Synopses & Reviews
If your organization is like many others in the current economic climate, you’re being asked to do more with less and maximize efficiency under the constraints of an increasingly stringent budget. In your efforts to creatively cut costs while maintaining quality service and production, you may have tried using a variety of alternative workers such as contingent, contractor, and temporary workers; relying on “permanent part-time” staff or teleworkers; or increasing overtime among your existing workers. You may even have resorted to outsourcing, offshoring, or downsizing.
Today, leading the pack, or just remaining competitive, does require a significant shift in the way we do business. However, many of the current efforts are focused just on cutting costs, and they run the risk of also reducing organization capability. There’s no getting around it: If you want to optimize your workforce and still achieve superior results, you need a calculated, systematic effort to plan for work results and the types of workers needed to do the work.
Lean but Agile provides you and your organization with a complete system for clarifying and focusing on measurable, desired outcomes and working backward to design work and staff to achieve those outcomes. Packed with practical advice, examples, guides, worksheets, diagrams, and metrics, the book gives you powerful strategies for streamlining your staff and the work they do...all while remaining nimble, fast-moving, and ready to cope with dynamic change. Lean but Agile gives you the eye-opening strategies you need to:
• Reengineer how work is done to impact the number and kind of people needed
• Build a lean and agile talent pool
• Identify and assess the methods you currently use to staff for work
• Adopt new management strategies for dealing with the many different, coexisting methods of staffing for and doing work
• Build organizational commitment to Lean but Agile work and staffing, and make the business case to senior leaders and other stakeholders
In addition, the book includes information on the HR audit as well as a sample workforce report depicting how an organization may gather and maintain useful workforce information.
Smart organizations need to be able to rapidly change direction in staffing based on customer demands, competitor strategies, innovation, pricing, and other considerations. This book contains a powerful system for staying lean while delivering the superior products, services, and results that customers and shareholders demand.
WILLIAM J. ROTHWELL is professor of Workplace Learning and Performance at The Pennsylvania State University and President of Rothwell & Associates, a business consultancy.
JAMES GRABER is Managing Director of Business Decisions, Inc., a talent-management technology and software company.
NEIL McCORMICK, a Senior Vice President at Talent2, has 30 years’ experience in international management, human resources, and consulting.
Review
“It’s a great read, particularly for business leaders challenged with building and managing a highly efficient workforce in today’s new economy.” --The Seamless Workforce
Review
"...important read for professionals and executives alike who are being required to do more with less throughout the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. Highly recommended.” --Choice magazine
Review
“…detailed and clear explanations of how to implement a lean but agile approach.” --T&D magazine
Review
"Lean but Agile can show you how with some careful planning and execution it is possible to create a lean, agile workforce that can meet your goals." --CIO Insight
Synopsis
William Rothwell honored with the ASTD Distinguished Contribution Award in Workplace Learning and Performance.
As organizations strive to maximize efficiency to meet stringent budgets, a general “do more with less” mandate is no longer sufficient. Managers and executives must evaluate every process and every role, and do away with assumptions about how work gets done and who does it. Lean but Agile presents a system for analyzing work and selecting the ideal combination of cost-effective resources—employees, consultants, contractors, temporary workers, vendors—to accomplish it.
The book advocates changes in hiring, goal-setting, learning and development, and performance management, and discusses the introduction, implementation, and management of lean work and agile staffing methods. It also explores the fundamental role technology can play in the transformation.
Packed with practical advice, examples, guides, worksheets, diagrams, and metrics, Lean but Agile will help leaders, managers, and human resource professionals optimize their workforces while still achieving superior results.
Synopsis
William Rothwell honored with the ASTD Distinguished Contribution Award in Workplace Learning and Performance.
As organizations strive to maximize efficiency to meet stringent budgets, a general "do more with less" mandate is no longer sufficient. Managers and executives must evaluate every process and every role, and do away with assumptions about how work gets done and who does it.
Lean but Agile presents a system for analyzing work and selecting the ideal combination of cost-effective resources--employees, consultants, contractors, temporary workers, vendors--to accomplish it.
The book advocates changes in hiring, goal-setting, learning and development, and performance management, and discusses the introduction, implementation, and management of lean work and agile staffing methods. It also explores the fundamental role technology can play in the transformation.
Packed with practical advice, examples, guides, worksheets, diagrams, and metrics,
Lean but Agile will help leaders, managers, and human resource professionals optimize their workforces while still achieving superior results.
Synopsis
Chances are, your organization is experimenting with many ways to get work done without adding to its full-time payroll. But are you still managing to fulfill the high standards your customers and shareholders expect? Is your company systematically planning for the quantity and quality of people needed to achieve superior work results? Does it have a system in place to predict your future needs, keep your workforce lean, and move quickly enough to keep up with sudden changes in the marketplace?
Chock full of proven, practical guidance and tools including metrics, diagrams, examples, guides, and worksheets, Lean but Agile provides you with a comprehensive system for analyzing work and selecting the ideal combination of cost-effective resources—employees, consultants, contractors, temporary workers, and vendors—to accomplish it.
This eye-opening book shows you and your organization how to optimize efficient and effective ways to achieve work results in keeping with customer expectations while minimizing the costly expenses involved in maintaining a cadre of full-time workers.
You’ll learn how to examine and rethink how work gets done in your organization; prepare for future needs; use training, goal-setting, and performance management to keep your human resources nimble and ready for unexpected challenges; and incorporate up-to-the-minute management strategies for keeping up with temporary and contingent workers, contractors, “permanent part-time” staff, outsourced staff, teleworkers, and others.
The book also reveals how to build organizational commitment for, and then implement, a comprehensive system for assessing present and future staffing needs, and explores the fundamental role technology can play in your transformation into a lean and agile organization.
In today’s business environment, talent needs change so rapidly that smart organizations not only need to incorporate increased flexibility in their workforces, they have to have state-of-the-art systems for managing them. Lean but Agile gives you the expert guidance and proven systems you need to keep your payroll in line with your moment-to-moment needs and achieve the great results you know your company can deliver.
About the Author
WILLIAM J. ROTHWELL is professor of Workplace Learning and Performance at Pennsylvania State University and President of Rothwell & Associates, a business consultancy.
JAMES GRABER is Managing Director of Business Decisions, Inc., a talent management technology and software company.
NEIL MCCORMICK, a Senior Vice President at Talent2, has 30 years’ experience in international management, human resources and consulting.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
PREFACE vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
CHAPTER 1 An Introduction to Lean but Agile Work and Workforce Planning 1
CHAPTER 2 Optimize the Work 20
CHAPTER 3 Create a Talent Pool for a Lean but Agile Workforce 49
CHAPTER 4 Optimize the Workforce 84
CHAPTER 5 Optimize the Future Work and Workforce 110
CHAPTER 6 Manage and Maintain a Lean but Agile Workforce 127
CHAPTER 7 Bring Lean but Agile Work and Workforce Planning into Your Organization 180
CHAPTER 8 The Future of Lean but Agile Work and Workforce Planning 190
APPENDIX Talent2 Human Resources Performance Audit Process Framework 198
NOTES 215
INDEX 219
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 225