Introduction

This book is a practical text which promotes the concept of ‘People

Experience’ – PX – as an alternative to traditional ‘Human Resources’.
It explores the strategic contribution of the function and explores
how HR can support overall business goals whilst still maintaining
a focus on developing and engaging individual employees through
deployment of a PX model.
The book is split into four sections and promotes learning and
discovery through the key components of knowing yourself, knowing
your business, knowing your industry and knowing your profession.
Knowing yourself. We start with a focus on knowing yourself and
position this as the foundation which will enable you to operate at a
strategic level within the HR profession. It can be a valuable exercise
to conduct a deep dive into our own soft skills and the factors which
can impact on our performance. We pay particular attention to the
concept of self-care and the unique challenges a career in HR can
place on this.
Knowing your business. Here we move on to look at the impor-
tance of really getting to know the details of how the business you
work in operates. We look at how you can then move on to leverage
this knowledge to enhance your profile within your business and the
results you can achieve in your role.
Knowing your industry. In this section we broaden our focus to
encompass the industry you operate in and consider what influence
this has on both the performance of your organization and your own
career development. We consider how you can stretch your impact
beyond the remit of your current organization and make lasting
change at industry level.
Knowing your profession. Finally we promote the importance of
fully understanding your profession and professional responsibilities
in addition to looking at factors shaping the profession for the future.
We consider how you can make an impact within your profession

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 2 Strategic Human Resource Management

and also encourage you to consider how you can play an active role
in shaping the profession for the future.
So why a toolkit? Let’s look at the definition as a starting point.

Toolkit

1 A set of tools designed to be used together or for a particular purpose.

2 Software designed to perform a specific function, esp. to solve a
problem.

(Collinsdictionary.com, 2018)

Therefore, it is my hope that through reading this book you’ll find

ways to add to your own toolkit, ditch the tools that aren’t working
for you any more and find some new ones to help enhance the work
you do going forward.

Activity 1: Knowledge and impact

Before we get started I want you to take a moment to consider the four-box
grid below. The headings are fairly self-explanatory; however, for clarity
consider them as follows.

Yourself. In this section, think about all of the elements that enable you
to operate as the best version of yourself: your motivations, ambitions,
goals, your mental and physical wellbeing. Also think about any stress
points, areas for development and emotional triggers.
Your business. In this section, think about the business you currently
work for, or the one you aspire to work for if you’re looking to secure
employment there sometime soon.
Your industry. Here we’re talking about the industry in which your
current or desired business operates, eg retail, leisure, oil and gas.
Your profession. Your chosen occupation, and I’m going to take a
guess that if you’re reading this book there’s a good chance it’s Human
Resources, although as you will establish as we progress through
this book I’m encouraging you to think more along the lines of ‘People
Experience’ or ‘PX’ as a description for the work we do. Equally, this

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 Introduction 3

model and text applies if your profession could also be defined as

‘General Management’ or business leadership, as you will also discover
that my vision for PX and the future of our profession promotes a
broadened accountability that should be shared across a leadership
team for maximum benefit, as opposed to sitting with one function.

What I’d like you to do is to draw out the basic four boxes for yourself and
as you will see I have added the title ‘Knowledge’ to this first table. I’d like
you to shade out an additional square within the box as an indicator of
your current knowledge level in this area. For example, if you feel that at
the present time your current knowledge of your profession is greater than
your knowledge of the business you work in, the square you have shaded
in the ‘Profession’ box should be larger than the square you have shaded in
the ‘Business’ box.
There’s going to be all kinds of reasons for how you size your boxes at
the present time so make a note of any that come up as you complete the
exercise and also date the sheet you do this on too as it’s going to be a
useful marker for your progress and to determine where and how to focus
your time and energy.

Figure 0.1  Knowledge map

Knowledge

Yourself Your business

Your industry Your profession

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 4 Strategic Human Resource Management

Next, we’re going to repeat the activity but this time I want you to consider
your current ‘Impact’ in each of the sections. For example, how visible are
you and how valuable is the impact you make in each area? You need to be
really honest with yourself here, especially when it comes to thinking about
the impact you have within your business. Think in commercial terms: what
have you delivered or enabled someone else to deliver that has really made
a difference?
In terms of ‘yourself’, when you think about impact, think about self-
care. What impact are your current life and career choices having on
your ability to show up, deliver great work and be an all-round awesome
human? The higher the level of self-care, the bigger the box!
Again, make some notes about the reasons for your sizing of the
squares and ensure you date the document so you have a measure you
can refer back to.
When you’ve completed the activity I want you to be brave and get a
second opinion. Find someone whose opinion you trust and ask them to
complete the same activity based on how they perceive your knowledge
and impact. Give them the form template and ask them to make a few notes
on why they have chosen to size the squares in the way they have. You can

Figure 0.2  Impact map

Impact

Yourself Your business

Your industry Your profession

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 Introduction 5

then cross-reference your perception with theirs and then, taking onboard
their feedback, consider what this means for your personal development
planning. Make a list of any development areas that have been highlighted
for you and then rank them in priority order in terms of impact. Take the top
three from the list as action points to get started on immediately and (for
the moment) ditch the rest!

