The Impact Of Work Force Agility On Business

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The Impact of Work Force Agility on Business Performance

Moira de Roche

General Manager

Laragh Skills

But really …..

.. The presentation is more about what it is and how to achieve it!

153,000 hits on Google

“Workforce Agility: The New Employee Strategy for the Knowledge Economy”. (wikipedia)

Ask why not or what if, not yes but!

People used to work according to the risingand setting of the sun.

Reminder

If a man time-traveled from 1900 to 1950

What would have changed?

Supermarkets

Airplanes

Cars

Radios

Antibiotics

Skyscrapers

1950 Social world would still be the same as in 1900

• Same divisions of labour

• Same work day

• He would wear a suit and tie to work

• Few women in the workplace

• Marry young

And if he traveled from 1950 to 2000 ….

What would have changed?

Today ….

• Physical landscape not changed much • Still drive his car to work• More “appliances”

– Computers– CD Roms, DVD’s– ATM’s– Cellphones– Use of “gadgets” quickly make them commonplace

• But he might be disappointed– Why can’t I go to the moon for my holiday?– Where are all the robots?

Social changes will have the biggest impact …

• New dress code

• New schedule

• New rules

• New social networking

Time travel Conclusion

• First time traveler (1900 – 1950) had to adjust to drastic technological changes

• Second traveler (1950 – 2000) – deeper, more pervasive change

The deep and enduring changes of our age are not technological but social and cultural. They are thus harder to see, for they result from the gradual accumulation of small, incremental changes in our day-to-day lives. These changes have been building for decades and are only now coming to the fore.

Ponder on this….

Romanticizing the future

• Manage careers as virtual “free agents”– Free from bureaucratic incompetence– Away from the inanities of office life

• Come together in online communities

• Shop on-line

• Give up long commutes in favour of working from wherever you happen to be

The reality is ….

• Working harder than ever before

• Destroying human connections

• Losing the strong sense of community

• We pack every moment full of activities & experiences

“The workplace is evolving into an increasingly stressful and dehumanizing “white-collar sweatshop” in Jill Fraser’s view, beset by long hours and chronic overwork “

“White-Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and Its Rewards in Corporate America “

A matter of some concern

Time then and now

Challenges facing business today

• Reducing fixed operating costs – Reduce office costs

• Confronting the coming talent shortage – Improve work conditions– Reduce stress on workers by using

technology to create virtual offices

• Institutionalizing innovation – Rise of the “Creative class”– Do you punish failure?

What is Work Force Agility?

• Common goal, with ambiguous meaning

• Common thread – the accelerating speed of change

• “Work is not a place you go to, it is something you do”

A definition

• An agile business “can move quickly, decisively and effectively in anticipating, initiating and taking advantage of change”.

Qualities of agile companies• Continual focus on profitability and revenue

growth• Understanding central priorities• Sustained commitment to communication that

starts from the top• Acquiring & filtering pertinent information from

and to key constituents, rapidly• Testing assumptions & frequently measuring

results• Having a performance culture• Enabling shared decision making• Adapting rapidly to change

The role of technology

• Core asset or primary obstacle to change?

• Becomes more complex over time

• Business demanding greater outputs

• Service Oriented Architecture can increase business flexibility

• Enterprise technology often too rigid

IT must reinvent itself• Become an enabler for high performers

– Enabling workplace• Unstructured, exploratory, creative, collaborative,

learning

• Let go of the notion that it must manage all IT– Share with other business users

Some challenges

• Fundamental resistance to change: Communication and change management

• Managing the programs on an extended scale: Organizational structure and review

• Impact of the Programs on day-to-day operations: Accountability and training

• Leadership agility– Employees follow leaders actions, not their words

What I learned from frogs in Texas by Jim Carroll

From my perspective, too many people and organizations have lost their momentum; they’re stuck in a rut, spinning their wheels. They are ill-equipped to cope with change, and don’t have the mindset to fuel future innovation.”

Ask managers, What are your biggest fears?

• They would never come into the office—I would never see them again.

• They wouldn’t do any work Teamwork would suffer—employees wouldn’t talk to each other.

• Corporate culture would get lost; there wouldn’t be any shared values.

• I wouldn’t be able to give employees direction or monitor their progress

• Clients would think we were unprofessional.• I’d have to spend a lot of money to equip my employees to

work from somewhere else.

Redefining Corporate culture in the Virtual Workplace

• 8 principles– Initiative– Trust– Joy– Individuality– Equality– Dialogue– Connectivity– Workplace options

• All exist – just have to uncover and nurture

Leadership Agility

The Master Competency

Leadership Agility

• Directly analogous to organizational agility

• Ability to take wise and effective action amid complex, rapidly changing conditions.

• Fortune 500 Senior executives in companies identified “agility” as a leadership competency “most needed” for future success

The ‘hire, fire and welfare’ emphasis needs to switch to a focus on performance

Training for Agility

• Ensure that employees have skills & information they need– Weave learning into how they work naturally

– Learning becomes an enable of the corporate mission

• Cross-training– Learn new skills

– Flexible deployment

– Ready to adapt to change quickly

• Training must be on-demand

"Most education and training services have not moved into

the 21st century. To do so would mean that everyone could get all

their training and skills fully tailored to their needs and personal learning style."

“21st Century Skills urgently needed”, Training Zone newsletter, 23 Apr 2008

Accenture - results of creating agile workplace

Some evidence

When people have the mobility and connectivity to work from remote locations (whether that is a client site, hotel, or home), individual and organizational performance improves.

From “Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace” by Cynthia C. Froggatt

Case Study 1

• Marshall Simmonds – search engine specialist• Lives in Oregon, recruited by Company in New York• Wanted job, reluctant to give up outdoors life style• Benefits:

– Marshall – does work he loves and keeps his healthy lifestyle

– Company – has access to his talents, and does not have to relocate him

Case Study 2

• Cynthia Doyle, Head of HR for a large New York bank

• Husband transferred to Boston

• Telecommutes when necessary

• Benefits– Bank keeps employee of 10 years standing– Cynthia keeps a job she loves, and has time to

spend with her family

Making the change• Assess business requirements, capabilities, and audit

processes. • Define a workplace strategy, complete with a vision of

its business value and impact. • Make specific tactical and operational

recommendations for change. – Speak to all players, especially workers

• Implement a staged plan of action. • Evaluate outcomes and make additional changes as

needed.• Create a “Built to Change” organization • Move from HR Management to HE Management

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Albert Einstein

Conclusions

• Technology is an enabler– Instead of office space, give your workers technology

• Laptop computers

• Wireless broadband

• Encourage collaboration

– Availability of contextual information will be critical

• On demand learning• Encourage Social networking

• A Flat World Demands Collaboration & Cooperation

Thank you

Bibliography• White Papers – “The Impact of Work Force Agility on Business Performance” and

“Cross Training for Workforce agility”, by John Ambrose• Corporate Agility: A Revolutionary New Model for Competing in a Flat World,

by Charles E. Grantham, James P. Ware and Cory Williamson  • The Rise of the Project Workforce: Managing People and Projects in a Flat World

by Rudolph Melnik• Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change

by William B. Joiner and Stephen A. Josephs • The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure,

Community and Everyday Life by Richard Florida• Increasing profit through Workforce agility –

www.smart-workforce.com• Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual

Workplace by Cynthia C Froggatt• Future Business – The game has changed by Guy Krige et al