As a business owner, you have certain expectations from your employees. You want to create a reliable workforce for the future of your business. Of course, productivity, discipline, diligence, and innovation are among the most vital attributes you look for in your employees. But to have a competitive advantage over others, you need more. You need an agile workforce that can drive incredible positive changes in the workplace.
The most vibrant feature of the corporate world is its dynamic nature. Today, in the era of new working styles and technological innovations, we see some massive changes. For instance, telecommuting or hybrid offices were not as popular five years ago. Such dynamic changes will keep coming with greater acceleration in the future. Having an agile workforce is hence essential for securing the fate of your organization.
But what exactly is an agile workforce or agile working? What makes agility a salient competitive edge? This blog elucidates the attributes of an agile workforce. Besides, it creates a correlation between these characteristics and organizational success. You will be able to decipher why agile working is so desirable for businesses. Before we shed light on these attributes, let us glance at what agile working signifies.
What is agile working and what does it mean to have an agile workforce?
The exact definition of agile working will be different from the perspective of each organization. Like most terms and ideas, businesses perceive agility in their own subjective ways. To generalize, agile working is based on the belief that work is an activity and not an office or place. It is driven by the “anytime, anyplace, anywhere” attitude when it comes to working. Hence, having an agile workforce gives you an extraordinary class of employees.
Agile working is all about finding the most efficient approach to organizational tasks and goals. It aims to bring human capital, processes, technology, workplace, and time together to achieve the desired results. Investing in an agile workforce can hence be a worthwhile business decision. You can build a forward-thinking workforce that is not deterred by challenges or rather loves them. You can well imagine your business scaling new heights, isn’t it?
As we further delve deeper into the traits of an agile workforce, you will understand its significance even better. You can then look to identify the most agile employees in your organization. This identification is critical to recognizing potential leaders within your organization. Further, you will know who your most reliable employees are to be trusted in times of crisis. Having said that, without further ado, let us discuss the attributes of agile employees.
Tangible attributes of an agile workforce
Driven by goals: Agile workers can be best described in terms of clarity of purpose. They are clear about their outlook on every task and they are driven by goals at all times. In an agile workforce, people realize their goals and have an uncompromising vision to achieve them. Time and place do not affect their commitment and diligence towards their goals. For them, the priority is to deliver the best possible results in their work commitments.
Such employees are also able to align their goals better with the goals of the organization. They work on agile principles to accomplish their goals and that adds immense value to the company. Furthermore, people driven by goals are passionate about their work and responsibilities. You can trust such employees with the most important tasks and they would not let you down. Imagine how successful businesses would be if each employee was driven by goals.
Employees driven by goals and passion prove to be real assets for any organization. In the following ways, they add to the functioning and success of an organization.
- They are not deterred by challenges
- They understand how much their goals mean to every stakeholder
- They are not resistant to change
- They are willing to take up additional responsibilities
- They show higher levels of employee engagement
- They are self-motivated and focused
- They are receptive to feedback
So, as you can see, it is imperative to have an agile workforce driven by goals. Such employees will become a source of inspiration for others. In fact, they will be the best suited to take up leadership roles in the near future. But, to develop an agile workforce driven by goals, it is important for you to clearly convey what your employees should expect and what they actually need to do. Employee on boarding videos can help you make it clear to your workforce.
Performance-oriented: Performance-oriented: People’s reputation is not based on their goals but on the accomplishment of goals. Goals in the absence of performance are irrelevant to an employee and the organization. What is more imperative is to be performance-oriented. It is not enough to have a great idea and create a good product if it cannot be valuable, usable and feasible for your target customers. You need to discover the full end user experience. You should be able to see the performance of your product beforehand. It is only then that you can move in the right direction required to achieve the desired performance in the market. How many of your employees do you think are performance-oriented? As per a Gallup report, 51 percent of employees are disengaged. It is hence evident that not every employee is a performer.
When you are able to create an agile workforce, you will see the overall performance of your business gaining significantly. This is because individual performances will accumulate to redefine the performance of your business. For agile workers, performance is a top priority and will always be. For them, growth is paramount and they know that performance is the path to it.
For them, work is not a mere obligation but they rather believe in proving their mettle.
When you have a team driven by performance, they will succeed more often than not. Of course, some failures are inevitable and are a part and parcel of life. But an agile workforce will not quit and will bounce back after each failure. They will not view their jobs in terms of meeting the daily quota of working hours. They will rather work in a relentless way to perform and claim their bragging rights. You would love working with such people, won’t you?
Have high acceptance for new technologies: In contemporary times, technology is the greatest driving force bringing changes in the workplace. In times of the ongoing pandemic, remote working is on the rise as most businesses have gone virtual. As per Global Workplace Analytics, the number of remote workers has risen by 150 percent since 2015. Needless to say, a large part of this growth comes from the complete switch to remote working due to the pandemic.
The bottom line is that today, there is automation everywhere. The future belongs to the organizations that integrate technological innovations in real-time and utilize them. For that, your workforce should be able to embrace the developments in technology. This is where having an agile workforce becomes so important. Agile employees show greater adaptability to technology.
As per an article on Forbes, remote working is the way ahead. It is a viable and safe option in this pandemic but it will become a choice on the other side of it. Forbes predicts that by 2025, 70 percent of the global workforce will be telecommuting. Also, as many as 74 percent of employers will allow permanent work from home to their employees. The future is remote and your business needs to prepare for it.
You do not want the lack of technical proficiency among your employees to be a drawback for your business. An agile workforce will not let you down at all. As stated above, they show greater comfort with new technologies. For successful remote working, businesses will need to rely on collaborative tools, communication tools, project tracking tools, and so on. Agile employees will be sincere to learn about these tools.
