Planning Your Workforce for 2012 – Tips and Strategies

Pinnacle All, HR & Recruiting Advice, Management Best Practices 2 Comments

This time of year is a good time to pause and reflect on your successes in 2011. But, it’s also an excellent time to begin your strategic planning for 2012. Defining a clear plan for the upcoming year can help you reach and surpass your goals for the upcoming year.

It’s time to plan your strategy for 2012!

The following five tips will help you maximize your talent investment and get the most out of your strategic planning, setting the pace for 2012 and beyond:

  1. Include the right employees. While strategic planning will affect your entire organization, you shouldn’t include everyone in the planning. Choose employees who you have identified as solid contributors, people who can provide insight and depth to the conversation. Including key team members who are essential to the implementation of your plan is also essential.
  2. Think of it as more than just a “meeting.” Whether you spend an entire day, or even a week, on your strategic planning, keep in the back of your mind that your thoughts and ideas should be actionable and realistic. Taking the time to define your strategic plan for 2012 now better prepares you for the real “work” of strategic planning – the implementation.
  3. Maximize your strategic planning time. Ensure everyone is prepared to contribute to your strategic planning session(s). Prior to your first meeting, identify core areas to be addressed, and encourage team members to brainstorm ideas. Let your team know that they will be expected to discuss these ideas at length during your session.This will help you maximize your meeting time by having pre-identified targeted areas for discussion and planning.
  4. Share the plan with your team. While you shouldn’t necessarily include everyone in your planning, you should absolutely include everyone in the plan. Once your team has clearly defined a strategic plan for the year, share that strategy with your full team. After all, they will be largely responsible for its implementation!
  5. Follow through. You spent a great deal of time and effort developing an actionable strategic plan – now it’s time to start the action. Involve your employees in developing the actual steps necessary to implement the plan, then follow up and check in regularly to ensure each step is being followed. Quarterly meetings (more or less depending on your schedule and needs) can also help keep your team focused and enthusiastic about your short- and long-term goals.

Searching for ways to maximize your talent investment in 2012 and beyond?
Here at Pinnacle, our network is comprised of talented and qualified professionals – professionals who are ready to make an impact on your business. Contact us today to learn more.

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Comments

  1. Great advice, my question is how do you know if you are including the “right” employees in your strategic plan? Should maybe you create or recreate a company strategic outline for 2012, then a strategic plan for financial goals, then whoever the financial/compnay goals most involve, include them in the workforce planning? How far down the ladder do you include your employees?
    These are the four strategies I use: 1. Is the objective measurable or verifiable? Important to track the most effective ways to achieving the goals – it encourages progress and can be used either in the future or in other goal setting metrics.

    2. Is the objective feasible or achievable?
    Don’t create unrealistic goals, otherwise the disappointment could make it more difficult to bounce back.

    3. Is the objective adaptable or flexible?
    Very important to a budget when loosing a job or new addition to the family…all budgets, financial goals need to have flexibility and openness to be readjusted or revisited if the basic fundamentals of financial flows change.

    4. Is the objective consistent with the rest of your strategic plan? Important to not loose focus on the simpler goals…or get lost in the details. Stay focused.

    What are you thoughts on those? And how can you pertain them to the workforce?

  2. Pretty nice post. I simply stumbled upon your blog and wished to mention that I have truly loved surfing around your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your rss feed and I’m hoping you write once more very soon!

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