Defining and rolling out an HR strategy is essential today for addressing the full range of HR issues head-on. Here is a walk-through of the elements you need to know to build one.
HR management is increasingly recognized as a strategic activity inside organizations. And that makes sense.
Facing multiple pressures — back-to-back disruptions, talent shortages, engagement challenges, and more — organizations today need strategic talent management to hit their growth objectives.
What is an HR strategy?
An HR strategy can also be described as a "strategic HR plan" or "strategic human resources management." It is a long-term vision that sets strategic direction across HR questions.
The HR strategy aligns organizational processes, human capital, and competitiveness objectives. It is essentially the HR arm of the organization's overall strategy.
It puts the questions tied to the employee lifecycle at the centre:
- Recruitment,
- Onboarding,
- Training,
- Compensation,
- And more.
This vision lets you address HR issues while keeping organizational performance and competitiveness top of mind.
Read more: Offboarding: A Guide to a Successful Departure Process
What is the difference between HR policy and HR strategy?
Often confused or used interchangeably, HR strategy and HR policy actually describe two different things. The HR strategy is a long-term vision. The HR policy is the concrete rollout — the application — of the HR strategy.
What are the objectives of an HR strategy?
An HR strategy lets an organization hit its growth objectives through appropriate HR management. It also factors in procedures and organizational culture. For HR teams, deploying an HR strategy is the opportunity to move beyond a purely administrative posture.
For the organization
A well-built HR strategy delivers many benefits. For example, it lets you:
- Recruit the best talent,
- Strengthen employee engagement,
- Reduce turnover,
- Lift productivity.
Every one of these HR-policy benefits serves organizational growth and performance.
For employees
On the employee side, the HR strategy targets employee growth, career progression, and long-term development.
Read more: Strategies and key metrics to measure your employer brand
An effective HR strategy needs the right tools
Accelerate your HR initiatives with an HRIS built for the job.
Book a demoWhat kinds of challenges can an HR strategy address?
HR strategy answers several key challenges. Four examples:
- Recruiting new talent — to support the organization's development and growth ambitions.
- Skills management and workforce training — to maintain existing employee skills and enable new ones (essential for competitiveness and innovation).
- Employee retention — to limit the loss of knowledge and know-how, particularly to competitors.
- Employer brand development — now central to attracting new talent.
What are the different types of HR strategies?
You can distinguish two types of HR strategies:
- "Global" HR strategies, covering talent management across the organization as a whole.
- More targeted HR strategies focused on a specific area — recruitment or the employee experience, for example.
Read more: Employee disengagement: how to spot it and what to do about it
How do you build an HR strategy?
Building an HR strategy starts from the organization's overall strategy. By walking through that overall strategy, you can measure its different impacts on HR management and build an HR strategy that fits.
This work is led by different actors — for example, a steering committee that brings together the CHRO, managers, HR experts, and so on.
Different scenarios emerge from this exercise.
Next comes a reflection phase, during which decision-makers assess the organization's capacity to commit to one HR strategy over another.
4 key steps for building an HR strategy
There are different ways to build an HR strategy — depending on organizational size, context, and so on. Here are 4 major steps (adapt as needed).
- Analyze the organization's strategy through an HR lens — understand business development priorities so that talent management serves the overall strategy.
- Take stock of the organization's HR axes — identify the HR dimensions that could deliver the most value against the strategy. This also means listing the HR transformations needed to help the organization hit its objectives (developing skills, strengthening autonomy, for example).
- Formalize the HR strategy and roll it out — analyze the gap between the business strategy and the organization's HR axes to define the HR strategy. Translate it into concrete projects, with an implementation timeline, allocated resources, and performance indicators.
- Communicate on your HR strategy. It will only be effective if it is known, understood, and applied by your employees.
HR strategies: examples
Scenario 1
As part of its strategic objectives, an organization wants to grow revenue by X%.
Translating this commercial objective into HR strategy: recruit X new marketing leads with the objective of growing the prospect base by X% within 18 months.
Scenario 2
An organization wants to lift productivity by X%. Translating this ambition into the HR strategy: an objective to reduce absenteeism by X%, since productivity and absenteeism are closely linked.
Read more: Case study: UTB — a successful HR process transformation in the construction industry
Need help building your HR strategy?
Talk with our specialists to explore the SIGMA-HR solutions best fitted to your organization.
Book a demoHow SIGMA-HR facilitates the rollout of an HR strategy
The importance of HR digitalization for an effective strategy
How does an HRIS help build an HR strategy? Digitalization is essential to HR management today. It remains one of the strongest topics in current HR practice.
It streamlines and automates everything that can be automated (HR management, risk management, labour relations and social dialogue) — freeing HR teams to focus on their core work: working with people.
At the same time, a large volume of HR data is now available to inform HR strategy design. Some organizations adopt data-analysis methods called "people analytics." This approach gives them reliable data for the best talent management decisions — while factoring in performance and productivity objectives for the organization.
Piloting your HR strategy with SIGMA-HR
Using an HRIS like SIGMA-HR lets you steer the different dimensions of an HR strategy. A few examples:
- Recruitment management with the Recruitment module — to attract the best profiles and accelerate the hiring process.
- Skills management with the Performance module — to keep the organization performing and competitive.
- Training management with the Training module — to track the development of new skills required by the HR strategy.
There are many other HR areas where an HRIS delivers value — provided the technology stays in the service of people (and not the reverse).
An intelligent HRIS that transforms HR
The SIGMA-HR HRIS meets every challenge HR professionals face — and puts them at the centre of the organization.
Comprehensive and flexible, our SaaS solution adapts to your HR needs from the most straightforward to the most complex — while ensuring strong data security.
It covers administrative management, time and attendance, talent management, occupational health and safety, and labour relations.
To go further
FAQ
What is an HR strategy?
An HR strategy is a long-term plan that aligns human resources practices with an organization's strategic objectives. It covers dimensions like recruitment, training, talent retention, and organizational performance.
Why is HR strategy essential to organizational performance?
It lets you attract, mobilize, and retain the right talent while strengthening organizational agility in the face of change (crisis, talent shortage, digital transformation, and so on). An effective HR strategy is a genuine growth lever.
What are the pillars of a successful HR strategy?
The pillars of an HR strategy include: alignment with organizational strategy, workforce and skills planning, continuous training, employee engagement, and using an HRIS to steer and automate HR processes.
Are there different types of HR strategies?
Global HR strategies cover the full employee lifecycle. Targeted HR strategies focus on specific priorities like recruitment, employer brand, or employee experience.
How do you build an HR strategy for your organization?
An organization can build its HR strategy in 4 steps: analyze the business objectives, run an HR diagnostic, prioritize high-impact HR actions, then formalize the strategy with performance indicators. HRIS support significantly accelerates this work.
What is the difference between HR strategy and HR policy?
The HR strategy defines the long-term vision and objectives for human resources. The HR policy is the concrete implementation of that strategy — through rules, procedures, and tools.
What are the benefits of an HRIS in rolling out an HR strategy?
An HRIS like SIGMA-HR digitizes, centralizes, and automates HR processes while providing data for strategic planning. It drives operational efficiency and coherence in how HR actions are rolled out.
How do you measure the effectiveness of an HR strategy?
Effectiveness is measured through HR KPIs like retention rate, absenteeism rate, average time to hire, engagement rate, or the impact of training on performance. These indicators let you adjust the strategy continuously.