To survive in a swiftly changing world, every area of business faces the challenge of keeping up with the extremely fast speed of changing world. And this means employees also need to adapt more than before also, employers see adaptability as an essential skill, Ken Cooper Global of HR for Bloomberg (2018).
Employees:
Flexibility is an important trait for employees, the term “flexibility” means the ability to adapt to changing forces. Flexibility is necessary in the workplace more importantly flexible employees are more valuable. Personnel with a flexible mindset never say” Do I have to” or “is it my job”? when they are asked to do a new assignment. Thus flexible/adaptable applicants have the priority for employment.
According to university of Bradford (2020) recruiters/employers never ask the applicants directly if she/he is adaptable or flexible in the working environment instead they have aspecific question list that indicates the degree of candidates adaptability.
Organisations:
‘adaption’ is one of the buzz words in the 21st century and plays a key role in our everyday life as well as in commerce environment therefore, excellent organizations and corporates focusing on every area of trade that has impacts on the results of business objectives.
Flexibility works both ways great managers treat employees as individuals so being adaptive is not only relevant to employees but also is linked to the approach management tasks to manage the employees. Therefore, organisations need to change to stay competitive in the fast-changing environment and they must choose from several strategies to deal/cope with the changing environment.
According to Jeffrey A. Le, Jason A & Amir Erez (no date), one option is to replace those employees that are not capable to deal and manage work tasks in their changing workplace with the new candidates who have the knowledge, skills and ability to cope in the continuous obsolescence.
Another approach is to emphasise on training or programs to deliver the required knowledge, skills and ability to employees and the third option is to hire candidates who are willing to work in a changing environment and that relies on the organization’s employing system to provide the organisation with personnel who are more adaptable.
Thus, not only the employees must be adaptable to changes but also the organisations must too.
Reference:
Jeffrey-Jason, A and Amir Erez ‘no date’ ‘Adaptability to changing
Task contexts: Effects of general cognitive ability, Conscientiousness, and openness to experience’. Personal psychology journal.pp.563-589 http://media.terry.uga.edu/socrates/publications/2013/06/LePineColquittErez2000.pdf
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