People Strategy Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends HR Business Partners, HR Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-HM-110

Before you join: Participants should have practical experience in HR, people management, workforce planning, talent, learning, reward or organisational development.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

People strategy turns business priorities into decisions about workforce capacity, organisation design, leadership, talent, performance and employee experience. Without a clear people strategy, HR activity can become a collection of disconnected programmes: recruitment plans do not match workforce demand, managers apply inconsistent performance standards, critical roles lack successors, and workforce costs rise without a clear return. HR leaders and business partners need a disciplined way to diagnose people issues, set priorities and show how people decisions support operating plans.

This course teaches participants how to develop, communicate and govern a practical people strategy. Participants examine external and internal drivers, assess current workforce and organisational capability, define target workforce outcomes, and select interventions across talent, reward, performance, learning, culture and employee relations. They use strategic workforce planning, organisation design principles, HR scorecards, stakeholder mapping and change planning to convert strategic intent into measurable action.

Teaching combines concise instructor briefings with sector-based cases, group analysis, decision simulations and structured planning. Cases reflect issues faced by banks, public bodies, NGOs, multinational employers and large corporate functions, including skills shortages, restructuring, leadership succession, productivity pressure and hybrid work. Participants leave with a draft people strategy blueprint, workforce planning model, HR measures dashboard and 90-day implementation plan that can be adapted to their own organisation.

The course is suited to HR professionals moving from operational delivery into business-facing roles, as well as managers responsible for workforce decisions. It is delivered over five days in the classroom in 50+ cities or live online. Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides approximately 6.5 contact hours. Participants receive a certificate of completion.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose people priorities using business strategy, workforce data and stakeholder evidence
  • Construct a people strategy aligned to organisational objectives and operating requirements
  • Apply strategic workforce planning to identify capacity, capability and cost gaps
  • Design organisation structures using spans, layers, role clarity and decision rights
  • Build talent, performance and succession approaches for critical workforce segments
  • Develop HR scorecards with outcome measures, leading indicators and governance owners
  • Plan people change using stakeholder mapping, communications and adoption measures
  • Produce a sequenced people strategy implementation plan with risks and milestones

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Frame HR recommendations in business, workforce and financial terms
  • Build credible people strategy proposals for senior leadership discussions
  • Identify workforce risks before they affect service delivery or growth plans
  • Use practical measures to demonstrate the contribution of HR initiatives
  • Create a focused implementation plan for a current people priority

For your organisation

  • Clearer alignment between business plans, workforce demand and HR investment
  • Earlier identification of critical skills, succession and capacity risks
  • More consistent decisions on structure, roles, performance and talent allocation
  • Improved accountability for people outcomes through defined measures and owners
  • Better sequencing of people change initiatives during growth, transformation or restructuring

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can define a people strategy that directly supports business objectives and operating priorities.

  • People strategy purpose, scope and relationship with corporate strategy
  • Business model analysis identifies workforce implications, constraints and value drivers
  • Stakeholder mapping clarifies expectations of executives, managers, employees and unions
  • External scanning uses PESTLE to identify labour market pressures
  • Strategic choices distinguish enterprise priorities from routine HR service delivery
  • HR operating model roles across centres, partners and shared services

Participants can assess current people capability, workforce risks and organisational performance gaps.

  • Workforce segmentation separates mission-critical roles from differentiated workforce groups
  • Employee lifecycle mapping identifies friction points from attraction through exit
  • Root-cause analysis distinguishes symptoms, contributing factors and underlying people issues
  • Qualitative evidence gathered through interviews, focus groups and manager listening
  • Baseline dashboards combine headcount, turnover, absence, productivity and engagement data
  • SWOT analysis tests internal people strengths against strategic requirements

Participants can build a workforce plan linking future demand, supply, skills and cost.

  • Demand forecasting estimates roles and capacity required by business scenarios
  • Supply analysis profiles current headcount, skills, mobility and attrition
  • Gap analysis compares future workforce requirements with available talent supply
  • Build-buy-borrow-bot decisions address capability gaps and delivery constraints
  • Scenario planning tests workforce responses under alternative growth assumptions
  • Workforce cost modelling links staffing choices to budget and productivity targets

Participants can evaluate organisation design options against strategy, workflow and accountability needs.

  • Organisation design principles translate strategic priorities into structural design criteria
  • Spans and layers analysis identifies management load and hierarchy issues
  • Decision-rights mapping clarifies authority, accountability, consultation and escalation paths
  • RACI matrices assign ownership for cross-functional processes and critical decisions
  • Role architecture distinguishes jobs, roles, accountabilities and capability requirements
  • Operating model options balance central control, local responsiveness and service quality

Participants can prioritise talent and capability interventions for critical roles and future needs.

  • Critical role analysis identifies positions with disproportionate business impact
  • Capability frameworks define technical, behavioural and leadership requirements
  • Nine-box grids inform differentiated development and succession discussions
  • Succession planning assesses readiness, risk, development actions and bench strength
  • Talent review governance calibrates ratings across managers and business units
  • Learning pathways connect capability gaps with targeted development methods

Participants can align performance, reward and employee experience practices with strategic workforce priorities.

