Supporting employees in an agile organization: People management perspective on agile

Abstract

Agile management has been increasing in popularity in practice and within academic research. Whereas much of the previous focus has been on managerial and organizational perspectives on agile, the perspectives of employees and the people that make up the organizations have been lacking. This research tries to shine light on that perspective to improve the understanding of what type of support employees need in relation to working in an agile organization. First, a broad theoretical framework is built to set a base for understanding agile as a concept and to emphasize that agile organizations are often complex with many opportunities for employee supporting needs. This framework consists of two main parts. The first part of the framework paints a comprehensive picture of different elements that make up agile. This theoretical basis is constructed around theories on agile itself as well as existing ideas and theories concerning elements that are related to agile. The second part of the theoretical basis focuses on inspecting job demands and resources through different models and placing them within an agile context. The empirical portion of the research consists of fourteen semi-structured interviews of agile coaches that were conducted within a single large Finnish company. The data collected in these interviews provided the basis for this research to increase the understanding of employee supporting needs related to agile. Based on the research findings, employee supporting needs in an agile organization can be divided into two dimensions, dupped understanding agile and performing agile in this thesis. The dimension of understanding agile is more focused on seeing agile as a mindset whereas the dimension of performing agile is more concerned with the practical elements of operating in an agile way. The relationship between these dimensions is also discussed, as the line between the two is not always very clear. Alongside these dimensions of employee supporting needs, the research also identified five different influencing factors that can alter those supporting needs in different ways. Lastly, the research findings are related to existing theories of agile management. The identified differences between the employee support perspective and managerial perspective on agile are discussed with an aim to better the overall understanding of agile as an ideology.