By completing this activity you should now have a good idea of your
priority areas of development so feel free to skip ahead and jump
right into the section and chapters of this text that support your
learning in these areas. Of course, you’re welcome to read this text
cover to cover and I sincerely hope you do. I also know that if you’re
like me you want results fast and as such I wholeheartedly support
you skipping ahead and dipping into the info that meets your imme-
diate needs in the moment

Reference
Collinsdictionary.com (2018) Toolkit definition and meaning, available
at: www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/toolkit [accessed 17
October 2018]

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STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE_01_BEAVEN_9780749497965.indb 6 1/4/2019 7:45:58 PM
 Part One
Know yourself

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 Continuous 01
personal
development 
Introduction
In this chapter we look to explore the importance of ongoing and
meaningful personal development activities for individuals working
within Human Resources. We will identify some vital components to
include within your own personal development strategy and suggest
some tools you may wish to sharpen up or deploy in order to accel-
erate your learning and career. With development planning being
such an intrinsic element of most HR roles it’s not only important
to role model great practices here, it’s also essential if you hope to
remain current and credible in the environment within which you
operate.

How will this chapter shape my thinking?

●● It will encourage you to clarify the ‘purpose’ behind your plan and
ensure that activities you undertake are meaningful and supportive of
that core purpose.
●● It will provide you with a framework for your own personal development
which incorporates elements of Agile project management.
●● It will promote the importance of accountability in development planning
and establish models through which this can be delivered.

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 10 Know Yourself

Purpose
I think of myself as a serial learner. Seriously, I can’t switch off this
drive for knowledge and even if I could I don’t think I’d want to. This
is something you need to take very seriously if you want to make a
real impact in your career. You need to own it!
I know, maybe you got this far without a plan, right? Maybe you
did, but what you’ll never know is how much further you could have
got and how much more you could have achieved if you’d taken time
to map things out and apply a little more focus to setting and achiev-
ing stretching goals and targets for yourself. Also, think of this as a
reflection of how you view business development too; you wouldn’t
run a multimillion-dollar business without a plan, so why would it
be ok to run your career and life without one? Trust me, it’s worth
investing in yourself here and taking some time out to create the
action plan that’s going to enable you to achieve your potential.
People often suggest that successful development planning starts
with some basic goal setting; I’m going to take a step back from there
and encourage you to think instead about the purpose for your plan
as the very first point. You need to be clear on why you are doing
something for it to be truly meaningful and you need it to be mean-
ingful if it’s going to be effective. When you go back to think about
your ‘why’, think of it as a process of discovery, not invention (Sinek,
2009). By that I mean I encourage you to remain connected to your
own identity and be authentic in what you set out to achieve. To
move forwards it’s important to reflect on the past and ensure we are
pursuing a career that we want because we want to and not because
someone is pushing us into it or because we have a mistaken belief
that it’s the only path available to us.

Goal setting
To get going here, think about setting some short-, mid- and long-
terms goals; you define the timespans so that they are meaningful
and relevant for you. It can be useful to articulate your goals in a
specific way in order to be clear with yourself about why that goal

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 Continuous personal development 11

matters to you. Why this goal, why now and what will it give you?
Think about how your goals link to your personal and professional
strategy, and consider this: ‘A winning strategy combines analytically
sound, ambitious but logical goals with methods that help people
experience new, often very ambitious goals, as exciting, meaningful
and ­uplifting – creating a deeply felt determination to move, make it
happen, and win, now’ (Kotter, 2008).
A common test that most will be familiar with for goal setting
utilizes the ‘SMART’ model, which asks, is this goal specific, meas-
urable, achievable, realistic and time bound? I also take inspiration
from the world of Kanban in formulating mine. For example, instead
of formulating the goal as per example one or example two below,
I add a little more depth to shape it in the format of example three.

Example One: Starting goal

–  Learn how to use webinar technology.

Example Two: SMART goal

– Specific: I’d like to learn how to use Zoom (other providers are
available) webinar technology and ensure that 40 per cent of
employees access my webinar.
– Measurable: I’ll know I’ve completed it when I have delivered my
first webinar.
– Achievable: Yes, it seems pretty straightforward and info on how to
do it is readily available.
– Realistic: Yes, I know other people who are less tech-savvy than me
who run webinars.
– Time bound: Within three months.

