Workforce agility as a solution for closing the workforce readiness gap in the age of industrial digitalization
Digitalization causes problems and brings solutions at the same time.
Is everyone in your company fit for the digital transformation? Our working world is changing faster and faster, we are increasingly exposed to unexpected impulses, new trends and developments such as AI are constantly emerging and raising new problems every day. Proven answers and processes are inadequate or at least being called into question, creating unrest and uncertainty.
Nowadays, it is becoming increasingly common for companies to fail to react quickly enough, creating a gap between the demands of change and the ability of employees and organizations to adapt effectively. The so-called workforce readiness gap is showing up – what now?
If you have decided to face the inevitable and actively shape change, the question now arises as to how the gap can be closed.
Workforce agility offers a solution to the problems outlined above. It describes the ability to adapt, react flexibly and act innovatively during constant change. It goes beyond mere flexibility and combines a proactive, future-oriented mindset with the resilience to successfully overcome uncertainty. Digitalization and its trends, such as AI, are seen as an opportunity to make processes more efficient and enable new value creation. By using AI in industry, companies can shorten development times and save resources and energy.
How can you adapt and implement change together with your teams?
Focus on your employees and their potential so that they can develop together with the company. In successful companies, the members of staff learn continuously, get involved and adapt to become productive more quickly. Workforce agility emerges.
Many professionals who are responsible for recruiting and managing talent within the company know that the influx of new professionals and managers from outside is an important complement to internal development programs. This approach is an important building block for the company’s success, especially in view of time pressure.
Finally, let’s look at the mindset of your managers. Workforce readiness doesn’t just apply to employees, but to everyone in the company, including management and owners. It is not uncommon for the upper levels of the hierarchy to be the bottleneck within the transformation. Well-intentioned traditional steering committees and small-scale long-term strategies slow down the process. People who can and want to make decisions are particularly valuable in the transformation process. Give these so-called decision makers the trust of the owners, shareholders and managing directors to make decisions in clearly defined areas of responsibility and thus gain speed. Your employees will reciprocate this appreciation with loyalty.
And how can this be achieved in everyday life?
Make use of agility. Agility means achieving a large, defined goal in short intervals with manageable effort and costs. Small interim goals can be used to achieve motivating partial successes while keeping the risks manageable. If something does not fit or no longer fits, it is adjusted or improved in one of the next intervals. However, it is important not to confuse agility with implementing constantly changing goals, which only results in a demotivating, slowing zigzag course. The big goal remains, but the steps towards it are flexible and fast.
Another important principle of agility is transparency. Transparency creates trust and understanding, making it easier to deal with the unrest caused by change. Open communication at management level leads to more openness on the part of your employees, allowing you to recognize blockages and fears in the team early on and resolve them more quickly, significantly minimizing the risk of losing top performers.
Don’t surrender to digitalization with a heavy heart, instead close the workforce readiness gap with the help of workforce agility and continue your company’s success also at the next level of industrial digitalization.
Urs Konstantin Rouette