Engage By Strategy and Measure Outcomes

Our Senior Consultant Team recently dedicated two days to conducting Strategic Planning, a crucial process that, like the plumber’s story, can easily be overlooked or neglected. Even highly engaged and motivated teams can make the mistake of setting aside their best practices or delaying strategic planning to accommodate client needs, despite understanding its importance.

“43% of HR leaders report not having a future of work – strategy. Considering most work strategies were likely turned upside during the pandemic, this should not come as a shock. Still, to stay ahead of the game, think about what the future will look like for your company.” -Forbes Advisor, 5/17/23

With mission, vision, and values proudly displayed on the training room wall, the team embarked on activities geared toward recalibration of our mission understanding and with a documented implementation strategy. Noting a national average employee turnover of 3.8% and the reported average cost at 33% of the employee’s base salary, and 30% of those employees quit in the first year, there is a compelling argument to be made to ensure newly hired employees are included in the development and understanding of values and mission that goes beyond a simple explanation at orientation.

Starting with core values, it quickly became apparent that each participant had different interpretations of each term and widely varying applications of our core values in the workplace. In my many years of experience, conducting a deep-dive discussion of values often helps teams organically understand the company’s mission. As was our case, after our lengthy discussion on values, we experienced a collective ‘duh!’ moment. Our mission was clear and aligned with our values. We didn’t change a thing about it.

With our newfound alignment of our values and mission, our next challenge was translating the strategic mission into a tactical business plan. This step in the strategy session takes the team from a world of ideals and hypotheticals into concrete measures and outcomes. This step aims to develop transparent metrics at the individual, department, and leadership levels that will answer questions like “How will you know when you are successful?” It addresses more than a profit and loss report or volume of services; it is how the team will recognize and achieve excellence and then measure it. Our team identified six strategic initiatives with measurable goals to focus on client outcomes, productivity, and, ultimately, job satisfaction.

The value of a Strategy Alignment is not simply to repeat Strategic Planning, but rather to develop an understanding of the company’s overarching mission, vision, and purpose to ensure it is being executed at every level during the preparation of tactical tools such as a staffing model, budget, or major strategic initiative and that it is translated to all levels of employment in the company. This process allows us to refine and update 3- & 5-year implementation plans to ensure our immediate and long-term goals are aligned and practical.