Would you describe your business as nimble? Innovative? Flexible?

Or stuck in the mud?

Organizational agility helps your business adapt to its changing environment, by deftly executing initiatives in support of your overall strategy. It’s what allows your business to:

• respond quickly and effectively to urgent issues and risks;
• stay profitable in turbulent markets;
• identify and capitalize on emerging opportunities – before your competitors do.

Stagnancy is death in business. So if your business is slow to adapt or respond, it’s time to get unstuck – by identifying and removing the following obstacles:

Fear

Willingness to change is critical to agility. Yet despite working in a volatile, uncertain environment, many leaders refuse to let employees test new ideas. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure and especially fear of financial setback prevent them from giving their teams the freedom to experiment. The result? Zero innovation. Leaders in agile organizations empower their employees to take calculated risks and systematically test new concepts – and they have their employees’ backs when they fail.

Silos

Too often, employees are so focused on meeting their own department’s objectives that they have little communication with, or appreciation for, other departments. Over time, a lack of cross-functional communication leads to silos that bog-down processes and make change extremely difficult. Agile companies thrive on sharing information and ideas. By effectively managing knowledge organization-wide, these organizations capture, share and use information better than their competitors.

Rigid Hierarchies

Processes and channels are important (especially in larger organizations, but excessive bureaucracy and structure delays decision-making and slows reaction time. Agile businesses understand the need to plan AND execute simultaneously when speed is essential. Does this lead to mistakes on occasion? Sure. But breaking work into small segments – and assembling cross-functional teams to execute it – allows agile companies to fail fast and quickly make changes.

Lack of Work/Life Balance

Too many businesses are stuck in an “all work, no play” mentality, still buying into the fallacy that more hours worked = better results. Agile employers like Google and Apple, however, realize that people are their most focused, creative and productive when they have adequate time to lead a fulfilling life. Instead of focusing on running a tight ship, these organizations focus on amplifying the human element of their employees – and the results speak for themselves.

Want to make your business more agile in 2017?
Start with a flexible staffing strategy.

The right staffing strategy can make your organization more responsive, resilient and innovative. With a national presence and a full complement of talent solutions, Exact Staff is the ideal partner to help you become more agile – and successful – this year.

Give us a call to discuss your goals – we’ll help you achieve them.