Strategic Vs Tactical Thinking

Strategic and Tactical Thinking

In a nutshell, the best definition I have ever read about the two is that, tactical thinking is all about doing things right while strategic thinking is about doing the right thing. I believe that at a broad level you can think of strategic thinking as long term planning for attaining a vision, and putting yourself in favorable situations. Tactical thinking is short term planning to tackle a situation and/or making the best out of it.

Human resource are an asset to an organization. Strategic thinking is important and very relevant to the HR professional as it helps in identifying the current and future human resources needs for an organization to achieve its goals which is the basic functions of the modern human resource profession. Through strategic planning, the HR profession can plan for the future, recruit the right personnel and come up with the right training and incentives to cope with the changing times.

Strategic planning focuses on what a company wants to do, rather than how it does it. HR should give the executive leadership team the personnel costs associated with any initiative based on the necessary additional hiring or overtime pay. It should inform the executive team if the company needs to retrain employees, if the idea can work using contractors or how long it takes to hire or retrain employees to be able to handle any new initiative. By giving such strategic information, the management would get to understand the importance of strategic planning and HR as a whole. When executive leadership recognizes the importance of human capital there’s encouragement to include the department in the decision making process of the whole organization. Thus decisions will be made not only based on the impact that they will on the organization but also on the workforce. Please see the references below for further explanations on the same.

We have seen how vital the human resource department is when it comes to strategic planning- My question to my fellow intellects is, which department do you think is the most vital for the overall strategic planning in an organization and why?

References

Baird, L., & Meshoulam, I. (1988). Managing two fits of strategic human resource management. Academy of Management review, 13(1), 116-128.

Ulrich, D., Brockbank, W., Yeung, A. K., & Lake, D. G. (1995). Human resource competencies: An empirical assessment. Human resource management, 34(4), 473-495.

Wright, P. M., & McMahan, G. C. (1992). Theoretical perspectives for strategic human resource management. Journal of management, 18(2), 295-320.