Your business needs a strong people strategy in 2025: Here’s how to plan yours

Billionaire business tycoon, Richard Branson once said, “A company’s employees are its greatest asset”.

For financial planning firms, this is certainly true.

People are at the core of everything you do. If you want to attract new clients and keep existing ones coming back time and again, you need the right bums on seats.

Yet, building an outstanding team takes careful thought, time, and planning. If you jump to fill a vacancy as soon as one arises without a clear strategy in mind, you might be missing a trick.

So, if you have grand plans for your business in 2025 – and we’re sure you do – read on to find out why creating a strong people strategy should be at the top of your to-do list this year. Then, learn Melo’s top tips for creating a strategy that drives your business forward.

A strong people strategy could help you achieve your 2025 business goals

A people strategy is a philosophy that shapes your firm’s relationship with its employees.

Just as you create a business plan to achieve your business goals, you need a people strategy to attract and retain a first-class team that helps you achieve these objectives.

A few compelling reasons why your business needs an effective people strategy in 2025 are to:

• Boost employee engagement
• Nurture, develop and retain your best talent
• Enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Create an incredible employee experience and workplace culture
• Support change projects and promote innovation.

If you don’t currently have a clear plan for recruiting, engaging, developing, and retaining your people, January is a great time to reflect and create a strategy that aligns with your overall business plans for the year ahead.

Melo’s top 3 tips for crafting an awesome people strategy

Get it right, and your people strategy could help you take your business to the next level in 2025. But where do you start?

Thankfully, the Melo team has a few helpful tips to share with you.

1. Decide what you want to achieve

Rather than reacting to situations and recruiting on an ad hoc basis, an effective people strategy allows you to align your workforce with your Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs).

It might help you to think about:

• Where your business is now
• What you’d like to achieve in the next 1, 3, 5, and possibly 10 years
• How you can recruit to streamline your business and drive continued growth.

Remember to listen to your people too. What do they want from your business this year?

Employee surveys can tell you a lot about your workplace culture, employee engagement, and recruitment needs.

2. Make the best use of your team

If you already have some exceptional people in your business, you’ll want to hang on to them.

This means:

• Prioritising team coaching through learning and development
• Focusing on employee engagement
• Capitalising on individual strengths.

A strong people strategy isn’t just about hiring the right people, it’s also super important to make effective use of the employees you already have.

If you’ve heard of the “80-20 rule” – otherwise known as the Pareto principle – you’ll know that 80% of outcomes are produced from 20% of causes.

If you have someone on your team who has unique skills, but they’re spending the majority of their time working on tasks that someone else could do, it might be time for a rethink.

For example, you could hire someone to support this star performer, allowing them to focus solely on what they do best.

This is exactly what the world-class business coach, Dan Sullivan says in his bestselling book, 10x Is Easier than 2x. In other words, focusing your attention on less is much more powerful than spreading yourself thin.

3. Continually review and adjust your strategy

Anything from economic uncertainty and new legislation to profession developments and changes in your personal circumstances could affect your business goals. As such, your employee needs are likely to continually evolve.

So, just as your business plan needs to be regularly reviewed and updated, so too will your people strategy.

As always, Team Melo is here to help.

Get in touch

Whether you think your people strategy could do with a revamp, or you need to create one from scratch, we can help.

Drop us an email at hello@melo.co.uk or call us for a chat on 0113 4656 111.