Establishing agility in HR

“There are many tools available online that can aid organisations in adopting agility in HR. My suggestion is to consistently test your policies to optimise for simplicity”

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An organisation’s growth is disrupted if HR cannot become “agile” in this technical age. Companies are redesigning their HR practises to adopt agility in HR to stay competitive against the rapidly changing environment.

Futhermore, studies conducted by Deloitte has shown that organisations adopting agile are two times more profitable.

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There are 3 areas of Human Resources that can guarantee agility in HR, thus greatly improving the organization

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1. Compensation

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‍Making compensation agile can be a great way to build agility in HR. Larger retailers frequently use sales contests to reward their employees and there are constant iterations of these competitions to create the optimal results. Past studies show that annual bonuses are not effective, as it does not reward the right behaviour. Incentives work best when it comes immediately after the right actions.

Some companies have changed the way they conduct annual appraisals and replaced it with contribution bonuses based on feedback from the ground.

The challenge most companies face when adopting agile for compensation is that legacy payroll systems are unable to cater to the speed and complexity of the incentive changes.That's why we developed Payboy to create a payroll system that scales with operations.

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2. Performance Appraisals

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‍Organisations cannot be agile without the right performance appraisal framework. Employees need feedback from multiple sources frequently, which could help in bringing agility in HR. For companies to adopt agile hr practises, they need to lose their annual appraisals and find the right cadence for their organisation. Almost everybody hates annual reviews, so no love lost there.

Managers need to be trained to give frequent feedback. Most companies employ an agile hr coach to guide managers and teams on proper agile methodology.

Adobe replaced its annual review process with more frequent ‘check ins’ that allow managers and employees to communicate on 3 topics: expectations, feedback, and growth and development. This transition saw a 30% drop in staff turnover as a result.

Read more about why HR must transform the appraisal process?

3. Recruitment

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‍With the advent of AI, Blockchain and Big Data, recruiters needs to constantly iterate their findings with hiring managers when trying to fill a complex role where the job responsibilities are not yet clearly defined.

Just like how agile takes large projects and breaks it down into smaller pieces, recruiters can take complex roles and break it down into smaller responsibilities to scout for.

Having a Kanban board for recruitment teams gives visibility into the progress on each roles and facilitates discussion between hiring manager and recruiter. It also allows teams to prioritize roles based on something more logical than timeline. Instead of going through roles first-in-first-out, they assign scores based on strategic value to the organization, size of the target market, or complexity of the requirements to each job, and can allocate resources accordingly. Companies are also qualifying candidates who are well suited to an agile work environment.

There are many tools available online that can aid organisations in adopting agility in HR. My suggestion is to consistently test your policies to optimise for simplicity.

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About the author

Sriram Iyer is a Human Resources practitioner, a Certified Strengths Coach, and a passionate #hrtech advocate. Based in Singapore since Jan 2012, he is now the Founder & CEO of HRTech Market Development & Analyst firm, hrtech.sg. Apart from working with enterprises in identifying the best technology solutions for their talent-related needs, hrtech.sg also hosts Singapore’s largest and curated HR Tech-focused marketplace with its presence in over 85 niche solution providers.