Example Three: Kanban/user story goal

– As a human resources director, I would like to deliver a webinar on
the subject of personal development planning within my business so
that more people can access information to enhance their careers and
learn skills to help them drive the business more quickly at a time and
place that suits them.
– My acceptance criteria for this will be that the webinar will be delivered
within three months and 40 per cent of employees will access it.

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 12 Know Yourself

When you have your goals, write them down and keep them some-
where you can see them. Then consider how you might add a ‘stretch’
goal into the mix if there isn’t one there already. Something that’s
going to take you beyond your comfort zone and accelerate your
progress. It’s important to remember that every activity you put on
your development plan should take you a step closer to achieving
your ambitions so be sure you’re being brave enough here in order to
keep yourself on track.
Something to consider adding to your toolkit here is a physical
or virtual planning journal to help you keep track of and manage
your goals. Trello is a good starting point if you’re looking for a
digital option but with the pace of transformation in this arena a
quick Google search will bring up many other solutions for you to
investigate. If you’re looking to build pace and momentum with your
development activity it can be useful to work in 90-day blocks as
a maximum to ensure you have the clarity of focus needed to gain
traction. This method should add value to longer-term goal setting
as opposed to replacing it completely. Within the 90-day plan you
can then break down your development activity further into realistic
timescales that keep you motivated at the appropriate level without
layering on any undue stress and pressure. Consider two- or four-
week ‘sprints’ to achieve set objectives within your development plan.

Going Agile
Personally, I bring in elements from Agile software development to
my plans; it works for me but you really need to try out a few styles
to find the approach that’s best for you. The Agile Alliance defines
Agile as ‘The ability to create and respond to change in order to
succeed in an uncertain and turbulent environment’ (Agile Alliance,
2018). Essentially, Agile is a way of working that combines a number
of set routines and practices with the end result of delivering more
useable work, more quickly in an organizational context. In relation
to personal development planning I find it useful to take inspiration
from this methodology both in terms of my own practice and also

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 Continuous personal development 13

when I’m working with other people. Table 1.1 shows an example of
the template I use to structure an Agile Development plan.
I’m also going to let you in on another secret to creating an effec-
tive development plan: the secret is to limit the amount of activity
you have going on at any one moment. Again, this takes inspiration
from the world of Agile and Kanban; you need to limit your work
in progress if you want to get things done. The way to do this is to
create a backlog of activities that you want to take on, and next
to remove any that don’t take you a step closer to your established
goals. This narrows down your focus to the things that really matter;
then prioritize the remaining activities in order of importance. This is
the list that would be added to the first column in Table 1.1.
Next, from your backlog, select three activities to move into the
‘discovery’ phase, explore these options in turn, and then if after
further research you still believe it’s the right course of action move
it into an ‘in progress’ column. Again, limit yourself to only having
three things live at any one time. Don’t worry – as soon as it’s done
(meeting your acceptance criteria for ‘done’) you can move it on to
the next column and take on another one into the ‘in progress’ phase.
By managing your development activity in this way, you stand a better
chance of ensuring your focus and effort are directed in the right way
and stand a greater chance of success in achieving your goals.
You’ll also note in the template there is a column that is headed
‘blocked’. This is where the activities move to if they are stalled or
blocked beyond your control. For example, maybe you’ve identified
a development activity that requires you to attend a training course,
you researched options for it in the ‘discovery’ phase, then went on
to book a place on the course in the ‘in progress’ phase but now you
need to wait five months before the course starts. At this stage you
haven’t completed the activity but there’s also nothing further you
can do to move it on at the moment either. Therefore, it now sits in
the ‘blocked’ column until the course begins. When it begins it moves
to the second ‘in progress’ column before finishing in ‘done’ when it
has been completed.
In addition to my plan, I also have a vision board to feed my crea-
tive soul. It’s an A1 board with images, motivational quotes and
ambitions on it. This can be a great option if you’ve tried multiple

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 Table 1.1  Agile development plan

Backlog of Activities in Activities

activities discovery phase in progress Blocked In progress Done
Example Read Transformational Investigate options Agile HR Leadership development Read Tribe of Attend CIPD
action HR book. for org design training. programme (next intake Mentors book. conference.

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qualification. in 9 months).

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 Continuous personal development 15

variations of text-led plans in the past and they haven’t worked for
you. It’s simple enough to put together and you can use any images
that resonate with you. Someone I know has a picture of their dream
car on theirs next to the date they want to own it by. I see mine every
day and it reminds me what all the hard work is for. If you’re more of
a visual person, give it a go and see how it works out for you.

