Agility: What Does it Look Like for HR?

Key Insights

• Business agility is the ability of the organisation to adapt to market changes, respond rapidly and flexibly to customer demands and to adapt and lead change in a productive and cost-effective way without compromising quality.

• A growing body of evidence suggests that Agility has the capacity to transform a company’s time to market, delivery efficiency and employee engagement.

• Current industry leaders in agility include Amazon, ING, Starbucks, Renault Nissan, Contargo, Dow, Shell and the British National Health Service. In general, the sectors at the cutting edge of agility are Tech and Media, Telecoms, Insurance and Banking and Retail.

• At the heart of Agility lie two key enablers: the ability to use digital transformation to create online services, client apps and stores; and restructuring the organization to promote more efficient day to day working.

• A good example is in ING where cross-disciplinary “squads” are advised by specialist “tribes”. Squads, the basis for ING’s approach to agility, are self-steering, autonomous teams of no more than nine people made up of representatives of different functions working in a single location that are responsible for achieving a client objective and are dismantled as soon as the mission is executed. Tribes are collections of squads with interconnecting objectives that collectively establish mutual priorities, allocate mutual budgets and share knowledge with other tribes.

• Agility in HR has the capacity to radically improve employee experience and make HR a better place to work.

• Key roles for HR in the Agility journey include supporting lines of business undergoing HR transformation and re-organizing the way the HR function works to fit in and mirror the new business structure adopted by the wider business.

• TCB members think that Agility is a great business concept, but that it requires “de-jargonizing” and customization to make it real. Starting “slow and small” was a consensus opinion of the group, but members also recognize that, for some, there may be a “burning platform” opportunity with the COVID crisis to advance step-level change in Agile adoption.

• Agile strategies need to be contextualised according to each company’s circumstances and situations. HR functions should consider three factors: the degree of buy in, the ability of the organization to absorb change, and the capacity for change.