Are You Using Agile Practices to Develop Your Employees?

bottom line

Are you finding that your well-​thought-​out business plans for the year aren’t keeping up with the times? If what you thought was going to be a key issue for your company has changed twice this year, welcome to the new world of commerce. Technological advances and globalization have sped up the pace of change. The best way to survive, for you and your team, is to increase your agility. 

In her Smart Brief article, Julie Winkle Giulioni recently wrote about how to apply agile thinking to employee engagement and development. We all know today’s highly educated team members want to do work that makes a difference for their companies. You can help them achieve this objective by working with them to identify multiple goals. For example, they may be interested in learning to code or mastering social media. While their formal education may not be in these areas, they can always learn. In fact, to excel in today’s work force, your team members need constant training and skill development. They need to be able to hit the ground running when you ask them to take on new responsibilities.

Once you understand what your team members are interested in doing or learning more about, facilitate the kind of training they need. Maybe they’ll shadow an employee in another department for a day. Perhaps, they can train to fill in for an employee who’s going out on medical leave or vacation. Or, you may need to enroll them in classes.

At the same time, you should be regularly reviewing the organizational or department goals you’ve established. An annual update isn’t sufficient. With new competitors, opportunities and challenges showing up on a daily basis, be prepared to adjust your goals quarterly or monthly. And, if you’ve done a good job of developing the skill set of your team members, they’ll be ready for and excited about the upcoming changes.