In response to the intensifying competition for talent, how do companies design systematic human resources strategies?

Introduction

Only by closely following the business development demands, deeply digging into and predicting the current status and potential difficulties of the company’s internal human resources, and then systematically sorting out and formulating human resources measures can it have its own strategy Sexual connotations.

People

are one of the most important strategic resources of an enterprise. The description of "an enterprise stops without people" vividly conveys the importance of talents to the business development of enterprises as the controller of creating and delivering value. Outstanding entrepreneurs around the world have always regarded talents as treasures - Bill Gates said: "Without the best 20 talents, Microsoft will no longer be an important company"; Jack Ma said: "The company's first product It must be your employees, followed by others.” The BCG Global People Report (Creating People Advantage 2014-15) has conducted empirical research on this, and the data shows that there is a significant correlation between excellent human resource management and excellent corporate performance. The importance of human resource management to enterprises is self-evident.

As China's economy enters a period of comprehensive structural adjustment and its population ages at an accelerated pace, the systemic talent gap accumulated due to more than three decades of rapid reform and opening up may further expand in the future. How to systematically respond to the human resource needs brought about by corporate business development in an environment where talents are scarce? How to more effectively identify, appoint, train and retain talents based on business demands? ?The challenge of "people" has raised more thorny new issues for the human resources management of Chinese enterprises. The demands of enterprises to transform their human resource management functions into business partners have become increasingly strong and urgent.

The pain of human resources strategy

To deal with the confusion of talents, we have seen that many Chinese companies have made many attempts in strengthening human resources and talent management in recent years. Among them, it has been a hot topic in recent years to elevate the human resources management function from service providers and functional experts to transformation promoters and even corporate strategic business partners, thereby increasing its influence and contribution to corporate strategic business development. However, we have noticed that although companies have followed suit, many do not understand the institutional and ideological changes and cooperation required in the transformation of human resource management functions.

One of the most important pain points is the lack of systematic response to human resource needs. The demand for international talents who seek international layout and understand the local policy environment and operating mechanisms has emerged; to develop diversified businesses, new business leaders and functional experts are in urgent need of supplementation; even in the traditional areas of advantage of the enterprise, They will frequently face a series of business and management challenges such as regional expansion, technology upgrades, and decision-making acceleration.

The ever-changing business environment outside constantly affects the strategic choices and business strategies of enterprises, and also brings about changing human resource needs. In this case, only by closely following the business development demands, deeply exploring and predicting the current situation and potential difficulties of the company's internal human resources, and then systematically sorting out and formulating human resources measures can it have strategic connotation. However, we still often see that the human resources management departments of many Chinese companies are actively or passively positioned to support service nature, and their daily work remains at the basic operational level, such as paying salaries, recruiting, etc.; when faced with problems, they tend to "have headaches" "Treat the head, treat the sore foot" instead of planning and analyzing from a strategic perspective and business language to provide systematic solutions.

Building a systematic human resources strategy

BCG believes that the formulation or optimization of corporate human resources strategies often has three sources of motivation: docking with (new) corporate business strategies and responding to external human resources Resource megatrends and closing internal capability gaps. Among them, the first source of motivation is highly related to the enterprise's business development and strategic transformation, and it also determines whether the enterprise's human resources management function has the ability to identify the differences between strategic goal requirements and the current situation, and then formulate strategies that are sufficient to support the improvement of organizational capabilities and cope with the enterprise's business transformation. Human resource planning poses greater challenges. The second source of motivation requires the human resources department to pay close attention to the latest human resource management trends and development themes in the field of talent (such as new generation management, globalization, etc.), and respond quickly and formulate plans based on the actual situation of the enterprise.

BCG’s human resources strategic framework contains four levels of content: strategic principles, strategic direction, action areas and initiatives. Among them, "Strategic Principles" highly concisely clarifies the overall talent mission of the enterprise, such as "Building the best team"; "Strategic Direction" clarifies several key talent goals under strategic principles, such as "Excellent Leaders"; "Action Areas" ” Define key thematic areas for the next level of the HR strategy, such as “overall learning and development arrangements”; and finally, “initiatives” as specific sub-projects that further refine and/or complement the HR initiatives within the action areas, such as in Action Human resources initiative "Building a corporate university" under the area "Overall learning and development arrangements".

So how to systematically formulate human resources strategies? BCG believes that formulating a human resources strategy requires a top-down plan that combines company strategy, external challenges, and internal circumstances (see the figure below).

Corporate strategy provides input on “what talent do we need?” First, by decomposing the company's strategic goals, the key organizational capabilities required (such as cross-department collaboration, industry experts, good operational capabilities, etc.) are derived; then starting from the organizational capabilities that need to be built, the human resources strategy is derived Enlightenment and required human resources measures (such as: ensuring the number of employees to meet business growth needs, establishing the skill and ability combinations required by employees at all levels, inheritance of corporate culture and core values, etc.).

The External Challenges section provides input on "how manpower supply is". In this dimension, we need to focus on analyzing how human resources trends in society and industry will affect the supply of talents needed by enterprises, and what human resources strategic measures enterprises need to take in response. For example, we found that the aging of China’s labor force will bring about expectations of future labor resource shortages. At the same time, the post-90s generation, the main force in the future workplace, is more concerned about work-life balance and self-worth realization than their predecessors. In this case, the bargaining advantage of enterprises in the future major labor market will likely be greatly weakened.

The internal situation perspective provides input on “where are we currently at?” Focusing on this, we can get enlightenment such as "In which aspects of enterprise human resource management capabilities are currently weak?" Through interviews, questionnaires or other research methods, understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each aspect of the current enterprise's human resource management will undoubtedly provide the human resource management function with a perspective that is more relevant to the actual situation of the enterprise and the audience.

With these three major inputs, a long list of human resources strategic initiatives can be output through further integrated analysis, and then reviewed through internal discussions involving the company’s senior management, business unit leaders, and human resources management functions. The long list will be prioritized, and key action areas, roadmaps, and follow-up action plans will be determined based on the inherent logic, and finally pilot plans will be arranged for specific implementation.

Case

A global automobile company in China is facing talent dilemmas such as high turnover rate and difficulty in recruitment. It is also facing the upcoming huge demand for personnel training and development, and the integration of new workforce and company culture. Waiting for challenges. However, the company's current human resources management system is streamlined and operational, and it is urgent to establish a set of human resources strategies to support the sustainable development of the business. Through strategy and organizational capability analysis, external benchmarking research, internal questionnaire surveys, etc., BCG has exported human resources strategic initiatives in four aspects: human resource plans and roles, corporate employee value system, recruitment, and retention: such as establishing a systematic enterprise Employee value system communication plans and programs, introducing the "recruitment and training" model, implementing customized training for middle-level personnel, mobilizing talents across departments, etc., and strengthening the human resources function from the institutional level as a business partner in the company's short, medium and long-term plans Role.

About the author:

Ruan Fang is a partner and managing director of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), head of BCG’s People and Organization Specialized Greater China region, and a leader in Chinese corporate leadership Head of College.

Li Shu is a partner and managing director of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Chen Wenchang is a managing director of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Zhang Zhao? is a consulting associate at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Zhang Yihui is a senior analyst at the Boston Consulting Group’s China Business Leadership Institute.