HR Strategic Planning and Action Plan for Lonsdale Fitness, Melbourne

This report presents a strategic HR plan developed for Lonsdale Fitness, Melbourne, addressing the need for increased staffing due to anticipated business growth. The plan begins with an introduction to HR management and strategic planning, followed by a detailed action plan (Stage 1) that analyzes current issues, objectives, and performance measures. Stage 2 outlines implementation strategies for achieving objectives, including plans for hiring new trainers, providing support staff, developing a sales force, creating new membership plans, and hiring additional front desk staff. Finally, Stage 3 provides a detailed plan encompassing HR information systems, staff induction, adherence to Fair Work Australia legislations, job design analysis, and workplace health and safety. The report emphasizes the importance of aligning HR strategies with the company's goals to ensure effective workforce management and business expansion.

HR Strategic Planning
1

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Stage 1..............................................................................................................................................3
Strategic Human Resources Action Plan................................................................................3
Stage 2..............................................................................................................................................5
Implementation strategies for achieving objectives...............................................................5
Stage 3..............................................................................................................................................9
Plan.........................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15
2

Introduction
Human beings are called fundamental resource for any organisation. Management of
Human Resource (HR) is handled by HR Department which undertakes functions like human
resource planning, recruitment, selection, training and orientation, motivation, maintaining
employee relations, etc. (Armstrong, 2016) Strategic HR planning serve as an important
component of HR management as it establishes a link between strategies, goals and objectives of
company and personal ambitions of employees.
Strategic HR planning is the process of identifying human resource requirement of an
organization and making plans and strategies for meeting out those requirements. Below
mentioned plan is prepared for Lonsdale Fitness, Melbourne. It is expecting to have an increase
in members and at present workforce conditions, looks understaffed to accommodate new
clients. The strategic plan is thus prepared with a proposal to recruit new full time and part time
personal trainers.
Stage 1
Strategic Human Resources Action Plan
Action Plan
HR action plan is the plan developed by HR department in accordance with strategies of
the company to fulfil the manpower requirement. It is a systematic process which includes
analysing present staff strength, forecasting required staff demand, creating a balance between
present and forecasts and then developing plan that is in congruence with the company’s goals.
Business environment and conditions are always clouded with uncertainties. After
months of uncertainty due to pandemic, situations are improving and businesses are picking up
again (Arora, 2016). People are increasingly becoming aware of maintaining their health and
fitness. This has opened new opportunities for companies in fitness industry. Melbourne
franchise of Lonsdale Fitness is also picking up business after a while of slow down and is now
eyeing on opportunities to increase their business resources. It is expected to have an increase in
clients and the present trainers and other workforce are unable to provide services to new clients.
Thus, a projected planning report is being prepared to present an action plan to address the issue
of increase in workforce and other infrastructure issues to Board of Directors.
3

Plan type: Plan to hire additional staff to support growing business
Current: September, 2020
Issues Comments
1. Limited physical
infrastructure
Post Pandemic situation, business is picking pace again. Physical
infrastructure is limited and cannot accommodate much more.
Need to expand infrastructure to grow business further but
considering uncertain business conditions, capital investment is
risky.
2. Lack of trainers for
new clients
Present staff cannot accommodate more clients. So, new staff
needs to be hired. It is to decide whether all full-time trainers
would be necessary to hire or a mix of full time and part time
trainers would make up the appropriate staff mix.
3. Overburdened
training coordinator
Accomodating many people in a limited infrastructure requires co-
ordination and management (Brewster, 2017). Present co-
ordinator is already overworked. Require additional help staff or
new coordinator.
4. Lack of aggressive
business marketing
More and more people are being fitness aware and this presents
good business growth opportunity. Company shall formulate new
promotion policies and strategies and hire full time sales force
which targets to increase business of the company.
5. Sloppy customer
response
Lonsdale is getting lot of inquiry calls from possible clientele
daily but in absence of timely response from receptionists does not
get converted into clients. This is making double harm for te
business i.e. Lonsdale is missing prospective client while
competitor is gaining client, business and market.
6. Slow accounting
process
Accounts manager is busy arranging accounts of present clients
and will be so overburdened with work if new clients’ accounts
would be handed over. Company needs to develop some ingenious
membership offers that would be both lucrative to customer and
easy for administering to company.
4