Having a workforce that shows great comfort with new technology means having a futuristic workforce. They will know how to optimize the use of technology for delivering the best results. That is where your business gets another dimension of competitive edge.
Exhibit greater flexibility: Flexibility is the latest buzzword in the corporate world. What makes flexible working a more popular idea is the culture of remote working. Employees enjoy flexible working hours and the autonomy to work at a time that suits them the best. However, in terms of an agile workforce, flexibility has a different contextual meaning.
An agile workforce will rather use flexibility to enhance performance. They look to make the most of the liberty and empowerment that a flexible working culture offers. Productivity may not be the top priority for everyone in a remote or flexible workplace. It is quite practical to say that! But agile employees look at it from a different purview. They look to use flexibility to augment their productivity.
Interestingly, 77 percent of workers feel they are more productive when they work from home. This is a credible stat based on the findings of CoSo Cloud. To add, FlexJobs cites that 75 percent of workers opine that remote working has fewer distractions. So, it is evident that sincere employees measure the benefits of flexibility in terms of increased productivity. That is exactly the kind of flexibility you need from your agile workforce!
Flexible employees will not limit themselves to working for a set number of hours. They will show greater enthusiasm to go the extra mile for organizational goals. Besides, they would not mind working on a holiday if it is imperative to do so. The goal-driven attitude will bring out the maximum efficiency in them even when you are not supervising them. You will not have to micromanage your employees as long as you have an agile workforce.
They will be flexible enough to incorporate the necessary changes and improvements. Besides, they will endorse greater flexibility to switch between technologies if needed. At last, they will be flexible enough to collaborate with team members to the maximum efficiency. Hence, an agile workforce will tick all the boxes right when it will come to high employee engagement. Not to forget, businesses with high employee engagement achieve much higher profitability.
Compliant to a culture of trust and learning: One innate feature of agile working is to believe in the prowess of collaboration. An agile workforce relies on fostering a culture of trust among team members. We already know the significance of cordial employee relationships for an organization’s success. It is essential for employees to have trust among them to get the best results out of teamwork and collaboration. In an agile workforce, collaboration happens at the highest level.
Moreover, in an agile workforce, employees are happy to learn from each other. They value each other’s experiences and perspectives and are keen to learn from them. In this way, an agile workforce cultivates a positive company culture. This culture is not defined by conflicts but by mutual respect and healthy employee relationships. Agile employees show incredible teamwork skills!
Employees who can keep everyone on the same page are potential leaders. Teams function with the highest productivity when a team’s morale is high. It takes fine leadership skills to motivate team members and to align individual goals with collective objectives. In an agile workforce, you can find a decent number of leadership prospects.
Have creative skillfulness: What do you think is the most unique professional skill to have? Different people may have different answers to this question. But most people will agree that the ability to think outside the box is a fair answer. Employees with great creativity potentials can change the fortunes of their career as well as your business. As rightly explained by LinkedIn Learning, creativity is the single most important trait in the world.
Modern problems require modern solutions and creativity is the new modern! An agile workforce exhibits outstanding creativity and innovation in every vertical of work. Agile employees know how to come up with the most innovative solutions to befitting problems. Needless to say, greater creativity is also synonymous with problem-solving skills. Agile organizations have a creative solution to almost everything and anything.
Such organizations with an agile workforce do much better in terms of client retention. They have creative strategies to reach out to customers and to win their loyalty. Furthermore, creative solutions can give rise to unique selling propositions. Creativity also adds priceless value to the marketing approach and advertising. Hence, if you want creativity to be a salient feature of your business, focus on building an agile workforce.
Excellent at change management: People can either be resistant to changes or they can welcome them with open arms. Since change is inevitable, the latter of the two approaches is a smarter choice. As discussed above, the corporate realm has witnessed some major overhauls in recent years. Besides, in the future, changes will come at a greater pace with further refinements in technology. So, you need an agile workforce that is impeccable at change management.
Because of the flexibility and creativity that agile workers show, they are excellent at change management. You do not want a workforce that simply looks to adjust to changes. You rather need employees who can manage changes in a worthwhile way and help others to do so. An agile workforce is characterized by enthusiasm for incorporating changes. Let us go back to the definition of agile working. It is about bringing people, changes, and processes together to achieve success.
An agile workforce is welcoming for new protocols, tools, technologies, and evaluation parameters. Agile workers believe that change is a part of progress and hence they are more open to change. The basic reason why they are so welcoming to change is their competence. As we know, someone who is incompetent will not be much appreciative of change. Not everyone has the ability to handle brisk changes.
For successful change management, it takes an exquisite skillset. The following are the most essential skills that contribute to smooth change management.
- Efficient communication
- Strategic planning and thinking
- Technical proficiency
- Analytical skills
- Leadership
- Ability to conduct research
All the above skills are features of an agile workforce. Hence, an agile workforce is your best chance to create a culture of effective change management. With change comes better growth and refinement in all aspects of business functioning. But an organization cannot be comfortable with changes unless it has a workforce that has acceptance and elation for change. Why would you not invest in developing an agile workforce then?
You can provide more autonomy to your employees to manage changes via holacracy.
Final take on an agile workforce
An agile workforce can well be a measure of an organization’s competence. Agile employees are brimming with confidence and do not compromise on goals and performance. Besides, they exhibit the greatest extent of sincerity in terms of showing acceptance to all sorts of changes. Not to forget, they also endorse pleasant and effective collaboration. It leads to fostering a culture of a purpose-driven organization.
Hence, you should look to identify the agile employees in your organization. They can be perfect models of agile working for others to learn from. In fact, you can also invest in the skill-building of your employees to develop agility among them. Agility can also be a refined hiring parameter for the recruitment process of your business.
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