The Definition of Insanity: Hiring Safe yet Expecting Astonishing Results
Finding a new team member is hard. You spend time and energy recruiting the ideal candidate who’s a great fit. But let’s question what ‘a great fit’ really means. In your mind a great fit probably means the candidate from the same industry, who’s followed a progressive path in the same job stream to lead them to this next step. But this is playing it safe, it risks limiting you and your company and you’re unlikely to find candidates that bring unique innovation and exceptional results. […]
Go Green and Promote Sustainability For a Winning Culture
Agility in the workforce is all about creating a flexible and productive environment for employees. Many companies achieve this through providing different work spaces, offering remote working opportunities, and promoting a collaborative culture rather than taking a rigid procedural approach. Another approach that has seen businesses become more agile is a shift to more sustainable practices. […]
Keeping Your Talent: Smart Lifestyle Reward Strategies for Any Sized Company
When you can only pay a low salary, how can you still recruit great talent? Start-ups, small and medium-sized firms are just some of those restricted by salary obstacles when it comes to hiring and keeping the best talent. And it’s a serious problem, as outstanding talent can make or break these companies more than any other. Here are our Sure-Fire Ways to Fight Back. […]
#5 Rethinking Rewards and Recognition in your Agile Organization
In our previous blogs, we discussed how to hire, how to measure performance and what an Agile leader looks like. In “Shift from “Me” Performance to “We” Performance with Agile Performance Management” we spoke about moving performance measures from a single individual to a team’s performance. How does this affect and change the way we reward or recognize members of Agile organizations? How do you design a successful reward program that promotes teamwork, celebrates team successes, and at the same time, recognizes team members who have excelled – in their performance and/or working with others? […]
#4 The Three Things That Matter Most for Leadership of Agile Organizations
This blog is part four in a series discussing the human factor of Agile organizations. Earlier we discussed Hiring for Agile and Managing Performance. Here, we discuss the role of the Leader in Agile teams. Agile organizations empower employees to take decisions on their own, in collaboration with their team members. What then, is the role of a leader and how can they be most effective? […]
Shift from “Me” Performance to “We” Performance with Agile Performance Management
In our previous two blogs we discussed what it takes to become Agile and how recruiting needs to evolve. Now you have great talent onboard, how do you continue to manage their performance in an Agile way? The way in which performance is managed and measured deeply affects the culture of the organization. Traditional methods have individual goals, targets, key improvement areas and 360 reviews. With an Agile organization, these are replaced with continuous feedback, constantly evolving goals, and targets for teams rather than individuals. […]
# 2 Hiring and Managing Talent in an Agile Culture
In the first part of “Human Factor of Agile – Are You Ready”, we discussed what it takes, from a people perspective, to become Agile. In this 2nd part, we delve deeper, and see how recruiting needs to evolve, for you to build an Agile organization. In many ways agile can be considered a swift feedback control process. For recruiting that means: 1. validating with hiring managers on the quality before going too far 2. ensuring the interview team is aligned 3. gathering feedback from the interview team swiftly (and preferably in a same day team meeting, for accountability). [...]
#1 Getting your “Agile Culture on” Defining how to engage employees and enable human factors for success in 2019
The “Agile Culture” or “Agile Organization” has been the buzz word for a while now. It started with product development and progressed to an organization style. But are organizations ready? Do we even know what it requires? In an Agile culture, we shift the focus from the process to the outcome. The main question to answer, at each point, is “What does the customer want?” This model essentially empowers teams to do what it takes to succeed: a.k.a understand and fulfil the customers’ needs. […]
5 Key Ways to Motivate and Engage Creatives
HR gurus have researched motivation for decades, and all the books and theories could fill the largest library in the world. And yet, every organization struggles with keeping its people motivated. The reason being that motivation and engagement is a balancing act between the individual them self and the organization’s connection with the individual, and this can vary person-to-person and day-to-day. […]
Stop Screening Candidates: What We Can Learn from Designers
Screening candidates isn’t helping you. In technology, user experience design is very close to our hearts. We are constantly trying to make it easier for our prospective customers to gain value from our products and services. We try to make the experience as welcoming as possible and take them on a journey. When it comes to our prospective team members, perversely, we seem to take the opposite approach. When people express an interest in joining our teams, we seem to go to great lengths to push them away. We actively discourage them. We screen them. […]