Agility is not just confined to one's ability to think or move quickly, but it also encompasses an ever-changing workplace and cultural norms
There are many buzzwords floating about in the modern day workplace but agility seems to top the list. Agility is not just confined to one’s ability to think or move quickly, but it also encompasses an ever-changing workplace and cultural norms that have been challenged and changed drastically since the beginning of 2020. A significant change in the modern workplace allowing individuals to work from home, dress more casually, and manipulate their own hours to suit family and personal needs, has resulted in employers having to become agile too.
“In today's fast-paced, unpredictable world, new disruptions threaten success for organisations that aren't agile in the face of change,” Brian Donn, managing director for Ceridian ANZ, said. “Disruptions can make the workforce feel off-balanced, even fearful, because of the uncertainties. However, change is constant – as we have seen in the past 18+ months -- and being agile means being able to adapt to change and thrive in it.
Agile organisations can help their people become resilient by cultivating a change-ready culture through learning, developing resilient leadership through comprehensive succession planning, and adopting agile systems to optimise processes and make informed decisions through accurate data.”
This has made the role of human resources even more challenging and complex. A diversified workforce spread out across the country in a variety of remote locations makes it extremely difficult to keep track of conversations, work performance and relationships. If a work issue arises the time taken to resolve the matter can be drawn out and even harder to resolve given the different locations and the ability to get people in one room face to face. People react contrarily when confronted face to face.
“Human resources role has expanded and is essential to guiding stakeholder decisions with the company's culture and values while helping employees cope with disruptions,” Donn said. “As front liners of the organisation to the workforce, human resources has an opportunity to be the voice of the employees and lead the discussion on employee experience.
“Whereas a positive employee experience was once relegated to a nice-to-have workplace perk, it is now inextricably tied to our businesses' basic resilience and sustainable growth. Organisations will need to invest more time, energy, and budget in creating experiences that employees of all roles and modes will love and engage with – especially in today's environment.
“This means harnessing modern technologies in the workplace and leveraging the intersection of technology and culture to create a work environment that meets people where they are, drives greater harmonisation between work/life and ultimately helps to attract and retain the right people.”
There is also the issue of training on new software and trying to ensure that people are comfortable with different platforms. There has been a lot of software clutter in the workplace and too many platforms being used to communicate with staff, along with a myriad of folders.
“Technology must be aligned with organisational needs to help the workforce adapt to change,” Donn said. “Leaders must identify barriers preventing them from making workforce decisions, adopt technologies that empower all users to make real-time data-driven decisions, and implement systems that bring value to your organisation today and scale for future needs.
Read more: Ceridian Review
“A vast majority (78%) of the 2022 Ceridian Executive Survey respondents said that human capital management software helps their organisation prepare for change. However, there is more untapped potential in human capital management software that organisations are not looking at to prepare for change – the most significant challenge was a lack of integration (53%), lack of feature usage (43%), and lack of useful data (43%). Leaders need workforce data to manage disruptions effectively; however, data is often siloed by the system or functional area, leading to inaccurate and outdated data. As a result, leaders can't be prepared to manage any disruption without the proper data to make informed business decisions.”
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