

• How is it connected with the business strategy?
• How is HR Strategy connected with our corporate culture and corporate values?
• How it will increase overall performance of the organization?
• What are the costs of the implementation? (FTEs, HRIS)
• What are the main benefits for the internal clients?
• How it will change the way we work now?
• Who are the main stakeholders?
• What HR employees do we need?
• What is the timing of the implementation?
• What will HR ask from me as the internal client to implement the HR Strategy successfully?

You can add as many additional questions as you want, but you have to keep in mind, the HR Strategy is a general document setting the long term vision for the HR team and it cannot provide all the answers. The HR employees have to find their own way to implement the HR Strategy in their own area of the responsibility. The HR Strategy document cannot make their part of the job, they will have several years to implement it usually. And for the implementation – there is no HR Strategy template as well.

The Human Resources needs to speak about the HR Story in the organization. HR Department has many HR Processes, HR Policies, HR Programs for specific groups of employees, but the HR Story tells why they exist and how they are connected with the business values, business strategy and the corporate culture.

The HR Story returns to the top vision of the company and aligns the results of Human Resources with the corporate values nicely. The results should be always aligned with the definite goal of the organization as the managers and employees see the effort of HR employees as value added to the whole organization.

The HR Story is extremely important for the introduction of new processes and initiatives as the HR Management has to show a direct connection with the values, culture and other HR processes. The flow of information and employees in the organization has to be visible and logical. The HR Story presents what exists and why. The new HR initiative is a new piece in the HR Puzzle.

The preparation of the HR Story is not easy, but it is a presentation, which should appear in a compressed form in any other HR Presentation as it keeps the story logical and it makes a “flashback” for employees to remember the whole concept of Human Resources.

The HR Projects should be the result of the approved HR Strategy. The HR Strategy should not be build around the projects, but the projects should make the HR Strategy the reality. The HR team has to be aware, that the HR Project Plan can be changes by the introduction of the new HR Strategy.

The HR Projects should support the HR Strategy. In reality, the HR Projects are not connected with the HR or business strategy and the improvements are not significant for the organization or Human Resources.

The HR Projects are usually painful as the HR Information System is not unified and not consistently used for all HR Processes. The HR Projects are more about nice-to-have and they are not focused on building a standardized HR Data Warehouse providing the data for all the HR Processes.

Take look into your own daily practice. How many data do you have in your HR system and how many data do you hold in many Microsoft Excel sheets and files? The MS Excel is a great program to calculate the business case, but it should not act as the database. Generally, it acts as the database in many organization as it is simple and useful in the beginning. Just later, it brings a lot of mistakes and a lot of misunderstandings.

Each HR Project has to be focused on bringing the unified approach to Human Resources and to make the data available to all HR employees. The perfect HR Information System connects people better way than sending emails all around. This is also a goal of the excellent HR Strategy.

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 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.