Agile HR: The Change We Need to See
List of SEO Tools to use in 2020
May 30, 2020
Mental Health During COVID-19: The HR Mantle
August 14, 2020
COVID-19 has created challenging times for everyone. With the offices being shut down and working from home becoming the new normal, businesses are positioned in an uncertain and turbulent business environment. The unexpectedness brought on by the pandemic is indescribable. Thousands of employees are being laid off, compensation is being reduced, markets and industries are witnessing drastic shifts, and digital is becoming the preferred means of communication.
In this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, the importance of organisational agility reaches its peak. It has become imperative for organisations to develop an agile mindset, which is to learn from failures, adjust their behavior according to the situations and feedback received, accepting and adapting to changes and, thus resulting in continuous improvement. Agility benefits the organisation by delivering value and delight to the customers timely and by enhancing the quality of the product/service provided. It espouses efficient work processes, team work, transparency and open communication, and ensures more value from less work. Therefore, the need for redesigning organisations to be agile and responsive is urgent.
For any organisation, adapting to the constantly changing environment is a key resource of competitive advantage and sustainability.
The foundation of an agile organisation lies in its agile Human Resources department. Agility is the ability to quickly and easily respond to changes to sustain and succeed in the dynamic business environment. It is an amalgamation of the concepts of:
- Ideation
- Iteration
- Collaboration
- Adaptability
- Foresightedness
- Cross-functional teams
- Short work cycles
- Feedback loops
- Delivering rapid value to the customers, and
- Experimenting
The journey of an agile mindset begins with the transformation of the HR function – transformation from administrative and operational functions to a more strategic and people-engaging function. Agile leadership plays a significant role in leading and guiding this transition by providing a nurturing environment for the employees to grow. The culture of the organisation should foster experimentation, innovation and iteration.
There are steps the HR department can take towards this transition. They can provide employees the information of agile concepts and their application. A feeling of psychological safety should be embedded in the organisation. The annual performance appraisal mechanism should pave way for iterative, rapid and frequent performance appraisal sessions.
Co-creation of goals by the employees and their managers provide more accountability, acceptance and responsibility to the goals decided. A system of personalised rewards and incentives makes employees feel more valued and motivated. The concept of Kanban visualizes the workflow, eliminates bottlenecks, limits the work in process, optimises the flow/process, and implements feedback loops.
Agile hiring practices include building an employer brand, positive talent engagement, providing on time feedback to the candidates and thus reducing the hiring time cycle. Design thinking and design strategy constitute an integral part of the agile journey.
Introducing a coaching culture in organisations helps increase employee productivity through building employee competencies and skills. Autonomous cross-functional teams are able to track their own progress and allow communication to flow in all directions. Continuous multidirectional and instant feedback is a boon of the agile concepts.
The COVID-19 crisis demands HR leaders to be more agile than ever in terms of resilience, adaptability, learning, and foresight. HR departments across organisations are struggling to strike a balance between crisis management and operational continuity of the business during this global crisis. Agility will help the organisations to bring the new skills required to work from home on a long-term basis. Continuous experimentation, feedback and communication will contribute to failing early but failing forward. Agility of HR will create resilience and preparedness in the workforce and provide the organisation with the guiding path out of the current crisis and towards a responsible and bright future.
