Modern HR is agile HR

A growing number of HR professionals are exploring the possibilities and looking at ways to manage volatility, enhance adaptability, and strengthen the organization by applying Agile methodologies to their talent-management processes.

Why does HR need to know what it means to become Agile?

Agile generally first starts growing in the software development teams to enable short time to market delivery and enhancing the ability to respond to changes. When people start working as agile teams, in order to work better, collaborate, focus on value and commit to a common goal some fundamental HR process changes need to be adapted.

We were increasingly aware of the fact that if the HR policies and processes are not adapted to an agile context, these teams start facing impediments which they can’t solve themselves. This aspects decreases the efficiency of the teams and prevents growth in the agile mindset.

So, HR departments should handle these organizational impediments in order to support the teams. If companies desire their teams to be productive they must ensure their HR teams know what it means to become Agile.

Becoming agile is not only adapting the practices, it’s also a mindset shift. For the cultural movement towards agility to begin, these teams need to be supported in a continuous learning environment by the HR policies.

Today, HR teams are being asked more than ever before. From hiring to compliance, productivity and retention, the employee experience, leadership, learning and development and more - HR is the foundation of successful companies.

The growth of HR teams and their expanding capabilities depends on shaking up old practices and trying out concepts like agile HR. The agile methodology can be applied to many components of the HR practice.

Here are some issues that HR should pay attention when working in the agile context:

•                    When recruiting new team members. Recruiting a super intelligent and skilled professional is not enough, you also need to look for people who are willing to work as a team member, people who are open to changes and can adapt to changing team dynamics.

•                    Work with management to provide an environment that enables teams to make decisions. For Agile teams to be productive and nimbly responsive to change they need to be authorized to make decisions according to the feedback they receive from their clients. If they are not able to make decisions and are always stuck with long decision making processes, this limits their agility. By enabling them to make decisions, even if only in a constrained environment, agility accelerates.

•                    Provide an environment that enables growth of an agile mindset.  HR needs to encourage Agile values in the management teams. They should encourage people to be transparent, bold, able to learn from their failures and develop themselves into servant leaders.

•                    Training and talent growing. Becoming agile is about a state of continuous learning and trying to change for the better.

•                    Organizational agility. To be able to gain organizational agility all the departments/ teams should work aligned, knowing what is the value they need to deliver. They all need to see what is happening and what needs to be done in what order and collaborate with each other. HR again needs to work with management to support this collaborative working environment and cultural mind shift.

•                    Develope and help companies to apply the right performance management systems. If these systems encourage only individual performance or are stuck with the wrong KPI’s, you kill the heart of agile working. A system measuring success should be adapted and formed around encouraging teams to get better, being careful to avoid fake results created by cheating the system.

Resuming, we can not ignore the fact that people in HR need to know Agile and can actually benefit from applying Agile practices. Although Agile is originated in software development, it is clear that it is useful and effective in every domain.

Agile is not only practices, but also a set of values and principles which correspond to each domain. HR departments are in a state of becoming,  and therefore they are naturally suitable for companies that become Agile.