The concept of agile ways of working has gained popularity in modern businesses, but there are still misconceptions about agile HR and its application in different functions. Here are three common misconceptions that need to be addressed:

Misconception 1: Agile is only for IT and development teams. In reality,agile ways of working can be applied to any function within a business to improve performance and productivity.

Misconception 2: Psychological safety isn't just about creating a warm and fuzzy atmosphere. It is about creating a culture of trust and respect, where people feel safe to speak up, challenge assumptions, and be their true selves.

Misconception 3: Agile is a quick fix. Agile HR is a significant transformational journey that requires ongoing effort and commitment to ensure its success. It is not a one-time solution or a quick fix for a problem.

Misconception 4: Agile HR is only suitable for small organizations. Some people think that agile HR is only effective in small...

The pandemic has made people more conscious about their health, leading to an increased demand for organizational well-being services. However, the industry is often full of superficial, tick-box initiatives and commercial talking-level solutions that are not embedded strategically into the business.

It is important to differentiate between wellness and wellbeing to choose the right services and providers, specifically matched to employee needs.

While wellness is about self-care practices, habits, and daily routines, wellbeing includes happiness with life, work relationships, identity, resilience, emotional regulation, balance, and access to safety and resources.

Prioritizing wellbeing over wellness in organizations is crucial. To build a wellbeing strategy, start with understanding the purpose and defining success criteria, assess employee needs from different angles, and choose the right solutions to address those needs. Understanding the relationship between employees and their...

If you want to create a high performance team within your organization, you have to create an environment that is safe for your team to address their ambiguities, raise their concerns, share their ideas and opinion and take responsibility for their actions; good or bad.  

According to a survey conducted by McKinsey Global during the pandemic, only a trickle of businesses inculcate the climate pf psychological safety in their workforce.

But what exactly is psychological safety?

And what role does it play in creation of fearless and agile teams?

Psychological Safety

This term which was coined by professor Amy Edmondson as believing that one will not face humiliation or punishment for expressing questions, ideas, concerns or mistakes. And by no means does it imply that the organization’s leadership and management lower the performance standards and act nice at all times.

Why is psychological safety ignored?

It is not just the management and organization’s...

In light of the changing nature of the workplace and daily life, new leadership approaches are also needed.

All of us are looking for innovative ways to help and guide our employees to their best selves. In addition, occasionally, we fail, which is fine if we accept that, embrace it, and are aware of it.
As a result, new leadership tools and mindset are required. #Empathy and #compassion are two qualities that leaders must cultivate to help their employees effectively.
 
If you're wondering what the future of work holds, the answer is simple: leadership change and transformation. This is a crucial development, as it allows leaders to develop a more humane and compassionate outlook toward the rest of society.
 
We're in the midst of a new era of leadership and management, in which everyone is a leader, and leadership jobs aren't always reserved for a select few.
 
We can state that our organization's future work or trends will involve more #co...

In complex and fast-changing economies, the ability to manage one’s thoughts and feelings is essential to organizational success. Numerous studies show that emotional agility helps people alleviate stress, reduce errors, become more innovative, and improve performance.

To build a critical skill of emotional agility focus on the following 4 practices:

1. Recognize own patterns

The first step in developing emotional agility is to notice when you have been hooked by your thoughts and feelings. This is not easy to do but you can likely recognize when your thinking has become rigid and repetitive. You have to realize you are stuck before you can initiate change.

2. Label own thoughts and emotions

Second, when you are hooked, the attention you give to your thoughts and feelings is not objective. The simple act of labeling allows you to see your thoughts and feelings for what they are: transient sources of data.

3. Accept them

Third try to respond to your...

 Actions speak louder than words

Agile Leadership is about not only driving and promoting change, it is also about being the change. Those who lead by example and actively engage in their own development, inspire people.  This is through action rather than words; as Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see”.  Agile Leaders develop themselves to be humble and empathetic by demonstrating virtues such as compassion, kindness and care for their colleagues.  Inspiring leaders work on themselves first before working on others.

 Improved quality of thinking leads to improved outcomes

Agile Leaders value high quality thinking which will result in meaningful action. Agile Leaders view problems from many different angles. They take input from those closest to the problem and this goes some way to ensuring that they are in touch with reality rather than relying solely on electronic information to inform their decision making. This also means...

Learning is a multi-dimensional process, which means it can take place in many different ways, in many different formats. This provides endless opportunities for people to learn at work, which is often referred as continuous employee learning.

Continuous employee learning is the constant skill and knowledge development in response to changes in the workplace. Top performing companies not only recognize the importance of their people, but also the need to provide the right skills to enable their people.

According to the Future of Jobs report from the World Economic Forum, more than one-third of the skills we believe are essential for today’s workforce will change in just five years from now. This means that employees are expected to continually adapt and upskill, in new and dynamic ways, at a pace we have never experienced before. So how can we best support them?

One simple technique to use with teams is to combine continuous employee learning with sustaining business...

The concept of 'Psychological Safety' was first identified in work teams by Dr. Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Business School professor, and essentialized in over 20 years of research. The term embodies the idea that one will be appreciated in a public environment for proclaiming new ideas or identifying mistakes.

Academic researchers in business cases have found that a significant dimension of teamwork is psychological safety. Studies found that teams with a higher level of psychological security demonstrate better work performance according to key performance indicators. Other touchstone factors of team performance only proved effective if the latter was present.

Psychological safety idealizes mutual respect to create a safe environment that opens the opportunity for individuals to identify mistakes, ask questions and offer new ideas without facing humiliation. This surety develops a platform for continuous experimentation to enrich the business culture of the organization.

Teams that...

I think HR teams should be leading the charge. If we want to enable agility throughout an organisation, we need empowered and highly efficient teams, who have knowledge and competencies to take over different projects. 

As the people function in the business, HR teams are best placed to lead and help create more agile structures. It’s time for HR teams to change the way they work, because if we continue to work the way we have always worked, we can’t drive change in the rest of the organisation.

If you look at some of the key areas of a business - recruitment, change management, people development, learning, and mentorship - HR plays a crucial role. We’ve got the opportunity to make a big difference to the way businesses operate in the future.

For HR teams looking to adopt agile working, where do they start?

Agile working requires a change of mindset. It starts with reviewing and removing structures and practices that don’t work within your organisation...