CHAPTER 54

Agility for the Future Workforce

Christie Ward

What comes to mind when you think of agility? Have you ever seen a baby put all their toes in their mouth? What a surprise when they discover those wiggly things are attached. This takes amazing physical agility, one of the gifts of the very young. While most of us are born with short-lived physical agility, we all need to develop neural and emotional agility as we mature.

Have you witnessed emotional agility? You may have. For example, have you seen an elite athlete finish in second place and then compliment the winning competitor? That’s emotional agility. The runner-up, though enormously disappointed, turns their attention in a gesture of genuine sportsmanship to congratulate the winner. The quality of emotional agility is learned, not inborn. Much like the agility we need in business, emotional agility is intentional.

As we head into the next 10 years and look at what kind of agility our organizations will need, we can see that this ability to adapt and pivot easily and with minimal effort will determine our success or failure. Our organizations need to be quick and nimble, responding to the dynamic environments created by markets, politics, pandemics, and leaders. Having the right people in place is no longer optional. It is essential. Having the right structures in place is also critical; the hierarchical structures of the past are not going to work. This is a time for collaborative structures and teams that can make decisions quickly without checking in or getting approval.

None of our businesses will survive without being agile—regardless of their size, scope, or industry. It doesn’t matter if you are a one-person consultancy, a small- to medium-sized family business, or a multinational corporation. We are living in a world filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.

When a business or an organization can right itself by adjusting and adapting quickly to chaotic environmental changes, it creates organizational agility. This type of resourcefulness is not a natural trait. It must be learned, practiced, and refined. For organizational agility to work, we can’t rely on hierarchal systems, rigid structures, or the way we’ve always done things. To be an agile enterprise, we must know the context for any change, be clear on our overall purpose in business, and know what we do well. Because continuous improvement is a trait of organizational agility, knowing is not enough. We must be open to feedback and adapt along the way.

Creating enterprise agility means moving strategy, structure, people, processes, and technology toward a new way of doing business that is built around high-performing and self-directing teams. And this needs to be based on a stable foundation created by the organization’s culture. However, culture seems to be the toughest element to transform when a company wants to become more agile.

Culture emerges when an organization’s purpose and mission are embodied by its people through their behaviors. Trading in caution for a culture willing to experiment and make mistakes, for example, is a hallmark of an agile culture. Listening to a variety of perspectives and voices rather than focusing on only leaders’ voices is another attribute of an agile culture. Culture grounds people so they know where they belong and where they can look to boost their expertise. Serving as the roots of an agile enterprise, culture is the stabilizer—it’s what grounds the tree, whose branches are the various processes and technologies that channel their products and services (Jurisic et al. 2020).

This chapter highlights several organizations that were forced to pivot quickly and demonstrate exceptional agility in the face of economic disruption and global crises. Chaos and change are no longer rare occurrences—they are part of the day-to-day business landscape. Let’s look at what it takes to be agile and what others are doing to meet these unprecedented challenges.

Agility, Culture, and Leadership

McDonald’s was able to endure the economic crisis of 2020–2021 because of its agility, explained CEO Chris Kempczinski in an interview with McKinsey and Company. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kempczinski simplified the business by focusing on the process McDonald’s had perfected: great drive-thru service featuring their core menu items. He first expanded the offering through order-ahead service and curbside delivery. Then, in cooperation with a third-party company, Uber Eats, he drastically increased the number of restaurants offering delivery services. McDonald’s is currently experimenting with self-delivery. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Kempczinski has continuously adapted to the needs of his customers, taking the company from virtual shutdown back to profit through agile leadership.

Overlaid with a customer focus, Kempczinski stated, there is no such thing as over-communicating with staff. According to a survey given at the end of 2020, 90 percent of McDonald’s employees responded “yes” when asked if they had felt supported that year (Kelly 2021).

“Putting people first” stands at the heart of CHG Healthcare’s core values and is the starting point for its other core values: growth, continuous improvement, integrity and ethics, and quality and professionalism. As a healthcare staffing business with 2,900 employees, CHG maintains a strong internal culture across its seven divisions. The company’s core values are the foundation of its people-centric culture, and the behaviors that define its values begin with the employee-selection process. CHG makes decisions with the best interests of its people in mind and expects its employees to do the same, so new hires discuss scenarios representing each value. This in-depth exploration during the onboarding process tests their understanding and decision making to anchor CHG’s core values into their everyday behaviors.

