From Strategic Priorities to This Year’s Work

Part Six of Our Series on Connecting People-Centered Intentions with Strategic HR Action

A strategic plan gives the work direction. An operating plan helps make sure the work actually happens.

In the Hauer People process, the HR Operating Plan translates the three-year strategic priorities into the specific work HR will undertake during the fiscal year. It is the place where good strategic intentions become planned commitments.

The operating plan is articulated in four terms: priority objectives, tactics, desired outcomes or deliverables, and accountable agents.

The Four Terms of the Operating Plan

Priority objectives name the measurable ends being pursued this year.

Tactics describe the specific work undertaken to reach those objectives.

Desired outcomes or deliverables define what each tactic is expected to produce.

Accountable agents name who owns delivery of each commitment.

This language helps reduce ambiguity. It is not enough to say the organization will improve retention, strengthen culture, or build HR capability. The operating plan asks what work will be done, what result is expected, and who is accountable for moving it forward.

The Evidence-to-Outcome Chain

One of the most useful parts of this approach is the chain from assessment to focus area to objective to tactic to outcome.

For example, an environmental assessment may show that the organization loses half of its early-career employees within the first two years, even though that same population is expected to fill a large share of critical talent roles within three to five years.

That evidence may lead to a Talent focus area such as acquisition and retention of critical roles. The priority objective might be to reduce early-career turnover to no more than 25 percent within the first two years of employment by the end of Year 3. A Year 1 tactic might be to design and launch a targeted early-career retention program. The desired outcome could be program participation at 50 percent of capacity within six months of launch, leading to 90 percent retention of participants at the end of two years.

The specific numbers will vary by organization. The important point is the chain. Evidence becomes direction. Direction becomes objective. Objective becomes this year’s work. This year’s work produces a deliverable someone owns.

This is where HR strategy becomes concrete: priorities become objectives, objectives become tactics, tactics produce outcomes, and the work is owned by someone accountable for moving it forward.

At this point in the process, the strategy has become concrete work that someone owns. In our final post of the series, we will look at the rhythm that keeps that work visible, accountable, and alive after the plan is adopted.