The People Plan: Tomorrow Comes Faster Than You Might Think

You’re all set with the people you need in your business today.  You’re feeling good.  It may feel like a relief and time to take a break so you can focus on other issues.  But now is the time to think ahead and put together your People Plan.

If you’ve been following my posts on People Strategy, you identified in your people schematic that you will need 3 sales reps instead of 2, a higher-level technician to support customer service, or even a new office manager within the next year. Where are these people going to come from? How are you going to assure that you have the right person, for the right job, for the right reason tomorrow?

Following three best practices for a People Plan is your answer.  A Succession Plan, Individual Development Plans for your employees and a Recruiting Plan will have you in good shape when you’re ready to expand your employee base or have to unexpectedly replace a high performer.

Is someone in your business ready now?

The Succession Plan is a company/management driven process that looks at all current positions and employees for the importance and criticality of each position.  The team responsible for the plan discuss the vulnerability of the employee currently performing the role, possible internal candidates identified as back-fills for the position, and finally the need to consider external hiring for positions where a viable internal candidate has not been identified. The outcome of a succession plan is a document that the management team can revisit or pull out in case of an emergency loss.  It goes without saying that the succession plan should be reviewed at least yearly or when a major change has occurred.

Will you develop employees so they’re ready for a bigger role?

The Individual Development Plan is a manager supported and employee owned process for the acquisition of new skills that will both assist the business and enhance the employee’s self-worth and career progression. Individual development plans should drive an employee towards additional skills, knowledge and abilities required for a higher-level position in the business, thus feeding the succession planning pipeline.

There are many avenues for training and skill development to consider.

  • Traditional (technical) Skills Training, also known as On-The-Job Training, are skills usually shared by a co-worker that has, or still is, performing the task or skill that the employee is acquiring.
  • Professional Training typically is gained through external sources and is usually technically or functionally important; like application development for an IT professional, or advanced plumbing techniques for a trades position, or new accounting requirements under GAAP for a CPA. Many of these types of training come with CEU’s (Continuing Education Units) for the profession in which the employee is employed.
  • Formal Educational Training comes from the traditional secondary, 2 or 4 year college or a technical institute and focuses on specific educational required material necessary to be successful in the position.
  • Soft-Skills Training, including Leadership Development, are those traditional non-technical skills that, when acquired, should enhance the ability of the employee to do their job.
  • Professional Networking. While networking may seem out of place for Individual Development, it is most definitely a way for employees to develop their soft skills in a non-threatening environment that could also lead to additional business.

How are you going to fill the competency gap?

Finally, when you must look outside your company for the skills that you do not have internally, is the Recruiting Plan.

  • A company first needs to be able to Attract candidates for existing openings or for possible future openings.
  • Actively Recruit candidates through traditional recruiting methods, which include posting on the company’s website, paid websites such as Glassdoor, and the use of external recruiters or staffing agencies.
  • To Passively Recruit candidates engages future prospective employees you meet at networking or customers events. Attending and participating in Job Fairs is an excellent way to engage potential job candidates for both present and future company opportunities. Attending college job fairs is also an excellent way to secure interns or prospective future full-time employees.
  • The use of Social Media is no longer a nice-to-have, but a requirement to attract potential employees, recruit employees, and recruit passive candidates. The use of social media is also a necessary tactic to market the business, connect with existing and future customers, and to maintain a visible and active role in the on-line community.

I’ll be covering each section of the People Plan in more detail in future blogs.  Look for my next blog on Succession Planning and the 9-Block Matrix.

Contact me if you have any questions on the People Plan.

Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC works with business owners to improve productivity and profitable growth by aligning people strategies to the company’s business plan.

What Motivates You To Go The Extra Mile?

Motivation can be energizing.  Do you remember a time when you were inspired or you motivated someone?  Do you remember what it felt like?  The thrill of the spark igniting within you, or helping a child, friend or employee help themselves and seeing the ember catch fire.  The energy is contagious.

That same energy is in your organization, namely your people.  You know you’re likely to put in more effort and care when you are motivated and feeling good about what you’re doing.  Your employees are the same.  They will put in extra effort if they are engaged and feel appreciated.

Increase engagement, increase profitability

In a recent global Gallup poll on employee engagement with 82,000 teams, the results showed 21% higher profitability for those organizations in the top quarter compared with those at the bottom.  Shockingly, 85% of employees are disengaged or actively disengaged.1 That’s a lot of people who need motivation and a good deal of profit that never makes it to the table.  Obviously, there’s a great deal of work to be done globally.  Yet, it’s your business we’re focusing on now.

You probably think about motivating your employees with salary, benefits and a nice work environment.  Those incentives are a given in the current labor market.  You need to do more.  The good news is that you can and it doesn’t have to cost you much.