Eleonore Ruffy, vice president of the RNnetwork division, reports that CHG’s Putting People First approach builds strong loyalty among its employees, providers, and clients alike. With a turnover rate averaging around 20 percent annually, leadership deftly redeployed and reskilled support teams into other roles, retaining key talent when COVID-19 and economic uncertainties in 2020 and 2021 affected specialty-sector placements. When reskilling existing team members (including CHG trainers) proved challenging, leaders and line-level managers stepped up into training functional roles in addition to their normal responsibilities. With CHG’s core values central to its culture and an all-hands-on-deck attitude, teams were motivated to manage the ever-changing market conditions.

Technology is crucial to this organization’s competitive strategy, but even as CHG launched upgrades at breakneck speed, the organization never lost sight of its people. By upskilling line-level leaders to handle tech rollouts and training, CHG could keep pace with the increased demand for new product enhancements.

Workplace flexibility requires an infrastructure that keeps CHG’s culture strong, while supporting new demands. When the new hybrid workforce created challenges for communication, hiring, onboarding, retention, and ongoing training and development, the company adapted by creating new communication channels, developing and delivering diverse topics via multiple training modes, and adopting new ways to recognize its people. Moreover, upskilling leaders to use Zoom and Microsoft Teams meeting platforms, along with traditional face-to-face channels, required different ways of applying emotional intelligence to ensure full inclusion, participation, and understanding of team members (Ruffy 2021).

An agile mindset increases your employees’ depth and breadth and builds your organization’s vertical and horizontal bench strength. When Bruno Rouffaer interviewed Skelia’s founder and CEO, Patrik Vandewalle, and its chief HR officer, Olivia Vandesande, he saw how the company was using agility to work cross-culturally, even in times of disruption (Vandesande and Vandewalle 2021). Using this approach, Skelia grows its people internally, launching qualified candidates into leadership roles. For example, its first employee was recruited in 2008 and is now serving as a managing director.

Skelia is an international outsourcing enterprise that builds cross-border IT and engineering organizations, including affiliates in Eastern Europe. Creating more than 150 cross-border teams with customers in 14 countries across Europe and the United States, Skelia has earned its reputation as an organization builder. Unlike traditional outsourcing companies, Skelia gives its customers the unique opportunity to transfer their Skelia team into a fully customer-owned legal entity.

“We don’t sell individuals; we sell teams and organizations,” Vandewalle explained. Team transfer opens up exciting strategic scenarios for companies that want to launch their Eastern European affiliates in a risk-free way.

Skelia’s employees are guided by regulated work from home and remote work policies, which allow them to work easily from any location using laptops. They collaborate with secured communication tools, following business processes adapted for virtual, multisite operations.

“We are a hyper-agile organization able to cope effectively with constant change and disruptions,” Vandewalle said.

Cultural matching of people, companies, and jobs remains Skelia’s most important long-term success factor. If things go wrong, it’s more often due to culture than technology. Software developers working within the same technology area may require very different profiles when selected for teams with a large international bank versus a Silicon Valley startup. When choosing candidates, Skelia includes interviews with their prospective organizations—giving them a voice in the match and creating a transparent culture.

By applying several complementary techniques, Skelia has systematically posted remarkable team stability with less than 10 percent employee turnover. This was achieved despite the disruptive COVID-19 pandemic, the diversity of its customers, and an overheated IT staffing market.

According to Vandesande, Skelia has always listened to its people and a core value is taking care of employees’ families. Once COIVD-19 vaccines were available, Skelia offices set up vaccination sites. The company also assisted with special needs and even sent socks to people working from home. Skelia’s personal approach to making work fun with employee activities, games, and parties extends to their family members.

“We look at people as whole human beings, and part of the Skelia family,” explained Vandesande. “Employees remember these kinds of gestures and realize how much we care when we take care of them.”

Team stability is paramount. When connection is lost with employees, stability falters. Thus, preserving team stability promotes agility. Because the company’s HR and operations leaders are close to their people, personal and professional issues surface quickly and concerns can be anticipated in dialogue and resolved without delay.

