How the COVID-19 Pandemic Taught Organizations to Become More Agile

Flatter Structures and Internal Talent Mobility Will Help Companies Respond to Disruptive Change

2020-21 were the years of disruption. The pandemic accelerated the pace of disruption, when companies were already responding to the tremendous changes brought on by new technologies, new competition, and the rapidly changing skills required to execute a company’s business strategy. COVID-19 compressed digital transformations that were supposed to take three years into three weeks!  All we had time to do was to react to the change around us.

 Now it’s 2022. This is the year for HR leaders to respond by developing new strategies and processes to ensure that our organizations are more resilient, more agile, and more capable of responding to disruptive events.

 For the HR part of the picture, this means flatter and more nimble organizational structures that let teams expand or contract based on the changing needs of the business. It also means a flexible approach to work that leverages and builds the hidden talent in your organization.

New Structures for Nimble Organizations

Organizations that respond well to change are creating new structures. They have moved away from a strict reliance on hierarchies toward a team-of-teams framework. Less hierarchical structures allow teams to form, expand, or contract as needed. Think of an amoeba; it can adapt and take many shapes while maintaining the integrity of its structure.

 In a less hierarchical structure, teams come together quickly and just as quickly disperse, lending their resources to new teams as needed. Flexible, team-based structures help companies move their talent to address the company’s most pressing business challenges.

 Hierarchical structures are slow. It takes time for information to flow from one level to the next.  Flatter structures, where most decisions are made at the team level, are much faster and more responsive. Change takes many forms. It could be a new customer request, a new competitor, the introduction of a new technology, or something as uncontrollable as the global pandemic. In 2022, HR leaders need to think of the ability to respond to change as a core capability in itself. Less hierarchical, flexible, and malleable structures favor this capability.

Leveraging Talent Mobility

In addition to having flatter structures, to respond to the challenges and opportunities of 2022, organizations also need to leverage internal talent mobility. The pandemic has demonstrated the value of talent mobility since many businesses have had to shift what their people are doing to address emerging needs.

 In some cases, the pandemic shut down portions of the business, while other parts experienced greater demand. In some cases, business had to shift talent to respond to an entirely new business opportunity arising in response to y the pandemic. Take Verizon. When the pandemic hit, a majority of their retail stores were forced to close.  Rather than lay-off their employees, they took this opportunity to retain them to serve in other roles that were experiencing greater demand, such as tele-sales and customer service. The need for touchless technology has also accelerated their digital transformation plans for the retail store experience..

 Similarly, at Bank of America the pandemic and subsequent economic recession resulted in the company redeploying over 20,000 employees to perform roles that did not previously exist, like processing PPP loans.  The feedback they are getting is that employees are really enjoying some of the roles they have been redeployed to and they want more experiences to spread their wings.

 One way to optimize talent mobility is to use the talent already within the organization to address challenges by letting your people opt-in to new project opportunities for a small percentage of their time. This doesn’t mean removing them from their current job. It means that they have a chance to work for a portion of their time on a project they’re passionate about while, in many cases, learning new skills or honing existing ones.

Next Steps for 2022

What steps can you take to begin to make actionable the new structures and processes you need to realize the promise of 2022? If you’re not doing the following, you might consider starting here:

 Delegate decision-making down to the team level and empower teams to act quickly.

As much as possible, enable teams to make the day-to-day decisions, as long as they stay within the parameters of their charter. Manage by exception, with Senior Management stepping in only when the teams need to get unstuck, or require guidance or resources that only senior managers can provide.

 Maximize project-based teams.

Most companies are using project teams, but many could use them far more often and more extensively. Are you flexible about moving people with specialized skills from one team to another, as needed? Are you building skills from within by letting people work on projects where they get experience with building skills of growing importance to your company?

 Take stock of your internal talent pool

You have a large latent talent pool within your organization and may not even know what’s available. Many people in your organization have talents that are valuable for your company that you are not using. A first move would be to create an inventory of internal skills, as a step toward creating an internal talent marketplace.

From Reactivity to Proactivity

We could not help but fall into “reaction mode” in the early days of the pandemic. But this isn’t the last time we will see unpredictable, challenging events create a moment of crisis for our businesses. Take a breath and think about strategies that will help you in the event that we have to pivot as quickly as we did last year.

What we do in 2022 will set us up for success the next time we face such daunting challenges. We need to prepare now to build flatter structures that are more nimble and more responsive to change. We also need to leverage internal talent to optimize the skills within the organization to address the urgent challenges we face. In 2022, the ability to respond effectively to change is a core capability.

Adapted and reposed from Medium