Future
Objectives Measures of performance - KPIs
1. Increase physical infrastructure to facilitate
business growth.
All existing and new clients are
smoothly accommodated into place.
2. Need new trainers – both full time and part time. All new clients have desired trainers
and are happy with their trainers and
timing in their feedback
3. Need another training co-ordinator or provide
support staff to the existing one.
Decrease in clients’ dissatisfaction
with training management by about
20% every week.
4. Need full time sales staff Increase in clients list by at least
10% every 2 weeks.
5. Need to develop new membership plans More than 60% of existing and new
members exercise new plans.
6. Need additional front desk staff More than 75% of customer queries
converting into clients
Stage 2
Implementation strategies for achieving objectives
HRD needs to build strategies which simultaneously focus on building skills, motivation and
behaviour for an accomplished business strategy (Brewster, 2017). Human Resource strategy is a
plan for managing human resource with a company to turn it into human capital of organisation.
HR strategy sets the direction for all necessary areas of HR namely, hiring, training and
development, performance appraisal and compensation.
Strategies Step by Step Plan
Develop new physical
infrastructure
a. A complete analysis of requirement of additional of
physical infrastructure is needed and shall be
undertaken further from here by finance department.
Hire new trainers – both full a. Business queries are regular and every day new
5

time and part time. members are joining. Company has signed 120 new
members last month, few of them would work out in
groups while others want one-on-one personal trainers.
Present trainers available do not have spare workhours
to devote to new clients. Thus, there is an immediate
requirement to hire new personal trainers.
b. A strategy with the help of training co-ordinator needs
to develop which will help out company to arrange time
and physical resources to groups as well as those who
want personal one-on-one training (Bryson, 2017).
c. As soon as required strength of full time and part time
trainers is determined, company shall begin recruitment
process.
d. Minimum educational qualification necessary for all
trainers have to be Cert III in fitness instructing.
Work out requirement for
providing support staff to the
existing training co-ordinator
or hire new one.
a. A complete documented duties and responsibilities
expected out of training coordinator shall be sketched
out first. For example, the person would be responsible
for arrangement of training sessions, their timings,
trainers and oversee the sessions to know if clients are
satisfied with training or not and accommodate the
changes they want to have, etc.
b. Need to check with the present duties and
responsibilities the person is already fulfilling.
c. On the basis of this information, decide whether the
person needs support staff only or require another co-
ordinator to manage and supervise the training process.
d. If only support staff is needed for assistance and
delegation of work, job description shall be chalked out.
And, if another co-ordinator is required to divide the
workload, suitable job description with required skills
6

such as time management skills, multi-process
management skills, client handling, etc. shall be
prepared.
e. A performance evaluation criterion shall be decided
beforehand to ensure cooperation and coordination
between the new and old coordinator.
f. Begin recruitment process
Development of competent
sales force
a. Marketing department of Lonsdale Fitness shall first set
targets and objectives for the sales and growth of
company. On the basis of these targets, marketing
managers will chalk out various marketing and
promotional tools. These tools are then taken in public
by sales personnel (Burak, 2020).
b. On the basis of job and personal description drawn out
by marketing department, a recruitment and selection
process is decided.
c. Training and performance appraisal process shall also
be determined in coordination with marketing
department.
d. Once everything is finalised, recruitment process shall
be initiated.
Develop ingenious new
membership plans
a. Lonsdale at present only offers monthly membership of
$73 per month. Thus, every member has to renew their
membership every month which results into lots of
accounting transactions every month.
b. Accounts and finance department of Lonsdale shall
develop packages of payment of membership fees
quarterly, semi-annually, annually, etc. and should team
up with sales force to promote these offers. It would not
only reduce accounting transactions burden from
accounts manager but will also be a good marketing
7

tool to have a long-term association with the clients.
c. If such arrangement works out, then accounts manager
shall only require support staff. But, if this arrangement
does not work out or is not able to reduce workload in
the case of lots of new clients and the transactions
related to them, an arrangement to hire part time
accounts manager can be an option.
d. If part time manager cannot handle complete additional
workload, company will have to hire another full-time
account manager only.
e. According to requirements job description,
specifications and advertisement shall be drawn to
initiate recruitment process (Chang and et.al., 2015).
Immediate hiring of additional
front desk staff
a. Business queries are increasing day by day because of
increasing fitness awareness. But the present workforce
is unable to take all the queries and respond them
satisfactorily. This results into losing possible clients by
the company.
b. Therefore, an immediate requirement of hiring
additional front desk receptionists is necessary.
Additional workforce would be required to handle calls,
mails and direct walk-in queries. They shall be expert in
communication and marketing skills as well. They will
be need to convert efforts of sales force into clientele.
They will be responsible to sell company’s services to
the query asking person. They shall be completely
acquainted with the policies of company, training
procedure, timing, facilities provided, memberships,
offers, etc.
c. Job description and job specification shall be drawn out
on the basis of above-mentioned skills. Strict
8

