This learning track focuses on coaching the people aspects of the organization such as creating a safe environment, providing a balance between culture and structure, and shifting to people enablement. As a people department, the HR function in an agile environment is directly responsible for attracting, hiring and retaining the right people - competing for talent, planning for succession, and embracing diversity in agile environments. This means balancing an external focus as well as an internal one, confronting skill gaps and enabling growth at the individual & team level, keeping people’s skills relevant and delegating the responsibility for growth to the individual. Since agile is not for everyone, here we will also look at how to handle those that are either unwilling or unable to thrive in a collaborative environment, specially if there are in managerial positions. For those who are willing to adapt, we still need to keep them motivated and engaged using scientifically proven approaches to empower individuals while creating and nurturing an environment of psychological safety. And since retention goes hand-in-hand with growth, we will also look at moving away from the dreaded performance appraisals, identifying what should instead impact salaries when performance ratings are not available. This track are for those who want to more successfully truly own culture in their organizations, and to support the teams to perform and be fulfilled by their work.
Target Audience
Primary Audience: HR Managers, Talent Managers, Compensation & Benefits, Recruiters, Enterprise Agile Coaches, individuals who wish to be strategic partners and seen as a the nurturers of a creative culture.
Relevant Roles: Individuals in organizations transitioning to agile who are in what organizations traditionally call the Human Resources (HR) domain.
Commitment and Loyalty
Commitment & Loyalty means the degree to which individuals associate themselves with the job, the responsibilities and the organizational objectives and how actively engaged in they are in their work. Engaged employees are those who are fascinated by their work and committed to face every challenge to attain their goals. They are dependable, loyal and highly productive and therefore, are accountable for what they do. The best part is that they need less focus and attention of managers to perform their task as they themselves feel accountable for their job responsibilities and results attained. However, it doesn’t take much time for actively engaged employees to turn into disengaged employees if the organisation doesn’t have a well established reward system. Recognition is a basic necessity of individuals to remain steered up towards their job.
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Show Summaries
Don’t manage employee performance - unlock their potential.
Build a culture and institute practices that support each person in being and becoming their Best-Self, and high performance and uncommon loyalty will follow. David Hassell explores his experience providing intrinsic motivation, positive psychology and a growth mindset to his employees.
How to adjust Ways of Working to the new paradigm of employee driven organizations (self-management), directing without using formal power.
What Leaders and HR managers need to be aware of when adjusting Ways of Working to the new paradigm of employee driven organizations (self-management) and how to make people go in a certain direction without using formal power. In an agile organization it is more about making it possible for teams to self organize in an agile reality, unleashing human potential and optimizing for performance in a complex and agile world. You unleash human potential by knowing your employees deeply and taking time to understand what would make them go in the direction that you want them to go in, because THEY want to go in that direction.
Exploring the strong correlation between agile practices and employee engagement.
A team of researchers share their findings on why employee engagement is a key differentiator for organizations of all types.
Fundamental and beneficial challenge ideas companies can run.
In the constant battle with turnover and employee disengagement, employee health and loyalty are valuable resources. Well-being is a broad subject including everything from financial wellness to mental health. How to navigate these options? Wellable compiled a list of challenges that employers can build upon with fun themes that fit with an organization’s culture.
Is there such a thing as bad employee retention?
Most studies focus on the costs of unwanted turnover, from loss in productivity to expenses associated with recruitment. A new study, however, explores an often overlooked element of retention. That is, what are the costs of retaining employees that want to leave?
Recognition, Compensation and Benefits
The purpose of total rewards in the workplace is to reinforce particular behaviors, practices, or activities that result in better performance and positive business results. Companies use tangible rewards (monetary such as compensation and a benefits package) and intangible rewards (non-monetary such as recognition in meetings and events, work-life balance and development potential) to motivate employees and demonstrate that they are appreciated. Often, rewards and recognition take the form of extra compensation for employees who carry out the activities in their role description and meet their objectives. Rewards and recognition have many uses, but in general they help with 1) Shaping employee behavior and work ethic; 2) Giving employees the opportunity to share in the benefits of their work; and 3) Making employees feel like an integral part of the company.
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It requires an effortless, simple, and high-bandwidth approach
It's true to say that the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation. The team easily collaborates to share ideas fueling their performance and teamwork. However, does it mean collaboration cannot be as effective in a remote environment? Join Todd Lankford as he explains his unwavering feelings of collaboration to a high-performing team and unravels what works and what does not work for collaboration in a remote world.
From where we work to how our work is measured, office work will be permanently different after the pandemic.
Being more intentional about how we work remotely, show that we can be more productive away from the office.
Organizational Communication
Organizational communication is how organizations represent, present, and constitute their organizational climate and culture - the attitudes, values and goals that characterize the organization and its members. It seeks to analyze communication needs of organizations and social interaction, understand its strengths and shortcomings, and to improve those processes.
Diversity and Inclusion
A strong diversity and inclusion strategy can help your organization attract top talent and drive innovative results. Diversity refers to the traits and characteristics that make people unique while inclusion refers to the behaviors and social norms that ensure people feel welcome. It is a set of behaviors that promotes collaboration and fosters the kind of inclusion that leads to the diversity of the workforce.
Talent Acquisition
The talent acquisition team is responsible for identifying, acquiring, assessing, and hiring candidates to fill open positions within a company. Employer branding, future resource planning, diversifying a company’s labor force, and developing a robust candidate pipeline are the cornerstones of talent acquisition.
In some cases, the talent acquisition team is part of an organization’s Human Resources department. In others, Talent Acquisition is its own department that works in coordination with HR. The skill sets of effective talent acquisition professionals include sourcing strategies, candidate assessment, compliance and hiring standards, and fluency in employment branding practices and corporate hiring initiatives.