Are you roasting, brining, or enlisting Whole Foods to prepare your Thanksgiving turkey? If you don’t know yet, think fast—that big 4-day weekend is just around the corner. And while most people think about stuffing and shopping, we can’t help but notice how Human Resources sneaks in to dinner planning. See, a Thanksgiving get-together is secretly an exercise in talent management and strategic planning.

The Thanksgiving Planning Department has an experienced manager: Mom, who oversees all the details, from the turkey to the creamed corn. Touching each task herself would not make Mom an effective manager, and could result in burned biscuits or forgotten cranberry sauce. She’ll have to delegate her tasks to increase efficiency and give purpose to her team.

Manager Mom first confirms her team members: who will be reporting to work on Thanksgiving Day? She then manages her talent according to each person’s strengths. Mom is the only one who can roast the turkey golden-brown, so she oversees the basting and foil tents, and looks to her team to tackle the remaining goals. Her youngest child can’t use knives or fire, but he can mix ingredients in a bowl, so she puts him in charge of the green salad. Her middle child can measure and read a recipe, so Mom puts her in charge of the cranberries. Mom outsources beverage acquisitions to her knowledgeable husband. Mom is also thinking ahead with workforce planning: this year, her preteen enters the Family Recipe Candied Yams Training Program to prepare for Grandma’s retirement. 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 results. In this way, Mom functions as an effective manager, gently supervising her workers without micromanaging.

Mom’s management strategy also meets 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 Thanksgiving 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. End the year with a bright new step with help from Orange County’s premier HR team. Contact us today for a free consultation!