When you look at start-ups they are agile – they move fast, though as a company becomes larger, this agility often reduces. With a changing business environment, and the pressures of greater competition and higher customer demands your business can’t afford to slow down or put out anything less than your best.

So how do you create a more agile workforce? Here are four tips to help.

1. Inspire passion

Your team will always work harder, faster and better when they love what they do so inspire passion within your team. There is a mind shift when people are passionate about their work; they are more likely to keep pushing forward, challenges and problems aren’t setbacks, they’re hurdles that need to be overcome.

2. Let them work!

There is no place for micromanaging when you want to build an agile workforce so leave your team to their own devices (with the ability to ask questions and clarify instructions of course). Will they make more mistakes? Yes, it is likely. Will they get better at fixing and preventing them? You bet.

While it may be difficult to stand back and resist the urge to interfere, by teaching your team to take responsibility for their role and own their mistakes you will find as many great organisations have, that your people will thrive on the responsibility.

3. Hone their focus

A great vision and clear goals are essential for creating a more agile workforce. Not only will it ensure everyone is working together not individually, but it will also help your team to prioritise tasks more effectively and eliminate distractions.

Developing clear goals also builds passion, collaboration and trust within your team – essential ingredients for building a great company culture.

4. Be the example

Change as we know is inevitable. So as a leader you need to embrace and drive change – after all how you react to and communicate change through your organisation will determine how your team reacts or responds. Your team need to see you model the behaviours that you’ve agreed are important and underpin both your organisation’s success and team values – every day

The purpose of creating an agile team is to ensure your organisation can move quickly, pursue improvement, embrace change and stay competitive. So as you go about your work each day, look for ways you can show the importance of this through your words and actions.

Do you have any tips or stories on creating a more agile workforce? We’d love to hear them!

Do you need help creating a more agile and change-ready workforce? Call Turning Point Partners today on 1300 27 83 45 to increase your capacity and capability through change and growth.