Strategic People Management Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Advanced 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-139

Before you join: Participants should have several years of HR, people management or senior line-management experience and familiarity with core HR processes such as recruitment, performance management, employee relations and learning.

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

Strategic people management requires more than administering HR processes. Senior HR professionals must connect workforce decisions to organisational strategy, challenge leaders with evidence, anticipate capability risks and build conditions for performance, retention and fair treatment. This is particularly important where organisations face restructures, skills shortages, service transformation, regulatory scrutiny, changing employee expectations or pressure to improve productivity.

This advanced course examines the strategic responsibilities of the people manager: translating business plans into people priorities; workforce and succession planning; talent, performance and reward; engagement, culture, inclusion, employee relations and people analytics. Participants learn to diagnose people issues, frame options for senior leaders, use credible evidence, set measures and govern implementation. The course also addresses the judgement required when commercial objectives, employee experience, legal obligations and organisational values conflict.

Delivered over five instructor-led days, the programme combines concise briefings with sector-based cases, structured group analysis, simulations and individual application planning. Participants work with realistic scenarios such as workforce reductions, low engagement, critical-skill shortages, inconsistent performance ratings and culture change. They leave with a Strategic People Management Action Pack containing reusable planning templates, diagnostic tools and a 90-day plan for a current people priority.

The course suits experienced HR practitioners and people leaders moving into broader strategic roles, as well as operational managers with significant workforce accountability.

What you will be able to do

  • Formulate a people strategy aligned to organisational priorities, risks and performance measures
  • Diagnose workforce capability gaps using demand, supply and scenario-planning methods
  • Construct talent, succession and retention plans for critical roles and skills
  • Design performance, reward and employee-listening approaches linked to business results
  • Apply employee relations governance and procedural fairness to complex people decisions
  • Interpret people data, dashboards and ISO 30414 metrics for senior decision makers
  • Influence executive stakeholders through structured consulting, evidence and recommendation briefings
  • Produce a 90-day strategic people management action plan with measures and accountabilities

Benefits of attending

For you

  • A stronger basis for contributing to executive strategy and business planning discussions
  • Practical methods for diagnosing people problems before proposing interventions
  • Greater confidence handling competing commercial, employee and governance priorities
  • A reusable structure for workforce, talent and culture recommendations
  • A documented 90-day plan for a live strategic people management priority

For your organisation

  • Clearer connection between business strategy, workforce capability and people investment
  • More consistent succession, performance and reward decisions across management teams
  • Earlier identification of critical-skill, turnover and workforce-cost risks
  • Better quality people recommendations presented to senior decision makers
  • Stronger governance for employee relations, inclusion, data use and organisational change

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can translate organisational strategy into focused people priorities, measures and accountabilities.

  • Business strategy translated into people priorities, measures and executive accountabilities
  • Balanced Scorecard links financial, customer, process and people objectives
  • Ulrich HR Model clarifies strategic partner, specialist and service roles
  • McKinsey 7S diagnoses alignment between structure, skills, systems and shared values
  • Stakeholder mapping identifies decision makers, blockers, sponsors and affected groups
  • HR operating model choices: centralised, federated, shared services and business partners

Participants can contract with stakeholders, diagnose business needs and present persuasive people recommendations.

  • Consulting contracting defines client outcomes, scope, roles, evidence and review points
  • Diagnostic questioning separates symptoms, interests, assumptions and underlying business needs
  • SCARF model anticipates status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness concerns
  • Influence maps position sponsors, allies, neutrals and resisters before key decisions
  • Executive briefings frame options, risks, costs, recommendations and required decisions
  • Challenge conversations use SBI feedback, active listening and agreed behavioural commitments

Participants can create a workforce plan that addresses future demand, supply and critical capability gaps.

  • Strategic workforce planning starts with demand scenarios and critical capability requirements
  • Supply analysis maps headcount, skills inventories, attrition, mobility and retirement risk
  • Gap analysis quantifies build, buy, borrow, automate and redeploy responses
  • Nine-box succession grids distinguish performance, potential, readiness and development needs
  • Scenario planning tests workforce costs under growth, contraction and service redesign
  • Workforce plans assign owners, milestones, budget assumptions and leading indicators

Participants can target talent investment and retention action at roles and populations that matter most.

  • Talent segmentation differentiates pivotal roles, scarce skills and broad-based capability needs
  • Selection validity compares structured interviews, work samples, tests and reference evidence
  • Candidate journey mapping identifies drop-off points, communication gaps and acceptance risks
  • Career architecture defines job families, levels, skills and progression criteria
  • 70-20-10 development planning combines experience, relationships and formal learning
  • Retention risk reviews connect flight indicators with targeted manager actions

Participants can align performance and reward practices with strategic objectives, fairness and accountability.

  • OKRs translate strategic priorities into measurable team and individual commitments
  • Performance management cycles set expectations, check-ins, evidence and calibration decisions
  • Calibration sessions reduce rating inconsistency through evidence-based cross-manager review
  • Pay equity analysis tests comparable work, pay gaps and unexplained differentials
  • Total reward propositions combine base pay, benefits, recognition and development
  • Reward governance documents approval limits, market data sources and exception controls

Participants can diagnose engagement and culture issues and direct managers toward measurable action.

