When trying to get a handle on creating a HR strategy, it can be hard to know where to start. That’s where an HR SWOT analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, comes into play.

It’s an analysis that “is often used to define strategies,” said Erik van Vulpen, founder of the Academy to Innovate HR, and it is a useful tool that companies can use at the kick off to any strategy planning process, especially for HR.

“HR should have specific priorities. Otherwise, you don’t know what you’re supposed to do if you want to add value to the organization,” he said.

An HR SWOT analysis is typically run “very early on in your strategy process,” he added, and done in four parts: identify strengths, understand weaknesses, uncover opportunities and identify threats.

Here’s how those break down:

Identifying strengths

This is the fun part: Ask what your company is already doing well within the human resources department. “Maybe you’re very good at upskilling people. Maybe you have good internal processes to make sure people stay with you,” he said. These strengths are internal factors within HR that can help direct an organization’s goals.

Understand weaknesses

This part is perhaps less fun than identifying strengths, but just as, if not more, important, because weaknesses can’t be improved upon unless they’re out in the open. “We ask the question, ‘What can we improve in our HR organization?’” said van Vulpen, again focusing on internal issues. “Maybe you’re not so good at building a highly diverse culture and have a bit of a monoculture. That would be a weakness, for example,” he added.

Uncover opportunities

This is where looking outside of the organization starts coming into play: What are some of the trends happening in the marketplace that your organization could use to its advantage? An opportunity, for example, might be harnessing new technology, like AI, and incorporating it into a strategy plan.

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