The current unpredictable economic climate and an ever-evolving catalog of employee expectations are putting pressure on businesses everywhere. It's more important than ever for organizations to be prepared when change strikes. Against this backdrop, workforce agility has become a necessity for many businesses. What exactly is workforce agility? Read on to learn more about the concept, see how it can help enterprises pull ahead, and discover powerful skills management software that can boost flexibility across your workforce.

What Is Workforce Agility?

No matter the industry or organization, the business landscape is always changing. Organizations need an agile workforce to stay ahead of the curve, respond to challenges, and quickly implement pivot strategies.

Workforce agility refers to employees’ ability to adapt to new tasks when required, to shift between roles as needed, or to quickly learn how to excel in a new team or department. Workforce agility is evidenced by:

• Cross-departmental collaboration or fluidity between teams
• A culture of flexibility throughout the workforce
• Trust between leaders and reports, encouraging individuals to take initiative
• A strong competitive edge and the ability to quickly adapt to challenges

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Workforce Agility Matters Now More Than Ever

Rapid technological advancements, an uncertain economic and political climate, and a challenging job market all contribute to the workforce’s changing expectations. Adecco Group’s 2024 global workforce survey found that 40% of workers are worried about job stability. A similar percentage of employees share that they’ve experienced burnout in the past year. The survey also reported on growing concerns related to AI and job stability. Among employees concerned about the impact of AI, 62% say they’ve been negatively affected by it. These statistics reflect a worrying level of stress experienced by today's workforce, putting organizations at risk of attrition, disengagement, or a drop in productivity. 

In this challenging environment, organizations that want to ensure their workforce stays productive must have a sophisticated talent management strategy for boosting well-being at work and creating a culture of resilience. Remaining competitive means empowering employees to feel in control of their own careers. Closing skills gaps and encouraging cross-departmental collaboration is key. Agile workplaces will pull ahead, while organizations without a modern skills strategy will fall behind. 

In addition to the benefit workforce agility can have for employees, it’s also an important factor for business competitiveness and longevity. Shifting regulatory landscapes, global supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and a highly unpredictable political climate mean many organizations are navigating choppy waters. Without an agile workforce ready and willing to take on new challenges as they arise, companies will lack the ability to pivot when they need to.

These factors mean HR and L&D professionals are increasingly prioritizing workforce agility at their organizations. They may:

• Embrace continuous, agile learning programs to help employees improve a range of relevant skills throughout their tenure.
• Introduce new learning methods—like job shadowing, mentoring, or secondment opportunities—to encourage knowledge sharing and boost workforce performance.
• Invest in technology that can assess and develop employee skills, identify gaps, and offer personalized development paths.
• Use software that gives them a global view of the skills landscape across their organization to stay ahead of skills gaps.

These kinds of strategies may require a mindset shift for some HR and L&D teams, but they’re invaluable for helping employees work towards business goals. As HR leader Josh Bersin commented in a 2024 retrospective, “Given the stress among employees, the workforce, and the role of AI, we have no choice but to step up.” 

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What Are the Components of a Workforce Agility Strategy?

Are you implementing a workforce agility strategy at your organization? Consider these crucial components:

A Comprehensive Understanding of Your Skills Landscape

Siloed employee data can make it difficult to see where certain skills exist within your organization and where other skills are lacking. A good workforce agility strategy starts with a global picture of skills across your organization.

Targeted Development Paths

Once skills gaps have been identified, offering personalized training can help employees overcome them quickly. Custom development paths shaped by an organization's business needs and personalized to an employee's skill proficiency level help your workforce stay ahead of broader changes in the industry.

Support From Leadership

Getting C-suite buy-in is key. Leadership will have to be willing to prioritize adaptability, feel comfortable with letting employees take initiative where appropriate, and be open to cross-functional collaboration.

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Using Technology to Make Your Workforce Agility Strategy a Reality

Various solutions exist to boost workforce agility. Some organizations rely on compensation management systems, for example, to align pay structures with an employee's performance and attempt to incentivize adaptability and skill growth. They may also use performance management tools to monitor how employees are performing across different areas or to encourage managers to identify skills gaps. Some organizations also rely on succession planning software to gain an understanding of where different competencies exist in the workplace and to help them stay ahead of change. 

While these solutions offer distinct benefits when used for their stated purposes, they’re not always ideal for boosting agility within the workforce. This is because these tools draw from distinct data pools which help them fulfill their stated functions. They’re not entirely optimal for providing an overall picture of the skills landscape across organizations.

An HRIS alone isn't the best option either. HRISs often provide a clear picture of the workforce. However, when used as stand-alone platforms, they don't provide learning recommendations or actionable development plans and may not offer the analytical insight needed to monitor skills over time.

Skills Enablement Platforms: A Purpose-Built Solution for Workforce Agility

The good news is that there’s an emerging technological solution that combines all of the relevant features of the different types of talent management software in a single package. Furthermore, it’s purpose-built for skills agility. A skills enablement platform not only gives you a complete picture of skills across your business, it alsoempowers you to close training gaps and boost agility.

PeopleFluent Stories is one such platform. Not only does it provide the visibility required to understand your business's skills story, it facilitates knowledge sharing and skills-building and keeps employees engaged. By connecting staff with the right training at the right time, Stories boosts skills agility across departments. You can:

Gain a Unified Skills Story

Easily standardize your skills taxonomy across roles, profiles, departments, and teams.

Assign and Prioritize

Assign skills and proficiency levels to job profiles. Help employees set development goals and prioritize skills for future needs—all on one intuitive platform.

Increase Engagement

Make learning stick with gamification, experience points, and challenges that keep employees motivated to improve.

Boost Efficacy with AI

Take advantage of AI-powered personalized recommendations, practice questions, and a real-time coaching assistant.

Centralize Insights

Quickly identify skills gaps that are impacting your strategy while tracking and managing employee skills on a single platform that provides data-powered insights.

Lighten the Load on Your IT Team

Seamlessly connect to a range of third-party platforms, including HRISs, LMSs, and content libraries, such as LinkedIn Learning. Stories data is also available via API to enable integration back into your critical systems and business intelligence reporting tools.