AGILE - HR Model

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What is AGILE : Agile stands for a strong focus on the short cyclic delivery of value. Scrum is the most commonly used Agile method. With Scrum, multidisciplinary teams develop their products in short cycles and on the basis of feedback from users.

Agile HR means Flexibility & Looking Forward

The Manifesto states that the customer is the focus of the work. Self-organizing and cross-functional teams are held accountable for the planning, the delivery of projects and the organization of work. But Agile is not just about software development, it’s an innovative approach to run organizations successfully.

The majority of HR processes related to compensation (merit increase), performance appraisals, engagement surveys, workforce and succession planning are designed on a yearly basis. Many HR functions still operate like they did back in the 90’s; using talent practices that cannot meet the technological and customer demands of a digital world that is creating a very dynamic market environment. HR should be more than an operational-executor parent.

We are entering the age of Agile. Therefore the focus for HR should be on:

• Delivering customer engagement and satisfaction.
• Working in small teams (7-10) in short cycles.
• Minimizing micromanagement and networked organizational arrangements (instead of top-down bureaucracy and silos to solve complex problems).

Agility is a strategic approach to bring innovation, break functional silos and empower multidisciplinary teams to be self-managed with a customer-centric focus while accelerating profitable growth in the process.

Agile is all about Constant Innovation

The 3 Agile HR Practices are :

So, the change what Agile say's is :

1. Move from Fixed Hierarchy model to Collaborative, Creative and Adaptive network.
2. Move from Individuals to Team and System Focus.
3. Replace Manual Reviews with Continuous Feedback.
4. Adopt Agile Recruiting.
5. Move daily tasks to OKR's

Now, the question comes, How can HR Help Organizations to Change the Mindset ?

What can be done is :

1. With the Internal processes focus on supporting the employee experience. This in a way helps achieve Transparency, Continuous Feedback, Continuous Improvement, Motivation, High Trust Environment.
2. Decentralization, this in a way helps bringing empowerment.This helps bring collaborative and creative environment.
3. Keep doing positive changes. This will help bring innovations. Agile says, Inspect, Change, Share, Learn, Adapt. Keep monitoring the processes and bring positive change and keep innovating.
4. Try build Servant Leadership. Build flat structures instead of hierarchy structure for more collaboration.
5. Operate with Peer Review Feedback model.
6. Don't create things alone or in silos. Always encourage collaborative thinking with joint inputs. This will help bring trust in the system, people will start feeling as owners instead of followers.
7. Create Strategic Value driven culture.

Some of the top most priorities of HR should be :

1. Focus on overall employee experience.
2. Coach organization towards evolutionary purpose.
3. Encourage Agile Leadership + System Coaching + large group facilitation.

Approach to Follow :

1. People Over Processes & Tools : For HR, this is related to the Employee Experience. Global trends are changing the workplace and organizations. HR needs to partner with Marketing, IT and Operations to set up cross-functional teams to design an employee experience that’s linked to value. Technology, demographic shifts, an augmented workforce and artificial intelligence are challenging HR to understand that “one size doesn’t fit all anymore”. It is necessary to customize jobs, performance practices, learning and career paths. People behave and learn in a different way. Therefore it’s the responsibility of HR to create practices/experiences that impact our people and customer experience.This way HR is building a brand-new value proposition to acquire—and retain—the best talent. For example, an employee segmentation, using people analytics, will allow HR to understand the characteristics, behaviors and needs to design different compensation plans, learning contents, and customized work-schedules. The message here is: in order to deliver solutions with a competitive advantage, personalization and speed are top Agile priorities for HR.
2. Working Prototype Over Excessive Documentation : Instead of waiting to execute projects or programs, HR can boost a mindset shift where it can prototype solutions focused on serving customers. This is a great opportunity for HR to use practical tools to deliver solutions. Instead of using the traditional Waterfall project management approach, HR can use Design Thinking. To “Empathize” and learn about its internal customer needs in order to “Define” the problem and “Ideate” some initial options to “Prototype” solutions and “Testing”. Start in small groups/ functions and learn from experimentation and feedback.
3. Respond to Change rather than follow a Plan : Prepare the Organization for change.To deliver value, it is necessary to prepare the organization for change. A new business strategy will require a brand-new culture, different behaviors, skills, and structure. It also requires an HR function that can facilitate this (transformational) change in order to reduce resistance, align the organization and communicate the necessary changes across stakeholders.
4. Customer Collaboration Over Rigid Contract : Agile HR should be about creating incentives, compensation and recognition programs with a clear line of sight to engage customers. Work with legal and compliance to facilitate the process and to avoid roadblocks that will make the organization lose momentum.

Final Thoughts :

• To understand what qualities are required to support an agile way of working, it’s essential to learn about Agile methodologies and their impact on organizations (benchmark).
• To build an agile HR function, HR needs to embrace the same Agile principles as the business while acquiring new skills, top talent, more IT expertise and deeper knowledge about teams and network organizations.
• Agile means being focused on short cycles, cross-functional teams, accountability, empowerment and a customer-centric approach to solve challenging problems. Yet HR regularly works in annual (or, at best, quarterly) cycles. Agile HR needs to focus on sprint HR solutions that are linked to business outcomes, culture and the work style of the organization.
• Partner with IT, marketing and key business functions to set up an initial plan.
• Use Design Thinking to assess your organization, to define the talent practice and design HR interventions.
• Start with one practice at a time- it’s a long-term commitment- building it up practice by practice.
• New practices have to be relevant to the business. Remember that each organization is different but the main focus is on a customer-centered orientation.
• Train business leaders across your organization in agile methodologies. Agile teams need to be fully supported by business leaders to deliver sprint solutions.

As organizations across the globe strive to become more responsive, customer-centric, digitized and collaborative, HR needs to not only redesign its processes and systems to support Agile but in many cases actively lead the associated organizational-wide transformation. 

The take-up of Agile by HR is also intrinsically linked to an intense focus on the employee experience, and a heightened awareness that to attract great people, it’s vital to create a great place to work or even contribute to the broader community in which they live.

At the heart of Agile is the customer and understanding how business value is driven through customer value is central to any interpretation of Agile HR. Indeed, often the first realization is how some HR processes can restrict or harm the customer value chain within an organization as they can be driven by an internal, rather than an outside-in focus. When translated into HR, this customer-centricity then places the employee, our people, at the heart of what HR do. As a result, HR’s work becomes human-centric, with the aim of building user-friendly solutions that are driven through the needs and feedback of their people and teams.

Hope You all Agree !!

Happy Holidays and Enjoy Reading !!

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