The new role of hr in agile organizations

Being agile is a necessary transformation required to stay relevant and competitive in this fast-moving business world. Organizations are striving to be more agile day by day, but this change cannot be brought without the HR function helping the organization. Agility requires a cultural shift in the company’s values, it requires a team-based effort that is transparent and collaborative. 

What are agile organizations? 

An organization may be called agile when it has the following characteristics: 

1. It is highly-customer focused.
2. It is a network of empowered teams that can be assembled and dissolved rapidly. 
3. It is constantly scanning changes in the environment to rapidly adapt to them. 
4. The employees have ‌authority and responsibility so that senior managers are free of micro-managing. 
5. A cycle of continuous experimentation and learning is present. 
6. Action-oriented decision-making takes place and implementation speed is fast. 
7. There is an entrepreneurial drive within the organization. 

How can HR strengthen the agility of an organization? 

It is right to say that agility is a people-oriented process. HR can facilitate better communication between people so that they can collaborate better. HR managers must make quick decisions and create new processes when needed to help the organization be more agile. 

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It takes more than permanent employees to create an agile organization. A company may need freelancers, strategic partners, and outsourcing partners to deliver value to their clients and meet their evolving demands. Being flexible always benefits the business and adjusting to changing trends becomes easy with proper workforce planning. 

Another major contribution of HRM towards organizational agility is making the employees comfortable with change. Agility is a new concept that businesses have adopted to adapt to the fast-changing business environment. Therefore, it is the HR department's role to make the employees understand the agile methods and train them accordingly. Organizational agility cannot be embraced if the employees are resistant to change. 

HR’s responsibility is to create a learning organization. Being agile requires skill sets that may not be currently present in the organization. Hence, it becomes important to keep creating new skill sets within the organization and encouraging employees to learn new things quickly. A culture of continuous learning is essential while trying to reach agility at an organizational level. 

Since the organization is now moving fast, HR functions also need to pick up the pace. Hiring, training, communication, performance management, etc. need to happen at a faster pace to keep up with the organization's needs. New methods need new and latest tools. The most relevant way to increase the pace of HR functions is to invest in HR technology. HR tech tools help managers to do their job in a better and more efficient way. Moreover, managers can make informed decisions about technology by aiding them. Things like data analysis, AI prediction, and automation help make decisions based on data rather than guesswork.

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