HRD Roundtable Report: Making the Investment in Experimentation

Experimentation and iteration are no longer skillsets just for the R&D team. The world continues to change rapidly, and organisations require lean and innovative strategies to continue to thrive. For HR teams to have the biggest impact on their organisations, they need to become comfortable with agility and become true agents of change. Organisations also need to recognise that this requires investment – in both resources and training. How do we reconcile increased investment, with the need to be leaner than ever?

How can we effect cultural change for better agility in organisations?

Over the last couple of years HR has had to be more agile than ever. Companies would not have survived without HR. HR has to transition from being seen as a supporting function but existing and helping line managers so that line managers are empowered to do things without having to run everything through HR. Line managers need to have more emotional intelligence so that HR cannot be dragged down in the day to day running of different aspects of the organisation as they tend to be.

There has been a real shift to agility, and the culture must change at all levels to accept agility. Senior leaders must also be able to accept uncertainty. Senior leaders talk about wanting to be agile but then talk about 12 months of forecasting. Participants explained that junior colleagues tend to be more agile and accept uncertainty, but this is less common at the senior levels.

Technology and Agility

A participant shared that they have invested in going back to a simpler place to promote those values. They have a specialised intranet which promotes their values. One of their values is being brave and being willing to try things out.

Another participant shared the need to put better investment into the organisation in terms of wellbeing. As their company is hybrid, they stated that they do not want to lose the connection that their employees have, and that there aren’t enough people in their industry so they really need to retain them and invest in careers.

When people are connected you can drive technology and agility. It does take time. Integration and connection are very important. Everyone should be able to access everything in the correct way.

How can companies get investment for new technology?

Having a good relationship with the CFO is key and being able to justify with the data that is available. Showing what you have achieved is important to show the business case for why it should be implemented.

How can we ourselves be agile and promote experimental behaviour within our organisation?

HR leaders need to take a step at showing they can fail fast. Not everything has to be perfect and sometimes it’s just about making progress. You need to practice what you preach, and you must put agility into practice. It is necessary to encourage your teams to adopt that approach as well.

Jade Bridge

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