Managers use several tools to translate the company s broad strategic goals into human resource management policies and activities. Three important tools include the strategy map, the HR Scorecard, and the digital dashboard.
STRATEGY MAP
The strategy map provides an overview of how each department s performance contributes to achieving the company s overall strategic goals. It helps the manager understand the role his or her department plays in helping to execute the company s strategic plan.
Figure below presents a strategy map example, in this case for Southwest Airlines. Recall that Southwest has a low-cost leader strategy. The strategy map for Southwest succinctly lays out the hierarchy of main activities required for Southwest Airlines to succeed. At the top is achieving company-wide, strategic financial goals. Then the strategy map shows the chain of activities that help Southwest Airlines achieve these goals. For example, as we saw earlier in this chapter, to boost revenues and profitabil-ity Southwest needs to fly fewer planes (to keep costs down), maintain low prices, and maintain on-time flights.
Managers use special scorecard software to facilitate this. The computerized scorecard process helps the manager quantify the relationships between (1) the HR activities (amount of testing, training, and so forth), (2) the resulting employee behaviors (customer service, for instance), and (3) the resulting firm-wide strategic outcomes and performance (such as customer satisfaction and profitability).
DIGITAL DASHBOARDS
The saying a picture is worth a thousand words explains the purpose of the digital dashboard. A digital dashboard presents the manager with desktop graphs and charts, showing a computerized picture of how the company is doing on all the metrics from the HR Scorecard process. As in the illustration on the next page, a top Southwest Airlines manager s dashboard might display real-time trends for various strategy map activities. These might include fast turnaround, attracting and keeping customers, and on-time flights. This gives the manager time to take corrective action. For example, if ground crews are turning planes around slower today, financial results tomorrow may decline unless the manager takes action. Figure below summarizes the three strategic planning tools.
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