More organisations involve senior managers from outside the HR function in planning HR strategy than those that seek the input from those within it, research from XpertHR has found.
According to the XpertHR report How employers align HR with the business, senior managers from outside the HR function participate in HR planning at exactly three-quarters of employers, while senior HR managers are involved at two-thirds (66%) of organisations.
Outside of the HR function, seven employers in 10 (68%) involve at least one other stakeholder in HR planning, of which three-quarters (74%) gain the input of the finance department and about four in 10 (42%) involve employee representatives, such as unions or employee forums.
The report also found that, in order to align HR strategy with business goals, nearly half (47%) of organisations fully integrated the HR strategy with that of the business and four in 10 (39%) developed it after the main organisational strategy was agreed but said that it was linked to the overall strategy.
Just 10% of organisations said that the HR strategy was developed separately from the overall business strategy.
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Charlotte Wolff, employment relations writer and researcher at XpertHR and author of the report, said: “It is a good sign that many employers are choosing to integrate the planning of workforce issues into the main organisational strategy, as this will help to align HR with the business.
“However, it is surprising to find that senior HR staff are not involved in this planning process at one-third of the organisations in our survey. Without their involvement, organisations may be missing out on invaluable expertise relating to crucial people management issues.”