Upskilling and Reskilling

According to the World Economic Forum, almost half of the global workforce already needs to either expand or replace its current skills (WEF 2018). The time to acquire future-critical skills and talent is short. Agile organizations are acting in haste with these workforce initiatives:

•  Upskilling and reskilling

•  Hiring or downsizing

•  Right-sizing (a mix of internal employees and external contractors)

How do you measure the effectiveness of upskilling and reskilling? You need a business case for further training. Without it your organization can’t leverage the insights and metrics that measuring provides.

Upskilling works side by side with effective change management. When a company introduces a new technology or system, employees must understand why they are being asked to use it. They want to know “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM). As employees acquire new skills that create greater value, they expect an upgrade in their compensation plans to reflect this increased value. When companies launch new technology, their employees need training to use it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen.

Amit Nagpal, a training industry veteran at Pursuitica Learning Solutions, can attest to the success of the Elevate program, which was launched in spring 2020 by India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global leader in the IT sector (Nagpal 2021).

The program was envisioned by Janardhan Santhanam, TCS global head of talent development, and its aim is to develop the next generation of leaders from the more than 450,000 employees at TCS. Elevate is structured as a democratic process based on the premise that top talent exists everywhere. It is designed to recognize talent by offering a transparent process tying together personal growth, rewards, and business outcomes. It features:

•  An employee skill taxonomy validating existing skills

•  A democratic learning plan formulated with evaluation exercises focused on current and future requirements

•  A focus on frontline and midlevel emerging leaders across all units

•  A push to enhance workforce resilience by realigning and investing in hot skills

•  Udemy and LinkedIn Learning partnerships to guide TCS with curated training content

In an interview with Economic Times India HR World (Rahman 2021), Santhanam said that “learners should have absolutely zero friction in the process of learning.”

Like Skelia’s founders, Santhanam emphasizes the rise in internationally dispersed cross-cultural teams. Employees today must possess a comfort level to quickly and easily learn and unlearn an array of technical skills and be driven by a curiosity mindset. Upskilling and reskilling require both nimbleness and nuance applied along the entire path of an employee’s career. To advance in their careers in the decades ahead, people can no longer rely solely on their required competencies; they will also need to commit to a lifelong pursuit of personal development.

In his article “Let’s Stop Talking About Soft Skills: They’re Power Skills,” Josh Bersin (2020) redefined soft skills. According to him, hard skills (which are commonly thought of as technical or mechanical) are actually soft because they change all the time, are constantly becoming obsolete, and are relatively easy to learn. Soft skills (like communication, leadership, and management), on the other hand, are hard because they are difficult to build, critical, and take extreme effort to obtain. Bersin’s point was that our workforce requires more “soft” skills—like adaptability, communication, and collaboration—that are actually overly complex and take years to learn. L&D professionals must help employees build these skills, and the process is much more difficult than teaching an employee how to use a new software program.

So, how do you upskill your employees with the soft skills they need to be agile while advancing the hard skills they need to remain technically competent? Management styles must change with the changes in the workforce. Agility requires a manager’s focus to encourage peer-to-peer coaching and decision making at the team level, along with experimentation and calculated risk taking.

Employees must acquire skills like a willingness to adapt, time management, the ability to work on teams, and effective communication. A culture of lifelong learning is now imperative, because these power skills take longer to acquire. Empathy, for example, may take years to cultivate and is difficult to teach in a traditional classroom. Yet empathy is highly prized in leaders, managers, and supervisors and may be the quality that keeps your valued talent engaged and productive. Upskilling takes on a whole new level of importance when we want to modify our employees’ behavioral skills. The nuance of being an effective negotiator, for example, makes that skill sound easy; however, it is complex and difficult to master. It is even more difficult to upskill someone to become a great negotiator. The job of a manager as we move forward will involve guiding their team to acquire these power skills and may even include serving in a training function.

We’ve examined upskilling, but what pushes people to reskill and pivot in an entirely different direction? How quickly can they become productive? Rachel Carlson, CEO of Guild Education, cautioned that “we’re witnessing the tale of two labor markets. Food service, beauty, and hospitality are fueling unemployment rates not seen since the Great Depression…. At the very same time, employers are grappling with the seemingly endemic skills gaps in healthcare, supply chain, and skilled trade fields” (Guild Education 2020).

