HR business model Canvas: definition and key activities (2024)

HR Business Model Canvas is a tool to explore the feasibility of HR strategies in a visual and effective way.

This way of classifying the key components in the development of a business model helps you to work on critical aspects in the relationship with your employees and potential candidates.

In this article, in addition to defining what an HR Business Model Canvas is, we will give you some examples of how you can use it.

We will also look at some examples of key activities that you can integrate into your organization.

What is an HR Business Model Canvas?

An HR Business Model Canvas is an adaptation of the Business Model Canvas to the needs of a company’s Human Resources department and helps to define an organization’s recruitment and talent retention strategy in a very visual way.

Thanks to this model, a company’s management and leaders can assess the most relevant aspects of their strategy and help HR activities become actions of value for everyone.

In terms of the underlying business model developed by Alexander Osterwalder, the information is structured around 9 criteria that correspond to 4 essential areas:

1. Who are you targeting?
2. What is your added value?
3. What infrastructure do you need?
4. Which is the economic viability of your project?

To adapt this model to your HR strategy, you must consider the candidates of a recruitment process or the human capital of your company as customers and place them at the center of all your actions.

Strategic goals of the HR Business Model Canvas

The HR Business Model Canvas is developed on the basis of a series of objectives that can be summarized in an essential one: improving the employee experience in order to increase the company’s results and enhance its competitiveness.

Some of the actions addressed in this methodology are the following:

• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your human capital management strategy in relation to your company’s objectives.
• Develop specific activities to achieve the company’s objectives.
• Define and segment the company’s profiles to retain talent, but also to define the target candidate in detail.
• Determine the best channels to utilize resources.
• Evaluate the impact and value of HR strategies.

This classification of talent and structuring of HR actions improves the recruitment rate by attracting candidates who are in tune with the company’s culture, which directly reduces the employee turnover rate.

HR Business Model Canvas explained and examples

The HR Business Model Canvas takes the 9 basic components of the Business Model Canvas and adapts them to human resource management, where the customer, the focus of the actions, becomes the employee or candidate.

The following table illustrates the process and gives some examples.

Because of its great relevance, it is appropriate to develop in detail this last section, which is closely related to the value proposition in the Business Model Canvas, before concluding this article.

Key activities Business Model Canvas

The key activities are those that are mandatory for your HR business model to work and that must meet the needs of your value proposition and the roadmap you have set.

These activitites can be organized as follows:

• For developing value propositions.
• To resolve conflicts or blockages.
• To maintain structure.

In these 3 aspects, the key activities must be focused on fulfilling the value proposition.

Here is a practical example:

If your value proposition is the company’s involvement in your employees’ career plans, the key activities may revolve around training and coaching programs.

These are necessary to provide them with the skills, competencies and knowledge that will ensure their development within the company.

As far as conflicts are concerned, you must work to reduce the gap between the employee’s expectations and those of the company.

And regarding the maintenance of the structure, you should consider the need to automate the processes thanks to some specific software, as well as analyze the profile of the trainers and evaluators you need.

At Smowltech we help our clients to create an environment that is conducive to the implementation of HR strategies thanks to innovative and flexible proctoring plans.Ask for a free, no-obligation demo so we can explain the professional solutions we can offer you to improve your training and assessment processes.