HR professionals are compromising organisational agility by failing to address weaknesses in leadership development, according to a report published by management consultancy Orion Partners.
Agile HR: Mindset Not Methodology found that HR professionals recognise the importance of organisational agility, with 67% describing it as ‘business critical'. Leadership development was ranked the management practice that had the most impact on organisational agility by 59%.
However, the survey found that none of the senior HR professionals polled rated their organisations as highly effective at building versatile leaders; with 75% stating they were no more than moderately effective here.
Talent management ranked second in terms of number of respondents citing this as having strong impact on organisational agility, followed by capability development, resource management and workforce planning. Flexible work contracts were considered the least impactful management practice. Employee relations, reward, workforce analytics and employee communications also all ranked in the bottom five.
Jane Chesters, co-founder of Orion Partners and author of the report, noted that many firms are still investing in such management practices despite believing them to be inefficient.
“The people management practices seen as having the least impact on organisational agility were a surprise,” she said. “The ability to ‘switch on and off’ through flexible employment contracts wasn’t rated as important by 88% of participants. Despite the vast majority of HR directors not thinking flexible employment contracts improve agility HR teams are still investing time and money in them.”
Chesters added that HR practitioners can increase organisational agility most effectively by improving the quality of leadership. “The good news is that the majority of senior HR practitioners recognise the need to focus their efforts and energies here – the bad news is that, so far, their efforts aren’t delivering the goods,” she said.
