5 year people plan | Chetty Arun

Companies have a 5 year business plan or a 5 year product plan. We often see a long-term business/product strategy. But we rarely see a 5 year people plan. I strongly think there should be a 5 year people plan just like a 5 year product/business roadmap. Or, a plan for when you’re 10 times your current employee count.

Let’s say you’re a 50 people startup right now. Think about a time when you’ll be 500. Try answering these questions:

How’s such a large team communicating with each other?
How transparent is the team? How can information still be transparent?
How will you make sure the 500 people team is a diverse set of folks?
As leaders, how are you selling your org vision to 500 people?
How do you make sure everyone understands that vision clearly?
How many managers would you have at that scale? What’s the manager to report ratio?
How’s hiring happening with so many new hiring managers? How’s quality kept under control?
How many HR business partners would you have at that scale? How many people are mapped one HR partner?
How are you coaching your star players who’ll go on to lead large teams when you’re 5000?
Are all these folks remote? Or, at one single location under one single office roof?
How are programs like Rewards and Recognition, L&D, Performance Management, etc., working?
What new employee policies are coming into the picture?
How are leaders addressing such a large team?
How are you taking feedback from such a large team? How often are you taking feedback?
How are you objectively calculating employee happiness?
How are the new employees learning about the history of the org?
How’s the team still agile? What processes might slow you down?
How big should be your admin team? How big should be your people-ops team?
How’s employer branding? What do you think should be the persona of your org in the industry?
How are parties happening? How often and how exactly are 500 people meeting for celebrations?

I can go on and on and on but you get the drift. Now coming to who should answer all these questions, it should be the founders, leaders, and HR heads. Just like a long-term product vision doc, have a long-term people vision doc ready. So that you’re well prepared for expansion.

Disclaimer: Hey! These are my unfiltered thoughts, kind of like a stream of consciousness. I’ll be honest, I haven’t done extensive research. So, take all the information with a grain of salt. It’s mostly based on my personal observations and perspectives.

Hope you enjoyed the read! If you have feedback or a different perspective, I’d love to know. Catch me on Twitter or mail me at me@chettyarun.com Thanks!