Whether the cause is a crisis or cost-saving technology, the poorest in society are often hit hardest. Perhaps we need to realign our thinking. Instead of focusing on technology designed to increase profitability or efficiency, we can shift our focus to technology that promises better jobs. We simply must include more people in the dialogue as we explore new and better ways to work. While we can support every employee, those at the lower end of the pay scale need it the most.

To meet this skills gap, Guild Education announced Next Chapter, a collaboration with Walmart, TTEC, Gainsight, Paschall Truck Lines, and Utility Technologies. The Next Chapter platform “helps bridge that gap and works with employers who are stepping up to help workers navigate the labor market riptide,” explained Carlson.

The core of the Next Chapter platform is a collaboration between employees adversely affected by the crisis and employers in healthcare, the supply chain, and tech that are hiring. Unlike traditional outplacement services designed to place workers in jobs similar to the ones they left, Next Chapter helps workers make the leap to higher wage roles with access to education and training resources so they can transition into new careers or industries. With any disruption often comes opportunity, and the silver lining for these displaced workers is the chance to find more rewarding and lucrative work in in-demand fields.

“Rapid reskilling and access to education will be more important than ever as we emerge from this crisis,” said Drew Holler, Walmart’s senior vice president of associate experience and HR operations. “Next Chapter will play a crucial role in matching Americans who are suddenly out of work with future-proof skills so they can transition to in-demand jobs” (Guild Education 2020).

Partnering with Guild Education, Walmart’s Live Better U invests in their employees’ futures. Instead of tuition reimbursement, it is a way for new employees to enroll in learning at Walmart from the start; the cost is $1 per day. Dedicated coaches help navigate the myriad opportunities, and Guild partners with the nation’s top universities and learning providers to offer classes, certificates, and programs focused on serving working adults.

According to Holler, Walmart also created virtual internships and teaming opportunities to provide opportunities for associates to learn and grow from peers and leaders (OneWalmart n.d.).

Creating Job Equality and Opportunity

Can business and civic leaders broaden their perspective by including other points of view? With inspired partnerships among companies, government, and workers, we can create job equality and opportunity.

In Singapore, the SkillsFuture program is a national economic partnership between the government, industry, unions, and educational and training institutions to foster a culture that supports and celebrates lifelong learning (Skillsfuture n.d.). In 2012, WEF ranked Singapore’s economy as the most open in the world, the third-least corrupt, and the most pro-business. It remains a leading economy to this day (Skillsfuture n.d.).

As reported in the Job Skills 2020 report from WEF, the top skills and skill groups that employers see as rising in prominence in the lead-up to 2025 include critical thinking and analysis as well as problem solving and skills in self-management (such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility; Table 54-1). To address concerns about productivity and well-being, about a third of all employers are expected to take steps to create a sense of community, connection, and belonging through digital tools and to tackle challenges to well-being posed by the shift to remote work (World Economic Forum 2020).

Neuro-Link founder André Vermeulen suggests that these coveted skills can broadly be categorized as brain power skills or emotional intelligence (EI) skills. Future workers will need neuro-agility to easily learn, think, and draw conclusions fast and flexibly to execute their skills with precision and efficiency.

Final Thoughts

Being agile with learning, thinking, emotions, leadership, and performing in teams can be achieved when people optimize the drivers that influence the ease and speed with which they learn, think, and process information. Our understanding of why some people learn, think, and process information faster and are more flexible than others leads to innovative solutions that serve to identify and unleash a person’s unique learning potential (Vermeulen 2021).

Using a fresh, neuroscience approach to develop talent enhances candidate selection and career advancement decisions. It informs instructional design and learning objectives that improve performance and lower the risk of human errors.

Agile organizations thrive when they cultivate great teams, and psychological safety is key to this. Much has been written about psychological safety, which Wikipedia defines as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” Google’s Project Aristotle research team found psychological safety to be the quality that separated great teams from all the rest. With agile teams, the conventional tactic of pairing the best and the brightest may not be the best approach. Instead, fostering curiosity and social cohesion through shared exploration and vulnerability among team members of diverse backgrounds can lead to exceptional productivity and innovative breakthroughs (Duhigg 2016).

