My business is all about people. My clients have successful, growing companies. And what I have seen over and over is that when your company is growing and the more success you have, the more dependence you have on your team and your company structure. When talking with clients, we talk about their People Plan and how it will help them understand (and avoid!) common pitfalls that face leaders and their growing teams.

Of course, you may be asking what is a People Plan?

Your People Plan gives you a roadmap and critical insight into gaps and pressure points in your organization before they break. It increases transparency into who is doing what and enables you to act quickly when something changes in your organization.

A well thought out People Plan gives you a clear picture of:

Who is doing what work across your business by using a functional organization chart vs. a traditional hierarchical org chart focused on reporting structure.
How your people resources are supporting your strategic plan. Note: This means your people know how their work supports it, too!
Existing gaps and pressure points in your organization. This is especially important as your business grows and changes.
What role you need to hire for next. A People Plan sets you up to make confident hiring (and firing) decisions; and
Other suggestions to manage team growth and complexities as you scale up.

Another reason creating your People Plan is important, is it gives you a framework to proactively think about your team and invest in your most important resource – your people. Too often, we start looking at “team” in reaction to a major breakdown, when you are in recovery and rebuild mode.

Just like you invest a lot of time and strategic thought into your Sales and Marketing plans, it is critical for growing businesses to also develop and invest time in a People Plan.

Interested in learning more? Download the People Plan Roadmap including my Get Started Checklist.