In Association With November 2014 - CIPD

Research reportNovember 2014in association withHR: Getting smart aboutagile workingWORKWORKFORCEWORKPLACE

Championing better work and working livesThe CIPD’s purpose is to champion better work and working lives by improving practices in people and organisationdevelopment, for the benefit of individuals, businesses, economies and society. Our research work plays a critical role– providing the content and credibility for us to drive practice, raise standards and offer advice, guidance and practicalsupport to the profession. Our research also informs our advocacy and engagement with policy-makers and otheropinion-formers on behalf of the profession we represent.To increase our impact, in service of our purpose, we’re focusing our research agenda on three core themes: the futureof work, the diverse and changing nature of the workforce, and the culture and organisation of the workplace.WORKOur focus on work includes whatwork is and where, when and howwork takes place, as well astrends and changes in skills andjob needs, changing careerpatterns, global mobility,technological developmentsand new ways of working.WORKFORCEOur focus on the workforce includesdemographics, generational shifts,attitudes and expectations, thechanging skills base and trendsin learning and education.WORKPLACEOur focus on the workplace includes how organisations areevolving and adapting, understanding of culture, trust andengagement, and how people are best organised, developed,managed, motivated and rewarded to perform at their best.About the CIPDThe CIPD is the professional body for HR and people development. We have over 130,000 members internationally– working in HR, learning and development, people management and consulting across private businesses andorganisations in the public and voluntary sectors. We are an independent and not-for-profit organisation, guided inour work by the evidence and the front-line experience of our members.

HR: Getting smart about agile workingContentsAcknowledgements1Introduction21 What is agile working and why does it matter?32 Agile workforce93 Agile environments and cultures174 Agile HR21Appendix 1: HR survey respondents’ profile24Appendix 2: Case studies25References34AcknowledgementsThis report has been written by Ksenia Zheltoukhova at the CIPD. We would like to thank all those HR professionalsand individuals who took part in the surveys, as well as the organisations that volunteered to become case studiesfor this research. We are also grateful to our colleagues in the HR profession – and in particular Perry Timms – whoacted as critical friends by providing invaluable insight and feedback in the preparation of this report.The CIPD has collaborated with the Agile Future Forum (AFF) on this report to understand agile working fromthe perspective of both employers and employees. The Agile Future Forum consists of 22 individual employers ofdifferent sizes and sectors, collectively employing more than 500,000 people in the UK.1HR: Getting smart about agile working

IntroductionThe complexity and the fast paceof change in today’s business worldhave put a premium on the ability oforganisations to respond to changein a speedy and effective manner.According a report by the EconomistIntelligence Unit (2009), nearly 90%of senior executives surveyed acrossthe world believe that organisationalagility (ability to anticipate andaddress the forces affecting thebusiness) is critical for businesssuccess. These findings resonatewith the responses to the CIPDLabour Market Outlook summer2014 (CIPD 2014a), where ‘smartworking’ was named as one of thetop tactics to improve productivityby 56% of organisations in the UK,including 60% of organisations inthe public sector.flexible working, flexible physicalwork environments, technologysupportive of collaboration, andmanagement practices that areconducive to greater employeeautonomy and empowerment atwork. More recent case studiesfrom the Agile Future Forum (2013)summarise further reasons forrethinking how businesses operatein the present, plan for the future,and organise their workforce,workplace and work processes.What this accumulating evidence onthe benefits of agility demonstratesis that the challenge of agilityis directly linked to peoplemanagement practices. Thetop traits of the ‘agile’ businessinclude a high-performanceculture, flexibility of managementpractices and resources, andorganisational structures thatsupport collaboration, rapiddecision-making and execution(Economist Intelligence Unit2009). People managementpractitioners, therefore, can play akey role in creating and maintainingsuch organisational structuresand cultures – through changemanagement, organisational design,talent acquisition and development,and performance management(CIPD 2013a, Accenture 2013).The need to increase organisationalagility is also driven by thechanging needs of the workforce.An increasingly diverse workingpopulation means that more peoplerequire and expect enhancedflexibility to help them balancetheir lives at work and at home,manage a range of different caringresponsibilities and transition intoretirement, for example, by reducinghours or through adaptations tohow they work (CIPD 2012).The interest in working in a moreagile way has the potential to offerorganisations practical solutionsto not only meet the evolvingneeds of their workforce, but alsocontrol operational costs, whilefinding competitive advantagein greater customer focus andinnovation. Previous CIPD research(2008) provides evidence of thebusiness benefits observed bysome organisations that introducedThere is clearly a growing appetitefor re-imagining organisationsand the ways of working, buildingorganisational environmentsgeared for collaboration,innovation and ongoing – ratherthan intermittent – adaptation.At the same time, it is not clearwhat level of sophistication indesigning and implementingsmart and agile working practices2HR: Getting smart about agile workingorganisations – and particularly HRpractitioners – have been able toadopt. Equally, there is a concernthat even where such practicesare being implemented, the HRteams themselves are not effectiveenough in tackling the widerorganisational barriers, such ashabit, lack of flexibility and diversity,and short-term thinking, that lieat the core of the adaptability andagility challenge (CIPD 2013a).Note on methodologyFindings of this research draw on:1 A survey of 633 HR leaders(individuals with overall HRresponsibility, even where therewas no dedicated HR function inthe organisation) in the private,public and voluntary sector inthe UK. See Appendix 1 for moredetail.2 A survey of 1,132 employees inthe UK, representative of theUK working population, andan additional sample of 508individuals employed in ‘nonstandard’ jobs (for example, thosein part-time, temporary roles andself-employed individuals).3 Case studies with organisationsbuilding agile workforcesand developing agile ways ofworking. See Appendix 2.In addition, we invited a small groupof practitioners and consultants tohelp us interpret survey findings andput those in the context of a likelyexperience of an HR practitioner inan organisation to help us shape anunderstanding of the implicationsof the agility imperative for theprofession.

