It’s a new year and a great time for business owners to take a step back from the day-to-day to closely examine how everything is going. As organisations head into 2022 uncertain of what lies ahead due to COVID-19 and the constantly evolving situation surrounding it, the general consensus is to hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Strategic planning is perhaps more important now than ever, to ensure businesses not only thrive, but in some cases survive. When setting the overall goals for a company in the new year and developing a plan in order to achieve them, business owners need to be asking where the business is headed and what the priorities will be, focusing on the broader and more longer-term options of the business. When developing a strategic plan, managers should consider the following as a good starting off point.

Where is the business now?

It’s vital to know as much about the business as possible and understand not only how it operates internally, but what drives its profitability and how it compares with its competitors. Managers should remain critical when making any analysis and be sure this is kept separate to the day-to-day operations, keeping notes and reviewing them regularly in order to keep an ear to the ground and highlight any issues or concerns sooner rather than later. Business owners may choose to look at important factors such as identifying any training gaps in the current workforce, and whether there is suitable employee coverage across business hours to ensure continuity of service offerings.

Where do we want to take the business next?

This is where an organisation’s vision and mission statement come into play. Business owners should aim to set the top-level objectives of the company moving forward, focusing on the values of the business as a whole and its goals over the next five years. What a business decides to focus on will not only determine where the priorities lie, but will also help to highlight potential sources of revenue and identify what gives it an edge over competitors. This will be the foundation from which the strategic plan is put into action, and will help to determine the labour requirements. Will the business need more or less workers to meet its future goals? What conditions of employment are best suited to the business? What skills and qualifications will be needed by workers? Is upskilling and training an option or will the business need to look at new hires?

What do we need to do to get there?

Managers need to identify what changes should be implemented in order to achieve the goals set out in the new strategic plan. Depending on the objectives of the organisation, this could mean a complete overhaul of the current structure or just a few minor changes. Importantly, goals and deadlines should be set for all relevant stakeholders that are both reasonable and practical, and realistically achievable.

What about COVID-19?

Business owners may have the very best of intentions and feel as though every i has been dotted and every t has been crossed, but then COVID-19 once again impacts business and causes chaos through lockdowns, quarantine and isolation requirements, mandated vaccinations and supply chain issues. In these instances, which are current and appear to be ongoing for the foreseeable future, managers need to plan for the worst and think about how the business would survive if half the workforce contracted COVID-19? Or if a large portion of the workforce refused to receive the COVID-19 booster shot when directed by the government to do so? Or if the current labour shortage worsened and made it impossible to secure new skilled workers?

It’s vital that COVID-19 is taken into consideration when developing a strategic plan in 2022. Companies need to be adaptable and agile in order to thrive during these uncertain times, and our team of highly skilled HR professionals can help your business achieve its objectives whilst simultaneously navigating the ever-changing COVID-19 situation.

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