Agile Human Resource Management: January 2021
Agile Human Resource Management: January 2021
Agile Human Resource Management: January 2021
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V.R. Ranasinghe
Lecturer (Probationary), Department of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Commerce and
Management Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.
vimanshar@kln.ac.lk
Y.M.S.W.V. Sangaradeniya
Lecturer (Probationary), Department of Human Resource Management, Faculty of Commerce and
Management Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.
sangarandeniya@kln.ac.lk
Introduction
There is a burgeoning interest in agile HRM in the current business world as many organizations
have steered their strategies and practices for agile practices in many areas in their organizations
such as project management, operations management, human resource management, and beyond.
Employees want more flexibility and autonomy when working, and they want to recognize their
hard work and effort. Nowadays, there is a fast-growing trend to apply this agility to the human
resource management context. Treating employees as individuals is a major part of Agile HRM.
There are two different Agile HRM perspectives in practice as ‘HRM for Agile’ and ‘Agile for
HRM’. Most of the time, practitioners refer to ‘HRM for agile’ to explain the design and
implementation of the HRM systems that facilitate the agile implementation in the organization.
‘Agile for HRM’ refers to agile principles and practices which are applied to the operations of the
HRM functions.
What is Agility?
According to Teich and Faddoul (2013), agile refers to the continuous methodology to maximize
customer value while minimizing the waste or maximize/expand the ability to develop and deliver
goods and services more efficiently with better quality. Agile concepts operate at different levels
from philosophy and culture and affect the leader’s role and behaviour and the teams and
individual employees. The concept of agility was first applied in the IT software development
industry as a solution to the drawbacks of the waterfall model. The waterfall model was very
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popular in the 1970s regarding project management systems. Basically, in this method, the
progress is measured step by step. However, there was little room for flexibility and errors
(Thoren, 2017).
Agile is not only for technology anymore (Cappelli & Tavis, 2021). It has made its way into many
other key areas and functions that an organization focuses on, such as product development,
manufacturing, marketing, etc. Now it is transforming how organizations attract, hire, develop, and
manage their employees. The impact of agile will be massive for HR; recruitment, learning and
development, motivation, engagement, compensation, and performance (Thoren, 2017). In the
business context, ‘agility’ refers to mainly workforce agility which means matching workforce
fluctuations to demand.
The main purpose of agile development is to enable teams to add value, with quality, predictability,
and greater ability to respond to change. The implementation of agile methodologies certainly
affects the way organizations operate. Agile HR is about transforming the way organizational skills
are hired, developed, and maintained.
Nowadays, the role of HR is shifting from administrative function to strategic function. Traditional
HR is focused on implementing standards, policies, etc. Now it focuses more on internal
employees. There are two perspectives on Agile HR.
Agile HR focuses on how HR can apply the agile mindset to different working methods within the
team, group, or organization. Organizations need not be agile to practice agile HR. Simply, it
means higher collaboration, shorter work cycles, and more focus on group contribution. Under an
agile approach, teams would work together to design, develop, and deliver an HR initiative, rather
than each employee working independently according to the instructions given by the top
management.
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Traditional human resource management structures reflect the structures raised through the
industrial revolution. Nowadays, these structures and principles are changing to face this rapidly
changing world. Moreover, in this information and knowledge-intensive era, people and their
needs are given priority over the system needs. Currently, knowledge workers deal with complex
situations while technology change continuously. Table 1 exhibits the difference between
traditional HRM and agile HRM.
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departments in many organizations have taken up appropriate steps to take the responsibility for
such changes.
a. Agile Recruitment
Even though many people consider recruitment as a duty of the human resource management
department, it should be a part of every functional manager’s job. Recruiting also occurs at all
times, and organizations should try to recruit people who are the right fit for the organization. In
this context, employer branding plays a significant role because attraction starts with branding
(Thoren, 2017). Although the organizations are still practicing traditional methods like
advertisements, social media recruitment has become a trend in the current job market. Moreover,
current employees are the best source for finding other talented employees for any organization.
According to Thoren (2017), a simple and flexible approach to the hiring process is more effective
than a step-by-step program. Table 2 shows the difference between traditional recruitment and
agile recruitment.
The companies which adopt agile values will have more effective ways to measure performance.
Thus, in many of these organizations, the first traditional HR practice was the annual performance
review, along with employee goals that poured down from business and unit goals each year. As
individuals worked on short-term projects often led by different leaders and organized into teams,
performance feedback would come once a year, from his/her superior, which mostly make little
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sense to the employees. However, employees need feedbacks more times from various
perspectives.
In many cases, managers did not feel the urgent need to adopt a new feedback model and shifted
their attention to other priorities. But appraisals without a plan to fill the gap was a recipe for
failure. Because of these consequences, many organizations have switched to frequent
performance reviews. By providing more immediate feedback throughout the year, teams can
become more agile, correct errors, and improve performance.
