What is vertical and horizontal alignment in HR?

The alignment of strategies in a business is important to ensure that everybody is pulling in the same direction. Strategies are the offshoot of business goals and direction and are designed to give an indication to all members of the business of how the business will achieve its goals. Strategies must work together to be most effective. If people are pulling in different directions, resources will be wasted.
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Vertical Alignment

A company's goals and objectives will drive its strategies. Vertical alignment of strategies will ensure that strategies are related directly to goals which are related directly to the organization's mission, vision and values. Strategies are developed to indicate "how" a company will achieve its goals and objectives. Companies generally have several strategies that they put in place to meet multiple goals and objectives. Importantly, these strategies must be aligned to ensure that resources are used effectively and that success can be achieved.

Horizontal Alignment

Horizontal alignment of strategies ensures that all strategies work together and are not in competition. A health care organization with one strategy to "decrease length of hospital stays" and another to "reduce the number of hospital re-admissions" might have strategies that are in competition with each other. When establishing business strategies, companies need to look at the big picture to ensure that strategies in one part of the organization are not inadvertently and inappropriately impacting the ability to achieve strategies in another part of the organization.

Operational Alignment

Operational alignment of strategies ensures that the work will actually be done. While strategies indicate how goals and objectives will be accomplished, tactics indicate specifically what needs to be done to accomplish them. Many companies have scarce resources and, because of this, it is important that strategies are carefully designed and aligned to ensure the effective use of those resources. Operational alignment is the point at which the planning team will determine who will do the work, when, how and with what required resources.

Alignment, within a business context, is the way a business is arranged to approach its strategies to ensure resources are all working in the same direction toward the company’s stated goals. Alignment itself, of course, is making sure things are lined up properly with regards to one another and an external reference of some sort; the same is applied to business management philosophy, to ensure departments and policies are all lined up in a way that will move the company closer to its objectives.

Vertical Alignment in Business

In this context, vertical alignment in business refers to the alignment within the company, ensuring that resources are all set up in place to contribute to the company’s goals. Horizontal alignment makes sure strategies are not competing with each other, and helps align a business with its suppliers and customers outside the company. These two strategic positions work together to keep the business focused on policies for success, much like adjustment on an axis.

Vertical alignment means that everyone in the business is aware of the company’s goals, understands them and is aware of how their own personal work contributes to these goals. Anyone within the management hierarchy, from top executives to entry-level workers, should be able to explain the impact their particular position has on the company’s overall strategy. This helps to ensure that work done at every level will eventually support the company’s overall objectives. It keeps the focus on the big picture even in departments where the little details are handled.

Benefits of Vertical Alignment

This vertical structure, with the company’s goals filtered down through layers of management and departments, does offer advantages to the company. It encourages coordination and collaboration between departments, since employees can find common ground in the way their projects and work supports the overarching goals of the organization.

Vertical alignment encourages efficiency; if all employees have some understanding of how their work affects the bottom line, they’ll put more energy toward that type of work, as success for the company also means success for the employees. It helps employees feel more engaged with their work, and thus more invested in the company and the company’s objectives.

Importance of Strong Leadership

The way to make a vertical alignment work successfully is to ensure strong leadership – at the top of the company, yes, but at all middle management levels as well. For the goals to properly filter down to each level, leaders have to understand them fully and commit to them in all of their work interactions.

Strong leadership helps to have concepts float upward as well; top leadership should engage with employees on multiple levels to make sure projects are staying aligned and that the message is not being diluted by other business concerns. It also helps leaders adjust targets if necessary, based on the actual output from their employees.

Clear and Concise Goals

The other key is to make sure the business’ goals are all clear, concise and understood at all levels. Strong, decisive goals can be easily translated into middle management and daily tasks, while goals with too much superfluous language or without clear definition are hard for employees to grasp. Be sure the goals push employees to do their best without becoming unobtainable. The goals should represent the real heart of the company, looking at where the business needs to be both next year and in five years.

Being sure to vertically align resources within a company structure is a good way to ensure everyone contributes to common goals and works together for company success. Employees at all levels will find value within their work, and leaders will be better able to keep the company moving forward.

What is a HR vertical alignment?

Vertical alignment represents the degree to which HR practices (and the collective HR system) specifically focus on identified strategic organizational objectives. Such HR practices are designed to make stra- tegic impact.

What is horizontal and vertical alignment in business?

Vertical alignment describes a condition in which every employee can articulate the enterprise's strategy and explain how his or her daily work activities support that strategy. Horizontal alignment breaks through the boundaries that so often separate companies from their customers.

What is horizontal fit in HRM?

Horizontal fit refers to the internal consistency of the organisation's HR policies or practices, and vertical fit refers to the congruence of the HR system with other organisational characteristics such as firm strategy. An ideal configuration would be one with the highest degree of horizontal fit.

What is horizontal alignment in strategy?

Horizontal alignment focuses on the goals of individual departments and how they relate to the goals of others, for example, whether overlaps exist. Vertical alignment works to establish how departmental goals relate to the hierarchical level above them.

Vertical alignment meaning