Title: Framework for enablers and outcomes of workforce agility: socio technical systems perspective

Authors: Deborah Sharon Stanley; Vaneeta Aggarwal

Addresses: Department of Management Studies, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Thandalam, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Management Studies, University of Madras, Chepauk, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: Organisations in this fast driven market environment have felt the need to be flexible and change driven. This has brought the importance of agility in the workforce. Agile workforce exhibits the characteristics of adaptability, flexibility and innovativeness that work with speed and competitiveness. Workforce agility is considered as a key to organisational agility (Breu et al., 2002). We aim to address this issue by bringing out the various enablers of workforce agility along with the outcomes. The enablers of workforce agility are categorised based on the socio-technical system as individual and social, technological and organisational perspectives. In a socio-technical system, the behaviour of the workforce, environment in which they work machinery and technologies adopted in the organisation as well as the systems, strategies, practices followed in the organisation should work in unison towards achievement of the objectives. When these work in agreement towards achievement of workforce agility, the result would be realisation of agile workforce. This conceptual paper extensively reviews the literature on workforce agility to build a consolidated framework for workforce agility by establishing the enablers and outcomes helping organisations in their endeavour towards enhancing workforce agility.

Keywords: workforce agility; workforce agility enablers; socio-technical systems; workforce agility outcomes.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEX.2023.133494

International Journal of Business Excellence, 2023 Vol.30 No.4, pp.490 - 506

Received: 08 Jul 2020
Accepted: 05 Sep 2020
Published online: 18 Sep 2023 *

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