performance standard criterions shall be developed for
them to work standard every month. Performance based
appraisal shall be introduced for them to motivate and
inspire them to perform their best efforts.
d. Recruitment process shall begin as soon as possible.
Stage 3
Plan
Plan is the detailed description of an abstract target of company. Various departments of
company come together to formulate and execute a plan (Cunningham, 2016). HR Department is
a department that works with coordination with every department to carry out its operations.
Plan Step by Step Plan Due Date Name
Human Resources
information system
(HRIS) and
communication
a. It is a system used to collect
and communicate employee
data. For example, payroll. It
helps in record keeping,
compliance and making HR
strategies.
b. This process begins with
employee recruitment and
helps HR managers maintains
them throughout their stint
with company.
It is an
ongoing
process.
HR Manager –
IT and planning
Staff Induction a. It is the process of
welcoming new employees
and introducing them to their
new role and work culture.
b. This process starts with
joining of new employees.
HR manager arranges for
This process
shall be
completed
within one
month of
joining of
new
HR Manager -
Recruitment
9

their orientation, meet and
greet with colleagues and
seniors, etc.
employee.
Fair work Australia,
Legislations &
Regulations
It includes all the necessary business
and labour legislations company is
required to followed in Melbourne (
DeCenzo, Robbins and Verhulst,
2016). Major governing Act is Fair
Work Act (2009).
a. Following regulations start
right from the time when
company initiate recruitment
process. Job specifications,
timings, remunerations, etc.
are determined accordingly.
b. This process continues even
after recruitment, employee
is given working conditions
according to specifications in
laws.
It is an
ongoing
process.
Internal Legal
Advisor
(domestic law –
Australia)
Job Analysis and
design
a. Job analysis and design
describes job-oriented
activities as to what is
expected of employee and
how a worker should perform
and whom to report, etc.
b. This process starts with job
description and continues
with employee in recruitment
process and also after joining.
This process
shall start
with
determining
job position
and shall be
completed
with
employee
induction.
HR Manager -
Recruitment
Workplace health and It is the process of ensuring workers It is an HR Manager -
10

safety safety and providing them a safe and
healthy working environment. (Khan
and Mushtaq, 2015) It is maintained
not only according to organisational
culture but also necessary legal
regulations have to be followed.
a. This process initiates much
before initiating employee
recruitment. Processes like
authority and responsibility
hierarchy, communication
channels, etc. are first
determined and then applied
in organisational culture.
b. Recruitment process is then
followed.
ongoing
process.
Planning
Performance
Management
a. It is an on-going process of
communication between
employee and their
supervisor.
b. This process initiates as soon
as employee joins a job.
Process of communication
include setting objectives,
specifying expectations,
reviewing performance and
providing feedback to
employee by senior
supervisor.
c. This process is part of
management of employee
It is an
ongoing
process.
HR Manager –
Controlling
11

performance cycle and is
always in operation.
Professional
development
a. This is like documenting the
skills and competency of an
employee in order to provide
support, training and
development (Mondy and
Martocchio, 2016).
b. It begins with joining of a
new member. HR department
keeps a tab over activities of
the employees and regularly
takes feedback from
employees themselves, their
seniors, colleagues, etc. to
identify trainings needed by
them.
It is an
ongoing
process.
HR Manager -
controlling
Recruitment and
selection
a. Recruitment is the process of
inviting suitable candidates
and selection is the process of
identifying and selecting the
right candidate for the
specified job.
b. This process begins with
identifying the need for
recruitment. Job descriptions,
specifications and
advertisements are then
developed. Qualified
candidates are invited for
interview and then suitable
It starts with
designing job
description
and ends with
selection and
orientation of
new
employees.
HR Manager –
Recruitment
12