Interloop Editorial Team
Most growing companies have a business plan. Revenue targets, new markets, product launches, maybe a fundraise. Far fewer have a matching plan for the people who will make it happen.
Instead, HR runs on a to-do list. Hire for the open roles. Fix payroll issues. Plan the appraisal cycle. Organise the offsite. Each task makes sense on its own, but together they don't add up to a direction. Then, a year later, the company discovers it has hired the wrong mix of people, its managers are stretched, and the best performers are leaving for competitors.
An HR strategy fixes that. It doesn't need to be a 60-slide deck. At its best, it's a short, clear answer to one question: what does our business need from its people over the next two or three years, and what will we do to get there?
This piece walks through how to write one, in plain terms, for a company that's growing.
Key insights
- Talent is hard to find almost everywhere. ManpowerGroup's 2026 Talent Shortage Survey of more than 39,000 employers in 41 countries found 72% globally struggle to fill roles.
- India and the UAE are tighter than average. The same survey put India at 82% and the UAE at 76%.
- The scarce skills are changing. For the first time, AI skills topped the list of hardest-to-find skills, ahead of traditional engineering and IT.
- Employers are building, not just buying. In India, around 37% of employers are prioritising upskilling and reskilling, and 35% are looking at new talent pools.
- Culture is a weak spot. A July 2025 Gartner survey of 222 CHROs found fewer than half (47%) said their culture drives employee performance today.
- HR leaders are rethinking the function itself. Gartner's 2026 survey of 426 CHROs ranked AI transformation, workforce redesign, leader readiness and culture as the top priorities.
Start from the business plan, not from HR
The biggest mistake we see is an HR strategy written inside HR. It lists initiatives such as a new appraisal system, an engagement survey and a learning portal, but never explains how they help the business win.
A useful HR strategy begins with the leadership team's plan, then asks what that plan means for people. A few questions help translate one into the other:
| Business goal | The people question it raises |
|---|---|
| Double revenue in three years | How many more people, in which roles, and by when? Can our managers lead teams twice the size? |
| Enter the UAE market | Do we hire locally, relocate people or both? Do our policies work under UAE labour law? |
| Launch a new product line | Which skills don't we have today? Do we build them, hire them or partner for them? |
| Improve margins | Where is work duplicated or manual? Which roles change if we automate parts of them? |
| Prepare for a fundraise or IPO | Are our leadership bench, policies and people data investor-ready? |
The answers to these questions are the raw material for your HR strategy. Everything that follows should trace back to at least one of them. If an HR initiative can't, it's worth asking why you're doing it.
The few choices that make up an HR strategy
With the business needs in view, an HR strategy is really a handful of choices. For a growing company, we find five areas cover most of it.
1. Workforce plan: who do we need?
How many people, in which roles and locations, over the next 12 to 36 months. Include the mix of full-time, contract and outsourced work. This is where you spot the gaps early. If the plan needs 15 new team leads and you have three ready, you know where to focus.
2. Talent: build, buy or borrow?
For each critical skill gap, decide whether to develop people internally, hire from outside, or use partners and contractors. With talent shortages at 82% in India and 76% in the UAE, relying only on hiring is risky. Most companies need a mix, with a deliberate tilt towards building their own.
3. Managers: who leads the growth?
In a growing company, managers carry the strategy. They hire, onboard, coach, review and retain. Many were promoted for being good at their own work and have never been taught to manage. Decide how you'll select, develop and support them. This is often the highest-return investment in the whole plan.
4. Culture and engagement: how should it feel to work here?
Growth stretches culture. Values that were obvious with 30 people get lost at 300. Name the few behaviours that matter most, and decide how they'll show up in hiring, reviews and recognition. Gartner's finding that fewer than half of CHROs think their culture drives performance shows how easy it is to let this slide.
5. Foundations: what has to work every month?
Payroll, compliance, policies, people data and the HR systems behind them. These aren't glamorous, but they're the base everything else stands on. A strategy that promises leadership programmes while salaries go out late will lose credibility fast.
From strategy to a working plan
A strategy that stays in a document doesn't change anything. Good implementation planning is what turns it into results. To make it real, turn each of the five choices into a short list of initiatives, each with an owner, a timeline and one or two measures.
Keep the list short. A growing company can usually handle three to five significant HR initiatives a year alongside day-to-day work. Trying to launch ten at once means none of them land properly.
Planning and implementation also need sequencing. Foundations first: if people data is scattered and payroll is shaky, fix that before you build a sophisticated talent programme on top. Then managers, because they'll carry every other initiative. Then the more ambitious work on culture and capability.
Where systems help
An HR strategy depends on knowing where you are today. How many people do you have in each role and location? What's attrition by team? Who are the high performers, and are they staying? How long does it take to hire? Many growing companies can't answer these quickly because the data sits in spreadsheets, email and different tools.
A single HR system makes the starting point visible and lets you track progress. If a Zoho People implementation is on your roadmap, whether run in-house or with a Zoho People partner, write the HR strategy first, because the strategy should shape how the system is set up, not the other way round. Zoho People, which also comes as part of Zoho One, brings employee records, attendance, leave, performance, learning and engagement surveys into one place. Reports and dashboards can show headcount by department, attrition trends, goal progress and training completion. When connected with recruitment and payroll tools such as Zoho Recruit and Zoho Payroll, the same data covers the full journey from hiring to pay.
The system doesn't write the strategy. But it turns reviews of the strategy from opinion into evidence.
How we suggest writing it
- Sit with the leadership team first. Get the business goals for the next two to three years in their own words. Ask what keeps them up at night about people.
- Take stock of today. Headcount, roles, attrition, key skills, manager spans, engagement and the state of HR operations. Be honest about the gaps, and note whether a Zoho People implementation or another HR system change is due.
- Translate goals into people needs. Use the business goal and people question approach above.
- Make the five choices. Workforce plan, talent approach, managers, culture and foundations. Write a short paragraph on each.
- Pick three to five initiatives for the year. Give each an owner, a deadline and one or two measures.
- Fit it on two pages. If leaders can't read it in ten minutes, they won't use it.
- Review it every quarter. Check progress against the measures, and adjust when the business plan changes. It will.
How you'll know it's working
- Critical roles filled on time, against the workforce plan
- Share of open roles filled internally
- Voluntary attrition among high performers and new joiners
- Manager effectiveness scores in engagement surveys
- Progress on each annual initiative against its own measure
- How often leadership refers to the HR strategy when making business decisions
That last one is hard to measure, but it's the real test. A good HR strategy becomes part of how the business plans, not a separate HR document.
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