1 What is agile working and why doesit matter?The term ‘agility’ in the businesscontext can refer to workforceagility (flexibility in matchingworkforce fluctuations todemand), and operational agility(responsiveness and adaptivenessof processes and structures).Looking at workforce agility,the Agile Future Forum (2013)describes agile working as a set ofpractices that allow businesses toestablish an optimal workforce andprovide the benefits of a greatermatch between the resources andthe demand for services, increasedproductivity, and improved talentattraction and retention. Thesepractices span four dimensions: Time: when do people work?(for example, part-time, shifts,staged retirement).Location: where do people work?(for example, homeworking,across multiple sites).Role: what do people do?(for example, multi-skilling,secondments, job rotation).Source: who is employed? (forexample, permanent employees,crowdsourcing, outsourcing).With regard to processes,structures and ways of working,CIPD Shaping the Future research(2011) defines agility as the‘ability to stay open to newdirections and be continuallyproactive, helping to assess thelimits or indeed risks of existingapproaches and ensuring thatleaders and followers have anagile and change-ready mindsetto enable them and ultimatelythe organisation to keep moving,changing, adapting’.of products, as opposed to massmanufacturing and optimisationsin lean. Agile does not exist inisolation and uses many principlesof lean (such as continuousimprovement), but applies thoseto the process and the way ofworking as a whole, rather thanto the product. Agile teams relyon self-organisation, iterations,customer centricity, knowledgesharing and collaboration, andmutual trust (see, for example,Ravet 2011).While agility is overall associatedwith responsiveness to change,and sometimes with flexibility inmatching organisational resourcesto demand in services, ‘agile’ alsohas specific meanings, emergingfrom applications of particularmethodologies in manufacturingand software development.‘Agile’ can also mean a softwaredevelopment approach that isbased on the principles of:‘Agile manufacturing’ hasdeveloped as a productiontechnology that enhances ‘lean’manufacturing by a greateremphasis on adaptability ofchange, for example, through itspotential for fast customisation A related concept is ‘smartworking’ which is defined as ‘anapproach to organising work thatFigure 1: Use of the word ‘agility’ in organisations29% oforganisationsin the surveyuse the word‘agility’34% meanability to matchresources todemand359% refer toadaptive capacityof processes andstructuresHR: Getting smart about agile workingindividuals and interactions overprocesses and toolsworking software overcomprehensive documentationcustomer collaboration overcontract negotiationresponding to change overfollowing a plan (Beck et al2001).