Author: Fabiola Eyholzer

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Lean | Agile Enterprises are learning organizations who thrive on relentless improvement – as a company but also as individuals. They match traditional teaching methods with contemporary ways of obtaining and sharing knowledge. They provide growth opportunities across the organization with Lean | Agile Leaders, Career Coaches, and Talent Scouts all playing a central role in shaping meaningful growth and individual career paths.

Learning and growth have always been intertwined. But it takes on a completely new dynamic in a world of accelerating change, where ever-shorter half-life of facts and knowledge is a reality.

Here are some points to guide the journey:

• Create a learning organization: While working is a key part of learning, agile people must also understand how knowledge grows, changes, and is overturned. They must be given a way to acquire relevant new skills and competencies as well as the ability for transfer of learning. That is why a learning organization offers contemporary learning and teaching methods, captures and distributes intellectual capital, and provides transparency and access to knowledge and skills.

• Empower employees to take the lead: In line with new talent contract, employees are not only empowered when it comes to their work, but they are also in charge of their own development. They access knowledge, attend learning sessions, build a network, and shape their progress and career path according to their own needs and perceptions. This journey is strongly guided – but not driven or controlled – by People Operations and Lean | Agile Leaders.

• Illustrate prospective role-based career paths: Modern careers are more about personal choices and meaningful growth than climbing a (fast disappearing) hierarchical ladder. Consequently, career paths are becoming more fluid, multifaceted, and individualized than ever before. A catalog of prospective role-based career paths can illustrate typical growth paths, but without limiting the options to a pre-set career model.

• Establish individual career coaching: A dedicated team of career coaches connects with each person individually in order to outline an individual career profile with a learning and growth plan, that is continuously being reviewed and adjusted as needed. This ensures that boosting the (internal) market value of people is always in focus. It also equips the organization with a previously untapped understanding of their talent pipeline. HR no longer depends on a rating from an annual appraisal, because they know their people on a personal, authentic level.

• Apply agile workforce planning and talent scouting: Allowing for flexible careers requires agile workforce planning and talent scouting. People Operations must understand the organization and its changing needs and be able to positively match that with the circumstances and aspirations of people.

• Enhance growth through Lean | Agile leadership: Lean | Agile Leaders are lifelong learners, teachers, and people developers. They engage in continuous listening, communication, and feedback in order to identify development areas and boost learning. These constant interactions are crucial to the success of both: Individuals and teams.

The best leaders not only develop people, but let them spread their wings – even if it means letting them take on a new challenge in a different role/place within the organization. While it opens up an attractive world of growth opportunities, it also boosts skill sharing, and knowledge transfer across the enterprise.

It is the aligned and combined effort of employees, leaders and HR that enables the organization to become a learning network with an unbeatable talent pool – the foundation of a resilient Lean | Agile Enterprise.

This article is part of the series “Aligning key Themes in Human Resources to Lean | Agile Values & Principles”

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This post was contributed by Fabiola Eyholzer, CEO of Just Leading Solutions, LLC. More information about Fabiola, Agile HR and the services of Just Leading Solutions can be found at www.justleadingsolutions.com.