Workforce
agility

Pillar 1

PILLAR 1

Workforce agility

The first pillar of workforce resilience is workforce agility. Can the organization scale and align the workforce to respond to business changes and new opportunities?

In our executive survey, almost half say they struggle to build the workforce they need to outperform their competitors (48%).

Figure 8: Executives are struggling to develop the level of workforce agility they need to achieve business goals

Sourcing talent to fuel growth

Philip Rybakov, People and Culture Director at JTI GBS Poland is clear that timely access to talent is essential to growth. In just a few years, their Global Business Center has established a presence in Warsaw and has quickly grown to 900 employees.

According to the Rybakov, that pace of growth was only possible thanks to working with specialist talent providers. IT and language skills—some of them relatively rare—have been critical. “I don’t know how our provider manages to find this type of talent, but they do,” he says. “They are like magicians.”

Why is this? Our talent survey reveals that high levels of disengagement and lack of manpower are major issues. Almost four in ten (38%) of the talent surveyed say their workload is unmanageable, the same proportion say their employer does not give them flexibility in how they perform their role, and 39% say they do not enjoy the tasks they perform day to day. Alongside this, almost a third (28%) say they experience resourcing challenges in their team monthly or more frequently, leading to issues such as increased employee churn and missed business opportunities.

Some organizations are taking steps to tackle this sense of overwhelm and fatigue across their workforces—for example by working with external providers to source contingent talent. But what else can leaders do to help their talent feel engaged and motivated?

Contingent talent supports workforce fluidity

For many employers, there are multiple benefits in blending contingent and permanent talent. “Harnessing contingent workers is one of the ways we strengthen workforce fluidity,” says Megan Henry, Director of Quality Improvement at US-based manufacturing multinational Cummins Inc. “Each of our manufacturing sites sets a target for contingent worker levels—maybe 5–10% of our manufacturing employee demand.”

That helps the company to reduce risk and improve agility. “It creates a ‘ring of defense’ if we have a change in demand,” says Henry. Such flexibility can help companies to smooth out sudden shifts in resource requirements, reducing the impact on permanent roles. This could be crucial in uncertain economic times when agility is key.

Can automation improve workforce agility and talent engagement?

Automation can help organizations in two ways. First, it frees talent from repetitive tasks, enabling them to focus on activities that deliver greater value—increasing productivity without increasing headcount. Second, as a consequence of this it can make employees’ roles more enjoyable, by removing activities that might be dull or repetitive. In turn, this helps to drive up engagement.

Our data shows that many organizations are already using automation, and Workforce Resilience Leaders are ahead: 61% have successfully automated aspects of their business to improve workforce resilience, compared with just 33% of Workforce Resilience Laggards.

Our talent survey suggests that employees are skeptical about automation—but are not universally opposed. While 71% say automation is positive for business performance, 33% also say it has been positive for employees.

Figure 9: Talent recognizes automation’s potential to boost business performance

Talent, now

Employers’ strategic need for greater talent agility has driven the development of Kelly Now, a new platform that gives businesses rapid access to the talent they need.

“Essentially, we’ve created an app that’s similar to Uber or Lyft,” explains Ed Pederson, Kelly Vice President of Product. “Once workers have registered and qualified, they can see what shifts are available in their chosen area and sign up for as many hours as they choose. It really puts the power back in their hands.”

Of course, employers benefit too. “This dramatically increases how quickly the businesses we work with can source talent,” says Pederson. “We can sometimes fill a position for clients within just a few of hours of posting it.”

Lessons from the Workforce Resilience Leaders

Workforce Resilience Leaders are more likely than the other organizations to have implemented several strategies to enhance workforce agility.

Overall, the top priority for enhancing workforce resilience is to recruit more contingent talent (52% say it is important); 61% of Workforce Resilience Leaders have a fully developed strategy for contingent talent, compared with 34% of Workforce Resilience Laggards. Their strategic approach indicates that the Leaders are less likely to see contingent talent as a ‘stopgap’ solution to resourcing challenges, and are instead harnessing the power of this type of talent to scale their capability while enriching their existing workforce.

The Leaders are also willing to try out less conventional approaches to strengthening workforce agility. For example, 68% say that they are removing barriers to talent mobility, such as focusing on candidates’ skills and capabilities rather than educational qualifications (compared with 42% of Laggards).

Removing the need for educational qualifications can unlock new pools of talent within and outside of the organization, and this is particularly effective if accelerated training programs have been implemented—the Leaders are also much more likely than the Laggards to say they have introduced this kind of training (75% compared with 55%).

Finally, the Leaders are more likely to be improving talent visibility across the business: 73% say they have technologies that give leaders visibility of the mix of contingent and permanent talent across the business and the impact of this mix on costs (compared with 57% of the Laggards).

Removing the need for educational qualifications can unlock new pools of talent within and outside of the organization, and this is particularly effective if accelerated training programs have been implemented – the Leaders are also much more likely than the Laggards to say they have introduced this kind of training (75% compared with 55%).

Finally, the Leaders are more likely to be improving talent visibility across the business: 73% say they have technologies that give leaders visibility of the mix of contingent and permanent talent across the business, and the impact of this mix on costs (compared with 57% of the Laggards).

Talent in the driver’s seat

The past two years have put real pressure on companies’ talent processes. “It has been harder to find talent in the marketplace,” says JJ Girt of Evoqua Water Technologies. “But that’s caused us to pivot and really think about the critical needs of a role, which has opened up managers’ eyes to doing things differently.”

That is paying off. “We’ve had success in finding people who have really great competencies, and then training them in the specific skills required for their role.” It affects diversity, too, says Girt, by enabling the company to reach beyond its usual candidate pool.

That pivot has been supported by ‘WOW’ sessions—workforce optimization workshops—where HR partners work with business units to think through what the future of work looks like across the organization, and what that means for its talent needs.

“It encompasses the entire talent process,” explains Girt. It includes thinking about optimizing headcount and redesigning roles, and potentially outsourcing or automating some tasks. “It’s about creating a more meaningful job for those individuals,” he says. “Keeping them focused on the strategic value-added aspects and not having to worry about the repetitive tactical stuff.”

The shift to competency hiring has also been paired with a focus on development and progression opportunities. “One of the things that I'm most proud of at Evoqua, is we have made a significant investment over the past two or three years in developing comprehensive career paths,” says Girt. “We’ve put the employee in the driver’s seat for their development.”

Talent in the driver’s seat

That pivot has been supported by ‘WOW’ sessions – workforce optimization workshops – where HR partners work with business units to think through what the future of work looks like across the organization, and what that means for its talent needs.