HR strategy: developing the capabilities you will need

Organisations and people are independent systems that must be coupled with each other. This coupling comes about through roles, responsibilities and decision logics. People management is a non-delegable responsibility of line managers. The HR function advises them, designs structures and processes and accompanies the entire employee journey: from employer branding and recruiting through onboarding, development and performance management to retention and offboarding.

If this connection is missing, it shows in recurring patterns. HR is heavily focused on administrative tasks. Development, recruiting and talent promotion are only implemented in fragments. Unclear roles lead to duplicated work, gaps and overload. The shortage of skilled workers also makes it harder to fill business-critical functions. High performers permanently compensate for the weak performance of others. This is often a sign that managers are not fulfilling their people-related leadership tasks.

Which tasks will become important for further development? Which capabilities do the roles involved need? Competence profiles and a strategic competence gap analysis help to make these questions concrete. The focus is both on existing strengths and on new requirements.

In the strategy map, Kaplan and Norton link the learning and growth perspective with internal processes. Strategic job families result from a company's strategic processes. For each job family, a competence profile describes the necessary knowledge, skills and basic orientation, for example results orientation. Comparing the required number of people with those already qualified gives human capital readiness.

For ranking target groups, Trost has proposed two axes: the relevance of a function for business success and the availability of talent on the labour market. Business-critical functions for which people are hard to find receive the highest priority. Functions that are necessary but not business-critical and are easy to fill come at the bottom of the ranking.

The transformis range of services combines aptitude diagnostics, talent management, job profiles and different learning formats. Which instruments make sense depends on the organisation's needs. A role may require external recruitment. In other cases the focus is on developing existing potential or knowledge transfer.

Every organisation has its own conditions for success. A job profile therefore first describes the function: specialist and leadership tasks, stakeholders to be served, decision-making authority, performance drivers and barriers, special features of the activity, organisational conditions and the expected contribution. The guiding question is: what has to be done, decided and managed in this function for the desired performance to come about?

The requirements profile for the person builds on this. It covers personality, competences as knowledge, will and ability, special experience and qualifications, and clear exclusion criteria. A good profile takes the strategy into account and makes the difference between current and future requirements visible. It serves recruitment as well as the targeted development of existing employees. Matching the requirements profile with the candidate profile shows how well a person fits the function and the company.

HR is a business partner for the responsible managers. This raises questions about cooperation: who describes the requirements, who accompanies development dialogues and how are decisions prepared? Transparent criteria support working on this together.

New capabilities need a context in which they can be applied. A development assignment should therefore take into account tasks, learning opportunities and the role of leadership. Which changes are to be achieved and how progress is discussed are part of clarifying the specific assignment.

In economically difficult times, budgets for training and development are often cut first. The reason is uncertainty. For many decision-makers, people development is a black box that shows no measurable results on the bottom line. In good times further training is tolerated; under economic pressure this tolerance ends.

A people development audit therefore looks at ten success factors: needs assessment, definition of objectives, people development strategy, selection of measures, programme development, implementation, transfer assurance, benefit calculation, support system and updating. For each factor there is a guiding question, for example: which systems are used to determine development needs taking strategic goals into account? Are measures used specifically for different target groups? Positive answers are backed up with material. This makes visible how closely people development and corporate strategy are actually linked.

Talent management begins with strategic processes and the functions that are decisive for them. Leadership and HR can derive job families, competence profiles and future needs from them. Two questions must be answered separately: how important is a function for the chosen direction, and how difficult is it to attract or develop suitable people for it? Current staffing says little about future requirements.

The skill inventory provides a view of existing capabilities. Development dialogues clarify interests and possible learning paths. Some gaps require recruitment, others a new work organisation or a specialist career path. An HR strategy links these decisions with the corporate strategy and makes their assumptions verifiable.