The shift to agility in the workplace was accelerated by the events of 2020, but the rationale to convert our enterprises to agile models has been present for some time. The impacts of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality have accelerated processes and enabled more productivity. However, our mastery of behavioral skills and emotional intelligence is falling woefully behind. We talk about critical thinking and communication yet continue to focus on the latest tech gadget. Many organizations are stuck in hierarchical models rather than filled with autonomous teams free to make decisions. Collaboration is touted as a value and may even be included in the mission statement, yet we remain in silos.

For agility to become the norm, many old models will need to change. I am encouraged by the strides the companies mentioned in this chapter are making. None would tell you it is perfect, but they are moving in the right direction. Learn from them and focus on one or two things you can do to move your culture toward agility. Encourage individual effort. Build strong teams. Make sure people feel safe when they share their ideas, make decisions, and take risks. Strive to instill psychological safety. Become cognitively and emotionally agile yourself and share your enthusiasm with others. If you lead, maximize your own strengths first, then help others do the same. The agile enterprise will always rise to the top. Don’t get left behind.

About the Author

Christie Ward, CSP, is principal of the Impact Institute, a consulting firm that helps clients with interpersonal communication skills, team skills, leadership skills, and presentation skills. Christie has advanced in her leadership roles with ATD, beginning with a position on the board of ATD’s Rocky Mountain Chapter, then a spot on the National Advisors to Chapters in 2008, and culminating with her selection to the ATD National Board of Directors in 2011–2012. She has spoken at ATD’s International Conference & Exposition and given keynotes in Brazil and throughout Southeast Asia. Christie chaired the ATD 2016 Program Advisory Committee and keynoted a 2019 ATD Core 4 Conference. In 2021, Colorado Personalized Education for Professionals awarded Christie the Martha Illige award for improving the care of patients through her work with healthcare professionals. Learn more about Christie and the Impact Institute at christieward.com.

References

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Duhigg, C. 2016. “What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team.” New York Times Magazine, February 25. nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html.

“Economy of Singapore.” Wikipedia. Last updated May 21, 2021. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Singapore.

Guild Education. 2020. “Employers Team Up to Connect Laid Off Workers in the U.S. to New Skills, Higher Wage Careers.” Press release, May 8. guildeducation.com/press/employers-team-up-to-connect-laid-off-workers-in-the-u-s-to-new-skills-higher-wage-careers.

Jurisic, N., M. Lurie, P. Risch, and O. Salo. 2020. “Doing vs Being: Practical Lessons on Building an Agile Culture.” McKinsey and Company, August 4. mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/doing-vs-being-practical-lessons-on-building-an-agile-culture.

Kelly, G. 2021. “Keeping McDonald’s ‘Relevant’: An Interview With CEO Chris Kempczinski.” McKinsey and Company, March 19. mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/keeping-mcdonalds-relevant-an-interview-with-ceo-chris-kempczinski.

Nagpal, A. 2021. Written interview with A. Nagpal. May 24, 2021.

OneWalmart. n.d. “Live Better: Higher Learning, Lower Tuition.” Walmart. one.walmart.com/content/usone/en_us/company/news/popular-content/education-articles/unlock-the-future--introducing-live-better-u.html.

Rahman, A. 2021. “Evolving Mentality of Learners Ensures Smooth Learning Process for Everyone: Industry Leaders.” Economic Times HR World, February 3.

Ruffy, E. 2021. Written Interview With E. Ruffy. May 30, 2021.

Skillsfuture. n.d. “About Skillsfuture.” Government of Singapore. skillsfuture.gov.sg/About SkillsFuture.

Vandesande, O., and P. Vandewalle. 2021. Written Interview with O. Vandesande and P. Vandewalle. May 2021.

Vermeulen, A. 2021. Written Interview with A. Vermeulen. May 2021.

World Economic Forum. 2018. The Future of Jobs Report 2018. WEF, September 17. weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2018.

World Economic Forum. 2019. Towards a Reskilling Revolution Industry-Led Action for the Future of Work. WEF, January. weforum.org/docs/WEF_Towards_a_Reskilling_Revolution.pdf.

World Economic Forum. 2020. The Future of Jobs Report 2020. WEF, October 20. weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020.

Recommended Resources

Clark, T.R. 2020. The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Edmondson, A. 2018. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Vermeulen, A. 2014. Tick Tock This Makes Your Brain Rock: A Brain Fitness Guide for 21st Century People. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.