“The Art & Science of Agile HR” with Riina Hellström, Founder, Agile HR Community
Feb 19, 2025
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Riina Hellström, the Founder of Agile HR Community, shares her insights on transforming HR through agility. She emphasizes how Agile HR revolutionizes value delivery, enabling better results via small-scale pilots. Riina discusses the power of cross-functional teams in enhancing processes like onboarding and performance management. Additionally, she highlights the importance of co-creating HR programs with employees to boost buy-in and real impact, urging a shift from traditional metrics to more product-focused KPIs.
Adopting an Agile HR mindset encourages organizations to focus on smaller, iterative improvements rather than traditional extensive planning for greater responsiveness.
Co-creating HR programs with employees enhances buy-in and effectiveness by ensuring solutions meet actual user needs, promoting tangible outcomes.
Deep dives
Shifting to a Product Mindset in HR
HR leaders are encouraged to adopt a product mindset instead of following traditional project-based methodologies. Instead of planning extensive annual projects, HR should focus on quarterly planning and breaking down large initiatives into smaller, manageable features and releases. This approach helps teams prioritize deliverables under broader themes like management development or employee experience, emphasizing the need for tangible outcomes rather than vague goals. By adopting an agile mindset, HR can become more responsive to change and better deliver value in a rapidly evolving organizational landscape.
The Importance of Co-Creation and Feedback
Co-creating HR programs with employees significantly enhances buy-in and effectiveness. By engaging employees in the development process, teams gather valuable insights and ensure that the solutions they build actually meet user needs. For instance, organizations can gather feedback from frontline workers to optimize onboarding processes, allowing HR to tailor experiences that resonate with real-world job scenarios. This collaborative approach not only fosters a sense of ownership among employees but also leads to more practical and enduring solutions.
Redefining Metrics for Success
Agile HR requires a shift in how success is measured, moving beyond traditional metrics to more relevant product-focused KPIs. Instead of waiting until after full implementation to assess the effectiveness of a recruitment or training process, HR teams should evaluate ongoing metrics such as candidate experience or time-to-fill rates. This shift allows organizations to remain agile, adapting their strategies based on real-time data from employees and stakeholders. By connecting KPIs to outcomes, HR can demonstrate its value to organizational goals more effectively.
Navigating the Agile Transformation Journey
The timeline for embracing an agile HR framework can vary significantly based on organizational culture and readiness for change. Some teams may successfully transition to an agile model in as little as six months if they already possess a collaborative mindset, while others might require one to two years of focused effort to reach a full agile operating model. Institutions should begin with mindset shifts and small-scale experiments before broadening their agile practices. Organizations must remember to emphasize the importance of context and adaptability in their approach to agile implementation.
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