Whether you are a well-established family business, an entrepreneurial start-up, a mid-tier business with a corporate structure, or a combination of these, it is important to build a company that is resilient and stable for future growth. That could be a fully formed company strategy with associated business plan, or simply a set of goals for the following year.

You may have ambitions to grow your business, launch a new product or move into a new market. Or perhaps you have researched your market and decided there is room for increasing your sales?

It’s natural to look first at the finance, sales and marketing aspects of growing your business, but you also need the right staff with the right skills to create and deliver against the opportunities ahead. If you don’t, you might find yourself stretched too thin trying to do it all on your own.

At People Puzzles we see the strong link between good people management and revenue. Well managed people make a business more productive, helping it to grow and generate more profit.

It’s important to regularly review your plan and build in flexibility. Things change, markets go up and down and so can supply and demand. Not only that, if key people on your senior team move on, it can cause uncertainty in the business, a change in direction or leave a hole that then needs to be filled. Your business strategy may need to adapt, and if it does, your people plan should change accordingly.

With the right people plan in place, you are in a better position to stay focused on why you exist, how you are going to get there, and take people on the journey with you?

So, who in the business should own the plan?

Ideally there should be someone setting and taking responsibility for the people plan in the senior management team to ensure it moves in line with the business strategy and that it is kept in mind when making key decisions.

People plans and initiatives need to form the basis of HOW the business delivers its goals, and the ownership of the plan should sit with a people expert, along with a CEO who is focused on seeing it succeed.

Growing with the people plan

It’s important to keep the plan alive with regular reviews to keep it up-to-date and fit for purpose. Involving your top team will help embed it – along with reviewing the business strategy at least annually.

People planning for the future is empowering for all involved because it gives certainty to the people who work for you and provides a framework to ensure that you are all working towards a common and tangible goal. As your business grows and you take on more staff, it enables them to see how they contribute to the wider business goals.

The sooner you get these structures in place, the easier it will be to manage and facilitate growth.

The dangers of not having a people plan

The truth is that most companies don’t have a strategic people management plan, they simply carry out HR processes as and when needed. But this is missing the bigger picture: it is reactive not proactive.

If the business is not led positively from the top and your aims are not effectively communicated, it can inhibit business performance and exasperate your staff. Confusing messages and a lack of training can prevent employees from performing to the best of their ability, making them more likely to leave, therefore causing disruption to the business. If they stay, you might find a toxic culture developing. Recruit the wrong people and you might end up with more problems than star performers.

What’s the best way to get started?

People planning needs to start with the business strategy. When a company has a clear strategic direction, it knows where it is going, and the senior team has a framework to allow them to make decisions.

People Puzzles, Midlands Regional Director, Alan Ball says,

"There are a myriad of touch points that we need to consider when planning for growth, even in rapidly changing times. This tool provides a great template and platform to be able to plan that journey".

Download our free toolkit ‘Stability and Growth in Rapidly Changing Times’ which highlights the key steps in creating your own plan. We share how our Orbit Wheel can help take that giant leap and turn it into smaller steps, and chat through six key elements you will need to consider for your plan to be successful.

Just click here to begin