  • Employee listening architecture combines pulse surveys, focus groups and exit data
  • Engagement drivers distinguish motivation, commitment, discretionary effort and intent to stay
  • Psychological safety practices support speaking up, learning from errors and challenge
  • Culture diagnostics compare stated values, observed behaviours, symbols and decision norms
  • Wellbeing risk assessments identify workload, control, support, role clarity and change
  • Manager action plans convert survey findings into observable team commitments

Participants can manage employee relations issues using fair, consistent and well-governed processes.

  • Employee relations strategy balances voice, fairness, productivity and legal risk
  • Employment lifecycle controls cover recruitment, contracts, performance, discipline and exits
  • Procedural fairness requires consistent investigation, evidence, hearing and appeal stages
  • Grievance case triage separates informal resolution, mediation, investigation and formal process
  • Collective consultation planning addresses representative groups, information duties and negotiation mandates
  • Case documentation records facts, decisions, rationale, confidentiality and retention requirements

Participants can identify barriers to inclusion and establish accountable actions for equitable people outcomes.

  • Inclusion strategy sets representation, progression, belonging and accountability measures
  • Adverse impact analysis tests selection and promotion outcomes across demographic groups
  • Bias interrupters strengthen recruitment, talent reviews, meetings and performance decisions
  • Accessibility audits identify barriers in facilities, technology, communications and processes
  • Employee resource groups contribute insight without replacing management accountability
  • Allyship behaviours intervene against exclusion, credit appropriation and informal gatekeeping

Participants can use people data responsibly to support decisions, prioritise action and assess results.

  • People analytics questions begin with decisions, hypotheses, measures and ethical limits
  • ISO 30414 metrics structure reporting on workforce, diversity, productivity and turnover
  • Turnover analysis separates regrettable loss, controllable causes and cohort patterns
  • Correlation analysis distinguishes association from causation before recommending interventions
  • Dashboard design uses definitions, baselines, targets, trends and data owners
  • Data governance controls access, quality, retention, consent and privacy obligations

Participants can plan and lead people-side change with clear sponsorship, communication and adoption measures.

  • Change impact assessments map stakeholder effects, capability gaps and transition risks
  • Kotter's eight-step model sequences urgency, coalition, vision and reinforcement actions
  • Transition plans coordinate communications, manager enablement, training and adoption measures
  • Resistance analysis identifies loss concerns, misinformation, incentives and local influencers
  • Implementation roadmaps sequence pilots, dependencies, decision gates and contingency actions
  • Personal application plans specify a strategic people priority and 90-day actions

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

What you take back to work

  1. Strategic People Management Action Pack
  2. Workforce demand and supply planning template
  3. Critical-role succession and retention matrix
  4. Executive people recommendation briefing template
  5. People metrics dashboard specification
  6. 90-day people strategy implementation plan

Who should attend

  • HR Business Partners — to position people priorities credibly with senior operational leaders
  • HR Managers — to move from functional delivery to strategic people leadership
  • Heads of HR — to strengthen workforce planning, governance and executive influence
  • Talent and Organisational Development Managers — to connect talent systems with business capability needs
  • Senior People Managers — to lead complex employee, culture and transformation priorities
  • Operational Directors — to make better workforce decisions with HR partners

Skills and tools covered

People strategy formulationWorkforce planningStrategic talent managementExecutive stakeholder influencePeople analyticsChange leadership

Tools and standards

Balanced Scorecard, Ulrich HR Model, McKinsey 7S Framework, ISO 30414

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish concepts and frameworks, followed by case analysis, facilitated group work, decision simulations and structured peer review. Cases reflect common challenges in government, banking, NGOs and large employers, including workforce redesign, scarce skills, employee relations disputes and low engagement. Participants analyse evidence, prepare recommendations for senior stakeholders and test choices against business, employee and governance criteria. Individual application planning connects each module to a current workplace priority.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have several years of HR, people management or senior line-management experience and familiarity with core HR processes such as recruitment, performance management, employee relations and learning. They should be able to discuss a current organisational people issue and interpret basic workforce measures such as headcount, turnover and absence. Prior experience of workforce planning, people analytics, formal change management or executive-level presentations is useful but not required. No prior qualification in HR, finance, statistics or employment law is required.

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

This is an advanced course for experienced HR practitioners, people managers and senior operational leaders. Participants should know the main HR processes and be ready to work on strategic rather than introductory HR questions.

Bring details of a current people challenge, such as a workforce gap, talent risk, culture issue or planned restructure. Sensitive information is not required; anonymised figures and examples are sufficient.

It is designed for HR Business Partners, HR Managers, Heads of HR, talent leaders and operational leaders with major people responsibilities. It is most useful for those expected to advise senior stakeholders and shape workforce decisions.

General HR courses usually concentrate on core processes and day-to-day administration. This course concentrates on strategic partnering, workforce choices, executive influence, governance, analytics and change implementation.

Participants build a Strategic People Management Action Pack around a live workplace priority. The templates can be used for workforce planning, talent reviews, executive briefings, people dashboards and implementation planning.

Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, with approximately 6.5 contact hours daily. Time is divided between instructor input, case work, group analysis, simulations, discussion and application planning across ten modules.

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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