177 | (Day 2) The Strategic HR Sprint – Seeing the Bigger Picture

Hello, and welcome to day two of the Strategic HR Sprint.

If this is the first episode you've come across, hello, I'm Fay Wallis.

I'm a career and executive coach with a background in HR, and I specialize

in creating resources and services to help HR professionals have

successful and fulfilling careers.

Over the course of this free five-day sprint, we're spending around 10 to 15

minutes each day exploring practical ways to become more strategic and

more confident about being strategic in HR. Each day includes a short HR

Coffee Time podcast episode like this one, along with a worksheet and an

optional AI prompt to help you put what you've learned into practice

and to help you think more deeply.

If you'd like to access today's worksheet and AI prompt or catch up on day one

if you've missed it, you can find everything at brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint.

I'll pop the link to that as well in the show notes and the YouTube description.

Yesterday, we talked about Dr. Max McKeown, who shares that strategy

is all about shaping the future.

But of course, that raises an interesting question: how do you know

what future you need to shape and work towards at work in your HR role?

One of the things I've realized looking back on my own HR career before

becoming a coach 10 years ago, is that I spent lots of time looking inwards.

I was always keen to learn as much as I could about HR.

I wanted to understand best practice, learn from other HR professionals,

and keep developing my knowledge.

I also spent time getting to know the organisations I worked for, understanding

the different departments, the products, and the services that we offered, and

how everything all fitted together.

And of course, all of that was important, but with hindsight I can

see that there was something missing.

I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to the context that the organisations

I worked for were operating in.

I really remember when I first started one of my HR roles, I was chatting to

another parent at a children's birthday party and when I told him where I was

about to start working, he looked at me and said, "Well, let's hope you

still have a job in six months time.

That's a tough sector to be in at the moment." And I was completely taken aback.

I had no idea.

I don't know if anything like this has ever happened to you where you've had

a real surprise because you've realised there's a gap in your knowledge that you

hadn't known existed and was important.

So if that has happened to you, please know you're not alone, and

I absolutely know what that's like.

A couple of years ago, someone recommended a book to me called HR From the Outside

In by Dave Ulrich, John Younger, Wayne Brockbank, and Mike Ulrich.

And as soon as I realised what the words outside in in the title meant, the advice

in the book really resonated with me.

I could really see that that's something that had been

missing for me in my HR career.

In the book, the authors talk about this idea that strategic HR professionals

don't just understand people and HR, they also understand the external context

that their organisation is operating in.

They understand the challenges their sector is facing.

They understand the opportunities that are on the horizon.

They understand how customer expectations are changing.

They understand what's happening in the wider economy with technology,

with skills, and with legislation.

So why does all of this matter though?

Because of course if strategy is about shaping the future, understanding

the outside world helps you decide what that future needs to look like.

It helps you to anticipate problems before they become problems.

So as an example, if your sector is changing rapidly because of AI, it may be

that you need to start focusing on helping everyone upskill or develop different

skills to what they've needed before.

Or if recruiting certain skills is becoming increasingly difficult

in your sector, you might want to start thinking about succession

planning, about apprenticeships or internal development Before all

of these things become critical.

If customer expectations are changing, that could influence the capabilities

your organisation will need in the future.

The earlier you understand what's changing outside of your organisation, the more

time you have as an HR professional to help the organisation prepare.

And that's what today's worksheet is all about.

It's all about developing your outside-in awareness.

The worksheet that comes with this episode encourages you to think

about how you can build a regular habit of understanding the context

that your organisation operates in.

Because of course it's changing all the time, which is why it ideally

needs to become a regular habit rather than just a one-off thing that

you do And this regular habit could be a really little thing as well.

It could be something like perhaps subscribing to an industry newsletter,

or it might be that you start listening to a podcast about your sector, or

you might decide to attend an industry event regularly, or you could follow

sector experts on LinkedIn, spend 10 minutes each week reading industry

news, or just have more conversations with other people about what is going

on in your organisation sector and what they're noticing, especially if they're

particularly tapped into what's going on.

The important thing is to just choose one or two ideas that feel

realistic for you and decide on the first step you're going to take.

And then, if you'd like to, you can use today's optional AI prompt.

I think this might be my favorite prompt from the challenge, so I

really hope you enjoy using it if you do decide to give it a try.

When I tested it out, I found the results really interesting.

You'll find the AI prompt in the daily email from me that I'll send you once

you've signed up to this free sprint.

If you haven't signed up already, you can do this for free at

brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint.

And then all you have to do is copy and paste the prompt that I'll share

with you into your favorite AI tool.

Of course, as I mentioned yesterday, please be careful not to share

anything sensitive or confidential when you're putting things into AI tools.

I think it's quite unlikely you'll do that with this particular prompt,

but I know it's really important to always be mindful of this.

So whether you're using ChatGPT, or Claude, or Copilot, or Gemini, or

whatever AI chat it is that you're using, when you put that prompt in,

you will get out a precise, concise executive summary that tells you about

the biggest challenges, the biggest opportunities, and the emerging trends

that are happening at the moment, and it will also give you the implications

for you as an HR professional.

It's a great way to build your understanding quickly, and it might even

introduce you to issues you haven't been aware of, I know it did with me when I

tried it, or things that you just haven't thought about before, but you've realised

are really interesting and helpful.

So my hope is that from today, you're going to have built habits of becoming

more curious about the world That your organisation operates in, and that you're

going to feel better equipped to ask thoughtful questions, spot opportunities,

and anticipate challenges, and help shape the future of your organisation.

As always, I would love to hear how you get on.

If you're watching on YouTube, please do leave a comment underneath the video to

share what you enjoyed or found helpful or interesting about today's episode

or the activities that come with it.

It's always so brilliant to see comments there, and I

promise I always reply to them.

Or if you're getting the daily emails from me that go with this sprint and

you're listening to the audio version of it, you're very welcome, please do

hit Reply and let me know on there, too.

And of course, if you decide to share a post on LinkedIn about the sprint,

do tag me in so I can support the post.

It would be great to see how you are getting on with the sprint

and how you're finding it.

Tomorrow we're going to take everything we've covered so far and

start applying it to your own work.

I'll show you a simple way to identify the issues that are likely to matter

most within your organisation so you can focus your time and energy where you'll

have the greatest strategic impact.

I hope you enjoy today's activities, and I will look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Goodbye for now.