Workforce Agility: Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Measure

Abstract

The concept of workforce agility has become increasingly popular in recent years as agile individuals are expected to be better able to handle change and uncertainty. However, agility has rarely been studied in a systematic way. Relations between agility and positive work outcomes, such as higher performance or increased well-being, have often been suggested but rarely been empirically tested. Furthermore, several different workforce agility measures are used in the literature which complicates the comparison of findings. Recognizing these gaps in the literature, we developed a new workforce agility measure, compared this measure to established workforce agility measures, and empirically tested the relations of workforce agility with work outcomes. For this purpose, we surveyed participants from two samples (N1 = 218, N2 = 533). In a first step, we used Sample 1 to examine the factor structure of the measure for item selection. In a second step, we used Sample 2 to confirm the 10-factor structure and to compare the predictive validity of our measure along with two other agility measures. Findings demonstrate predictive validity for all three workforce agility scales, especially in relation to innovative performance. Furthermore, workforce agility related positively to task and innovative performance, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and well-being.

Unveiling heterogenous knowledge-oriented leadership and knowledge acquisition based hybrid work agility of knowledge workers

“…Centered around the ideas of speed and flexibility (Su, 2011), the concept originated in manufacturing studies and has since been extended to organizations, supply chains, business relationships and the workforce (Breu et al , 2002). Researchers postulate that an organization’s journey toward an “agile organization” can be attained through an “agile workforce.” The agility of the workforce comprises two facets, namely, the ability to respond to change and then use it to one’s advantage as an opportunity (Petermann and Zacher, 2022). An agile workforce, capable of proactively identifying viable solutions, is crucial for the growth of organizations when faced with rapid and unanticipated changes (Alavi et al , 2014; Muduli, 2016).…”

“…Thus, work agility in the hybrid environment or HWA depends on an individual’s ability to adapt quickly to the technological environment, seeing technology is a major driver of the knowledge era. Agile workers are characterized by their responsiveness to market developments and resilience in acclimatizing to changes in the business landscape (Coetzee, 2021; Paul et al , 2020; Petermann and Zacher, 2022; Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2014). The hybrid work model also exemplifies the need for professional flexibility, with which one can accomplish various tasks (Breu et al , 2002; Qin and Nembhard, 2015; Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2014).…”

“…Researchers postulate that an organization's journey toward an "agile organization" can be attained through an "agile workforce." The agility of the workforce comprises two facets, namely, the ability to respond to change and then use it to one's advantage as an opportunity (Petermann and Zacher, 2022). An agile workforce, capable of proactively identifying viable solutions, is crucial for the growth of organizations when faced with rapid and unanticipated changes (Alavi et al, 2014;Muduli, 2016).…”

Nexus between Workforce Agility and Employee Loyalty - An IT Sector Perspective

“…The steps to be initiated to make the workforce agile needs to be focused for detail (8) . As the employees of organizations have valorisation, study to be taken up to help the decision-makers to understand and expand the WFA (9) . The IT company's ability to adapt agility is phenomenal, but nature of IT employees to quit organization is the reason for organization failure, Given the above context, this study aims to examine the nexus between Workforce Agility (WFA) and Employee loyalty (EL).…”

An arts-based process to build Workforce agility

“…Our current research focuses on building agile behaviors; hence we use Sherehiy's dimensions. Franco and Landini (2022) emphasized that an agile Workforce brings multifold benefits to firms, such as heightened innovation, project success (Sheffield and Lemetayer, 2013), improved organizational citizenship behavior (Petermann and Zacher, 2022), and organizational growth (Abrishamkar et al ., 2020), hence the focus on Workforce Agility.…”