Page 42 - BANKING FINANCE OCTOBER 2021

ARTICLE

Y Do employees throughout the company understand Institute, only 3 percent of executives polled said their
how these objectives affect them and how they organizations were very successful at executing corporate
contribute independently and collectively to the defined strategy, whereas 62 percent stated their organizations
objectives? were moderately successful. However, the companies that
Y Are the strategic objectives realistic and feasible? reported relatively high success in strategy execution were
more likely to realize favorable revenue growth, market
Unrealistic objectives typically result in disappointment
for all involved. share, profitability and customer satisfaction.
Y Have timelines for benchmarking progress and targets Though every organization has its own strategy execution
for completed objectives been set? challenges, this study found that mastering the following
Y Will the organization realistically be able to identify the areas is essential to successfully implement strategic plans:
success or lack of success in the accomplishment of 1) Clarity of communication.
strategic objectives in some quantitative fashion? 2) Alignment of practices.
Y Can the strategic objectives be linked back to the 3) Leadership.
organization's overall strategy?
4) An adaptive organizational infrastructure.
For example, A Company X , may identify in its strategic 5) Resource management.
planning analysis a need to improve the talent acquisition
process. The strategic objective to address this issue is to The single greatest barrier to executing strategy is the lack
design selection criteria to ensure best-fit hiring while of adequate resources, the study found.
reducing the time-to-fill positions.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Once a key initiative is identified, the organization The final step should be establishing a mechanism to monitor
should do the following: and evaluate progress toward the achievement of strategic
A) Continuously ensure that the objective and action plan objectives. Most organizations conduct annual or quarterly
are aligned with the organizational and HR strategy. strategic reviews for this purpose. These reviews do the
B) Identify the primary actions required to achieve the following:
objective. 1) Determine whether the organization is on track to
achieve key objectives.
C) Set milestones for each action, and plan for
contingencies. 2) Provide the opportunity to identify and adapt to
significant internal or external changes that affect the
D) Identify the required resources, including budget and strategic plan.
staff.
3) Update annual action priorities.
E) Establish success measures.
F) Communicate key messages. Some organizations may find that systems or tools such as
balanced scorecards, benchmarking and dashboards are
Ultimately, a strategic objective is only as good as the helpful for keeping focus and monitoring results which are
overall strategic plan. found as output.

At this step of the strategic planning process, the focus is Conclusion
on specifying short-term answers to the question "How do
we get there?" Specific, concrete short-term objectives that Thus, it is needless to mention that role of HR as a strategic
can be completed within six months to a year should be partner is critical and inevitable in success of any organization
established to answer this question. and the organization failing to take strategic HR decisions are
bound to fail or even they can succumb to survive.
Although many organizations engage in strategic planning,
very few of them believe they are highly successful at References
strategy execution. According to a survey by the American 1) RANDOM RESEARCHES ON GOOGLE SEARCH
Management Association and the Human Resources 2) SHRM.ORG. T

42 | 2021 | OCTOBER | BANKING FINANCE