Strategic human resource management is the practice of connecting your company’s people-related programmes and policies to your high-level business goals. Sometimes called strategic talent management, it supports candidates and employees through every touchpoint with your company. This starts with the application and interview process and continues through receiving an offer, new hire onboarding, learning and growing on the job and eventually leaving and joining your alumni community. Rather than thinking about each of these steps separately, strategic HR management enables a holistic view of attracting, retaining and growing talent. This approach involves considering how each of these activities can help your company reach its short- and long-term goals.

Why is strategic human resource management important?

As stated by Greenhouse co-founders Daniel Chait and Jon Stross in their book Talent Makers, “The war for talent is over. Talent won.” This means that “companies need people more than ever. At the same time, people need companies less than ever.” Business leaders recognise that there’s a talent shortage and candidates are at an advantage when it comes to assessing and accepting offers.

Considering factors like record-low unemployment, a high quit rate and high employee dissatisfaction, Josh Bersin wrote, "Those of you who work in HR are now in very strategic jobs. You’re not here to just run the payroll and mandate compliance. You are here to help your business counterparts strategise, build and grow the underlying infrastructure of the company, which in many ways is people.”

Investing in strategic human resource management can help ensure that you attract, retain and grow your people, all while continuing to innovate and remain competitive.

How can you apply strategic human resource management?

Adopting strategic HR management isn’t something you can do in a single day. It’s an ongoing process that takes time to implement and requires coordination and communication across several departments. Here are a few of the major steps you can take to get started.

Define your company’s goals

What is your company trying to achieve, whether in terms of revenue, new customer acquisition, market share or some other metric? Make sure you align with your executives on these objectives so you have a clear picture of where you should be headed as a business.

Translate those goals into human assets

Once you know the abstract objectives your company leaders are prioritising, you can start to factor in the human element. How many people will you need to get the job done? Which new roles will need to be created in the process? You definitely don’t need to do this on your own – work with department managers to understand their needs and form the basis of your capacity modelling.

Fine-tune your job descriptions

Well-written job descriptions aren’t just a laundry list of qualifications. They attract talent that’s aligned with your company culture and can also add to it. Managers might also use job descriptions to evaluate performance and assess where more training is needed and opportunities for development. You could even use performance against job descriptions as a way to measure your quality of hire. Need a little help drafting your job descriptions? Here’s a job description template and some practical tips from the Greenhouse team.

Invest in your employees and focus on internal mobility

Strategic human resource management recognises that people won’t stay happy in the same roles forever and strives to create opportunities for internal mobility. Hiring from within takes less time and costs less, as external candidates expect an average 18 to 20% more in salary. But it’s not just about the savings – creating new opportunities can keep your people engaged and lead to longer tenures.

Measure your success and make adjustments wherever necessary

The only way you’ll know if your HR strategy is successful is if you track it. Make sure you’re monitoring retention levels, turnover rates and any other metrics that will help you see how you’re progressing toward your goals.

Find even more tips on how to develop a successful human resource strategy here.