Start motivating your employees today

  • Be authentic when you praise a job well done. Acknowledge good work but don’t dilute your compliments by praising all the time.
  • Find out what motivates your employees individually. People are inspired by many different factors.  Observe and ask what motivates each person.  Then, acknowledge them in the way they prefer.
  • Work with employees who are causing problems or not meeting expectations. Your employees are watching how you handle someone who is not performing.  Don’t ignore or downplay the problem.  Your employees are impacted and want you to step in to handle the situation. Be honest and helpful to the person who is struggling.  Find out what he/she needs to be successful.  If you don’t see improvement after making a good effort to support them, you will likely have to let them go.  Sometimes, an employee doesn’t fit with a company’s culture or have the skills to do the job.  Be supportive and fair so your employees know that you treat everyone fairly.
  • Talk to your employees about their development. What work fuels their passion?  Is there an area they want to explore?  Providing a safe environment for employees to discover new talents can keep them inspired and engaged.  Share in their discovery.  Acknowledge their abilities and support them in strengthening their weaknesses.
  • Hear what your employees are saying. Listening to your employees is the most cost-effective way of acknowledging and engaging them.  And you could learn something you didn’t realize about your business and the people who keep your business running.

Uncover what motivates your employees

Here’s a simple way to get specifics about what motivates your employees.  Ask them! Let them compile a list of options for recognition for a job well done.  Some examples of both monetary and non-monetary items could be

  • Time off work to participate in a community or non-profit event; like Habitat for Humanity
  • Opportunity to take on additional responsibility
  • Breakfast or lunch with a more senior employee or company executive
  • Development class, seminar or conference that is of interest to the employee and the company
  • Time off; an extra vacation day or a few hours on a Friday afternoon
  • Gift card or small cash award
  • Public recognition among peers; like at a department meeting
  • Trophy or award certificate
  • Tickets to a sporting or cultural event of the employee’s choice
  • A small token of appreciation, like a food gift basket, sent to the employee’s home so that his/her loved ones can see the company’s appreciation.

Talking with employees about how they like to be recognized and motivated is an opportunity to communicate about performance, expectations and the value of your employees.  Always connect any recognition with performance and the value an employee brings to the business.  Reinforce the behaviors and skills needed to make your business successful.

Below, share some ways a company has actively engaged you?

1 Building a High-Development Culture Through Your Employee Engagement Strategy, Gallup, Inc. Washington, DC, 2019.

Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC works with business owners to improve productivity and profitable growth by aligning people strategies to the company’s business plan.

What the heck is a “People Schematic”?

Many business owners aren’t in a position to hire full-time human resource expertise and your business may not need it, yet.  But you do need a people strategy to be confident you’re evolving the structure of your business and hiring at the right time.  That’s why we’d like to share a concept that HR experts use with leaders to diagram business needs and milestones with future employee requirements–the People Schematic.

People schematic defined

The people schematic is the first part of a successful people strategy that also includes a People Plan and People Metrics.  Just like a successful people strategy, the schematic helps to assure that a business has the right people, in the right jobs, at the right time, for the right reasons. Also like the people strategy, a people schematic is a living, developing diagram that gets reviewed regularly alongside the people strategy and the company’s business plan.

The people schematic is one element of a broader strategic workforce planning process.

Components of a people schematic

The people schematic uses information from the business plan that includes

  • the current state (number and types of employees vs. the business plan)
  • the desired future state (number and types of employees vs. the business plan)
  • business markers that indicate when key actions need to be taken.

The schematic is the plan used to close the gap between the current and desired future state.  For those familiar with the traditional human resources lingo, this could be considered an extension or means to the development of a headcount or recruiting plan.

The people schematic is a graphed representation that shows the number and type of employees that will be needed over time against the business metrics that are used. The business metrics are different for each business. It could be the number of widgets necessary to be produced or the revenue needed to be generated. The metric could be the number of patients that need to be reached. It could be anything that the business deems to be its goal. However, two things are consistent regardless of the company’s product or service: the companies financials linked to the business plan, and the use of any and all metrics that measure key human resource information, such as turnover, time-to-hire, etc. The key point is that the schematic uses information derived from the business plan.

Drawbacks of not creating a people schematic

Is your business at risk if you don’t have a people strategy?  Maybe not…initially.  But it can catch up to you.

  • Under-hiring can lead to excessive workloads on current staff, missing customer deadlines, and the inability to react to business needs or changes.
  • Over-hiring can lead to financial stresses on the company, inefficiencies of the workforce, or put the organization in jeopardy that could result in layoffs or staff reductions.
  • Not having the right people ready for the position at the right time for the business.

“Just-in-time” hiring is not easy and takes diligence. Factors such as manager input, recruiting ‘lead-time’, employee turnover and ‘lost time or opportunity’ need to be considered.

Evolve your people schematic along with your business

Naturally, as the business advances or encounters difficulties, you need to modify the people schematic and business plan.  Actively review both documents regularly at the leadership level.  Also critical is that your managers understand both plans because they hold knowledge and experience of your business that is critical to implementing an accurate business plan.

Important to note:  Before determining your demand for external talent, identify gaps in skills and capabilities in your current workforce. Fill these gaps through internal mobility and ‘upskilling’ first. We’ll cover these topics as part of the People Plan in an upcoming blog.

Contact us if you have questions on a People Schematic.

Paradise Workplace Solutions, LLC works with business owners to improve productivity and profitable growth by aligning people strategies to the company’s business plan.