Performance appraisal was mainly done Performance appraisal was mainly done
annually frequently. Continuous coaching and
feedback-giving can be seen in the
organization.
Annual talent review by the manager of the Continuous talent reviews by peers and
employee manager of the employee
The best employee will be recognized by the The best employee will be recognized by
manager peers, managers, and team leaders.
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c. Agile Coaching
Companies that adopt agile talent practices most effectively invest in enhancing managers'
coaching skills. Supervisors also participate in learning sessions. Some organizations hire full-time
professionals, on-site coaches, to help all managers provide better feedback to employees and,
consequently, more broadly, to develop internal training capacities. Most of the time, when an
employee has better experiences and good training, he/she becomes a better coach. Coaching skills
are considered critical to a managerial career.
d. Agile Compensation
Research and practice have shown that compensation works best as a motivator when it comes soon
after the desired behaviour. Instant rewards powerfully reinforce instant opinion. Annual
qualification-based promotions are less effective because more time goes by. According to research
on where market rates are going, the company frequently adjusts pay for each job. The increase may
be excluded when employees take on more challenging projects or go above.
In addition to that, it is important to give employees unexpected rewards (Thoren, 2017). Then
definitely employees are getting motivated as most of the time humans focus on the rewards first.
Employees do not share constructive criticism, knowing that it can have negative financial
consequences for their colleagues. Hence, it is better to create an environment where peers
recognize their coworkers’ accomplishments. Further, each employee should be aware of the
behaviours which are rewarded. Hence it is advisable to celebrate accomplishments publicly. Table
4 shows the difference between traditional reward management and agile reward management.
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Learning and development lead to bring new skills quickly into organizations. Most companies
already have a set of online learning modules that employees can access as needed. It is like giving
a student the key to a library and telling him/her to find what he/she needs to know and learn from
it. In agile learning and development, new approaches are used in data analysis to identify specific
jobs and knowledge, skills, attitudes required for advancement; and then suggest to individual
employees what kind of training and future jobs they need to undertake based on their experience
and interests.
Traditionally, learning and development involve succession planning where the individuals are
selected many years in advance to take on the most important leadership roles, usually hoping that
they will develop specific skills on schedule. The world often fails to cooperate with those plans.
Companies typically see that by the time senior leadership positions open, their needs have changed.
The most common solution is to ignore the plan and start a new search.
In agile learning, responsibility move from the manager to the employee. Employees need to design
their schedule, to-do-list, goals, and education. Agile learning facilitates the creation of T-shaped
employees who have a generalized broad range of skills and competency sets. When there are T-
shaped employees, organizations can practice active rotations between departments or teams.
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Considering the contingent business environment, T-shaped skills are an important toolbox
(Hamdi, Silong, Omar, & Rasdi, 2016). Further, the authors have mentioned that those with T-
shaped skills retain both good knowledge of the discipline and know-how to cooperate with others
to function as a team.
HR has a great responsibility towards the career planning of employees. HR needs to consider
hundreds of people to fill a position in a large organization. Most of the time, this process is
confidential where others get to know the person who was selected for that position after appointing
him/her to that position. Nevertheless, in agile career management, the selection process should be
transparent. There are no strict career paths, and the purpose of agile career management is to develop
competencies. In traditional career management, managers decide about succession, but agile career
management employees nominate future managers. In agile career management, there is
transparency in replacing employees.
Summary
From small organizations to large traditional companies, companies need to move effectively and
efficiently to that organization's success. Nevertheless, many companies are stuck in traditional and
rigid human resource processes and practices that operate against the business rather than support
the business. As a result, the support coming from the human resource practices are slow and
insignificant. However, the active HR suggests that this should not be the case. Agile HR leads to
having higher collaboration, shorter work cycles, and more focus on group contribution. Under an
Agile approach, teams would work together to design, develop, and deliver HR initiatives, rather
than each employee working independently according to the instructions given by the top
management. Hence agile HR practices in organizations open the door to provide continuous
support to achieve their goals and objectives effectively and efficiently.
Reference
Cappelli, P., & Tavis, A., (2021). HR Goes Agile. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from
https://hbr.org/2018/03/hr-goes-agile
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Flemm, R., (2020). Six Ingredients of Agile Organizational Design. Retrieved from
https://www.dcme.nu/the-six-ingredients-of-agile-organizational-design/
Hamdi, S., Silong, A. D., Omar, Z. B., & Rasdi, R. M. Nisar, T. (Reviewing
Editor) (2016). Impact of T-shaped skill and top management support on innovation
speed; the moderating role of technology uncertainty. Cogent Business &
Management, 3 (1), doi: 10.1080/23311975.2016.1153768
Teich, S., & Faddoul, F. (2013). Lean Management – the Journey from Toyota to
Healthcare. Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal, 4(2). doi: 10.5041/rmmj.10107
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