  • Performance management architecture links objectives, feedback, ratings and consequences
  • Goal cascading connects team commitments with strategic outcomes and measures
  • Reward strategy balances market position, affordability, equity and performance
  • Total reward propositions combine pay, benefits, careers and recognition
  • Employee listening strategies combine surveys, pulse checks and action forums
  • Employee value proposition design addresses attraction, retention and engagement priorities

Participants can address cultural, leadership and employee relations factors affecting strategy delivery.

  • Culture diagnosis compares stated values with observed behaviours and decisions
  • Leadership expectations define behaviours required for strategic execution
  • Manager capability assessments identify coaching, accountability and communication gaps
  • Psychological safety supports speaking up, learning and issue escalation
  • Employee relations mapping identifies consultation duties, representatives and conflict risks
  • Policy frameworks balance consistency, discretion, compliance and manager usability

Participants can create meaningful people measures and governance arrangements for strategic execution.

  • HR scorecards connect people measures with operational and strategic outcomes
  • Leading indicators provide early signals of workforce and talent risk
  • Metric definitions establish consistent formulas, data sources and reporting ownership
  • Data segmentation exposes differences by role, location, tenure and demographic group
  • Dashboard design prioritises decisions, thresholds, trends and required actions
  • Governance cadences assign review forums, accountabilities and escalation triggers

Participants can plan people change that gains stakeholder commitment and sustains adoption.

  • Change impact assessments identify affected groups, processes, roles and behaviours
  • Stakeholder influence mapping prioritises sponsors, advocates, blockers and affected groups
  • Kotter's eight-step model structures mobilisation, communication and reinforcement activities
  • Communication plans match messages, channels, timing and audience concerns
  • Manager enablement equips leaders for conversations, decisions and local implementation
  • Adoption measures track behaviour change, participation, confidence and issue resolution

Participants can convert a people strategy into a governed roadmap with immediate actions and milestones.

  • Strategic priorities converted into initiatives, owners, dependencies and expected outcomes
  • Initiative sequencing balances urgency, readiness, capacity and change saturation
  • Business cases define costs, benefits, assumptions and investment decision criteria
  • Risk registers document workforce, delivery, stakeholder and compliance exposures
  • Ninety-day plans specify immediate actions, decision points and review dates
  • Strategy narratives communicate priorities, trade-offs and required leadership commitments

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. People strategy blueprint template
  2. Strategic workforce planning model
  3. Organisation design diagnostic checklist
  4. Critical roles and succession matrix
  5. HR scorecard dashboard template
  6. 90-day people strategy action plan

Who should attend

  • HR Business Partners — translate business plans into workforce and people priorities
  • HR Managers — coordinate people initiatives through a coherent strategic plan
  • People and Culture Managers — connect employee experience work to business outcomes
  • Talent and Organisation Development Managers — align talent systems with future capability needs
  • Workforce Planning Managers — link demand forecasts, skills data and resourcing decisions
  • Senior Line Managers — make better-informed decisions on structure, capability and performance

Skills and tools covered

People strategy designWorkforce planningOrganisation designTalent managementHR analyticsChange implementation

Tools and standards

PESTLE Analysis, RACI Matrix, Nine-Box Grid, Kotter's Eight-Step Change Model

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce methods, followed by cases, facilitated group work, data interpretation and structured decision simulations. Participants assess realistic workforce and organisation scenarios, including growth planning, restructuring, skills shortages and leadership succession. Templates are introduced in stages and applied to participants' own business context where appropriate. Peer review and instructor feedback test the clarity of strategic choices, assumptions, measures and implementation priorities. The final sessions focus on converting analysis into a practical 90-day action plan.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in HR, people management, workforce planning, talent, learning, reward or organisational development. They should understand common HR processes such as recruitment, performance review, employee relations and basic reporting. Experience of supporting a business unit, department or functional plan is useful. No prior qualification in HR strategy, finance, organisation design or analytics is required. Participants do not need advanced spreadsheet skills, specialist HR software knowledge or responsibility for an enterprise-wide HR function.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have working experience in HR, people management or a related people function. You do not need a formal HR qualification, advanced analytics skills or prior responsibility for a company-wide people strategy.

Bring a current business plan, workforce issue or people initiative if you can share it appropriately. A laptop is useful for working with templates, although all course materials are provided.

The course is designed for HR business partners, HR managers, people and culture managers, talent leaders and workforce planning professionals. Senior line managers with responsibility for structure, staffing and capability will also benefit.

General HR management courses focus on running core processes such as recruitment, employee relations and performance management. This course focuses on making strategic choices across those processes in response to business goals, workforce evidence and organisation needs.

You can use the diagnostic, workforce planning, scorecard and roadmap templates for a current business unit or enterprise people priority. The course helps you frame a clear case for action, assign ownership and establish measures for progress reviews.

The programme contains ten modules taught in sequence over five training days, with approximately 6.5 contact hours per day. Time is divided between instructor input, case analysis, group work, simulations, template application and implementation planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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