Accountability
There is no one better placed in this world to drive your personal
development than you. It seems like a simple thing but I’ve lost
count of the amount of conversations I’ve had with people where
they’ve been happy to hand over their own personal development
to someone else or to ‘fate’ and then complain that no one has ever
helped them or made them do it. They explain that the reason their
career hasn’t progressed is because no one gave them a development
plan and they carry a sincere perception of injustice and resentment
because of this. Now, I’m all for helping people who want to progress
but we can’t own anyone else’s development or responsibility for it
any more than we can (or would want to) own any other element
of their personality. Self-development starts with yourself so if you
want a development plan, you need to motivate yourself to create it
and be accountable for it. So, When you’re talking to people about
your plan you need to be coming from the angle of creating tangible
results from it and talking about those, not talking about excuses for
not having it and for not delivering results here.
Another common thing I encounter is people who commit to
create their own development plan as part of a coaching or mentor-
ing programme, then guess what? They never do it. Don’t be that
person; if you commit to do something, do it! It’s in your interest to
do the work. It doesn’t matter what format it’s in, the only important
thing is it works for you and gives you the type of goals and motiva-
tion you need to achieve the things you set out to achieve.
So, it’s your responsibility to do the work, but it does also help
to have someone you can call on as an accountability partner from
time to time. There are a couple of ways you can do this. Either set

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 16 Know Yourself

up something informal with someone you already know and trust,

or sign up to work with an experienced coach or mentor who can
support you with this in a professional capacity. Also, look for social
media groups that encourage this as part of their community.

Reflection
It’s also important to remember the value of reflection and allowing
time and space for the learning to sink in. If you are a planner, plan
in some time to rest, and have some points where you take a bit of
time out to consolidate what you already know. It can feel frustrating
at times but trust me, your mental health will thank you for it in the
long term.

Conclusion
We’re fortunate to live in a time where the sources of personal devel-
opment material are abundant. There really are no limits on options
so have fun and explore which works best for you. Whether you
choose books, journals, newspapers, podcasts or blogs, there’s really
no excuses for not getting started today.
There are multiple options for how to structure and plan your
development activity and no right or wrong approaches as long as
your method passes the ‘results not excuses’ test.
As we now live in a time where it will be the norm for people to
work into their 70s and 80s (Gratton and Scott, 2016) the implica-
tions of this on the need for continuous personal development are
profound, particularly when viewed in the context of the changing
world of work and accelerated advancements in technology. For
example, imagine a scenario where an organization chose not to
investigate trends and developments around artificial intelligence –
that would be unheard of for most commercial operations. However,
in context very few individuals will be looking at this in terms of
what it might mean for their own personal development and what

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 Continuous personal development 17

the arrival or mainstream AI might mean for the way they work in
the future. It’s not beyond reason to expect that at some point we will
all become ‘managers’ of AI agents in some capacity and that this will
be the norm and expected. Learning how to best utilize digital tech-
nology now and incorporating this into your development plan will
ensure you are better placed to remain current and be progressive
throughout the duration of your career, even if it spans into your 80s.
Investment in CPD activities for employees will also become a deter-
mining factor in the success of organizations in light of these factors
and even now businesses are reaping the rewards from supporting
the personal development of the individuals working within them.
There is no better time to start and no better time to prioritize your
own development in order that you can advance your career and help
others as they seek to develop theirs.

Toolkit essentials: 10 steps to successful personal

development

1 Define the purpose of your development plan and consider the

timeframe for it.
2 Own it! Accept that the best person to be responsible for your
development is you.
3 Ask for help or a second opinion when you need it.
4 Set goals and stretch goals that link in to your purpose. Be clear on
your definition of ‘done’ for these goals.
5 Choose development activities that suit your personal learning style.
6 Limit your work in progress, and only actively work on a maximum of
three things at once.
7 Create a vision board to remind you what you’re working towards.
8 Find an appropriate accountability partner, mentor or group.
9 Factor in time for reflection on learning and for rest in your planning
process.
10 Start today!

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 18 Know Yourself

Questions for reflection

Q. If you could only work on three development activities at this moment in
time, which three would you choose?
Q. How do these three development activities compare to the ones you
created in Activity 1?
Q. Can you define in one sentence the purpose of your current development
plan?
Q. Have you clearly articulated your goals for the next 30, 60 and 90 days?
Q. Who is your accountability partner for your development activity?

References
Agile Alliance (2018) Agile 101, available from: www.agilealliance.org/
agile101/ [accessed 19 January 2018]
Gratton L, and Scott, A (2016) The 100 Year Life: Living and working in
an age of longevity, Bloomsbury, London
Kotter, J (2008) A Sense of Urgency, Harvard Business School Press
Sinek, S (2009) Start With Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to
take action, Penguin, London

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