Helping to enable organizational alignment is one of the most important roles you can play as an HR professional. Alignment is crucial to achieving your organization’s strategic goals and maintaining its competitive edge. You need to be able to understand where things aren’t aligned and then help to correct it.

That requires creating systems and structures that can adapt fluidly to shifting business conditions. Organizational alignment is always in flux. Whether you’re organized on the basis of functions, products, geographies or customers, your organizational design must be ready to change on a regular basis. Here’s how HR executives can drive ongoing realignment from within. 

# Assessing Alignment

Think of your HR role as being an organizational chiropractor. Sometimes a small adjustment— such as refining team workflows or updating technology—can yield significant improvements. At other times, a more comprehensive realignment may be necessary to address business challenges, market conditions or outdated processes. 

Understanding what realignment activities are necessary starts with a sequential assessment of the organization, looking at strategy, capabilities, structure and operations alignment. Each area cascades to the next. That means if you lack alignment at the strategy level, you probably need to realign your capabilities, structure and operations, too. 

Here’s what to consider as you move through the assessment. 

  • Strategy Alignment: Possible alignment activities include refining your organization’s purpose, mission, vision, values and long-term plans. Ask what your organization is trying to achieve. What value does it deliver? What decisions have you committed to act on? Have you allocated the necessary resources? 
  • Capabilities alignment: Align organizational capabilities with your strategic goals. Tools to consider using include capability mapping, benchmarking and congruence analysis. Ask what differentiators make the organization distinct and competitive. How does it accomplish its most critical work? 
  • Structure alignment: How you structure your people has a critical impact on your ability to achieve the work. Evaluate the type of structure, resource requirements, operating roles and responsibilities, governance and job architecture. Ask if a different structure would align better with a new strategy or difference capabilities. 
  • Operations alignment:Tech systems, data systems and people systems such as performance management, career development and rewards and recognition all support organizational alignment. As an HR professional, your role might involve assessing processes, talent and leadership development systems and employee engagement. Ask how to best optimize the value delivered within and across teams. 

# A Proactive HR Approach 

As an HR leader, you have the unique opportunity to drive organizational alignment and performance. Your role is critical to adjusting and aligning from within, positioning your organization to adapt to changing business conditions. You can do so by regularly assessing your organization’s health, understanding what level—from strategy to operations—will be required in your next alignment and ensuring that your leaders have a consistent approach and mindset on organizational alignment. 


This article originally appeared in The HR Specialist, a publication of BusinessManagementDaily.com.