Whether you’re frying, brining, or roasting, are you ready to prepare a Thanksgiving turkey next Thursday?  If your heart just skipped a beat, you’re not alone—the holiday snuck up on us, too.  And like you, we love to spend time dreaming of green-bean casserole and Black Friday shopping.  But we’re probably the only ones with Human Resources on the brain during this stomach-centered holiday.  The truth is, a well-executed Thanksgiving dinner can provide valuable lessons in HR management!

A family Thanksgiving get-together is one big exercise in talent management and strategic planning.  The event has an experienced manager: often Mom, the family matriarch.  Mom is in charge of all the day’s details, from the star performer, the turkey, to the supporting characters, such as drinks and napkin rings.  Managing all the details herself would not make Mom an effective manager, and could result in an early burnout or a missed dinner deadline.  She’ll have to delegate her tasks to better allocate the day’s time, increase efficiency, and motivate her team.

Manager Mom starts the delegation process by confirming who will be reporting to work on Thanksgiving Day.  She then manages her talent according to each person’s strengths.  Since Mom is the only one who can roast the turkey to perfection, she oversees the meal’s cornerstone to ensure all goes smoothly.  Since this an ongoing task of basting and foil tents, Mom looks to her team to round out their remaining goals.  Her two youngest children lack the security clearance to use ovens or knives, but they’re experienced table setters, so she hands them the plates.  Mom is also thinking ahead with workforce planning: this year, her oldest child enters a training program, studying Grandma’s unparalleled creamed corn preparation before Grandma retires.  And since Mom drinks only wine, she outsources beer acquisitions to her husband, who has years of experience in the field.  These decisions ensure each task is managed by the most qualified team member, all working to meet the deadline and to produce the best possible culinary results.  In this way, Mom functions as an effective manager, gently supervising her workers without micromanaging.

Mom’s management strategy also fulfills several goals of Thanksgiving workforce planning.  Knowing that Grandma’s retirement from side-dish management will create a key vacancy, Mom has proactively identified and prepared her oldest child to fill this leadership role.  She has also maximized the return on talent and her workforce’s overall productivity by identifying the team members best suited for each job.  So you see, preparing a Thanksgiving meal relies on numerous key HR principles, including workforce planning and talent management.  We bet you’ll never look at Turkey Day the same way again!

If your Thanksgiving talent is better organized than your business talent, you’re not making the most of your workforce!  The professional HR consultants at YES! Your Human Resources Solution can start you on the right track.  We’ll work with management and key personnel to identify a workforce-planning strategy uniquely suited for your business.  We’ll recommend strategies to retain critical talent, prepare future leaders, and maximize your workforce’s productivity.  Who could ask for a better gift this holiday season?  Start the new year off right with help from Orange County’s premier HR team.  Contact us today for a free consultation!