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Essay Available:
Pages:
4 pages/≈1100 words
Sources:
6 Sources
Style:
Harvard
Subject:
Management
Type:
Essay
Language:
English (U.S.)
Document:
MS Word
Date:
Total cost:
$ 17.28
Topic:

Workforce Agility: Describe The Notion Of Agile Workforce

Essay Instructions:

NATURE OF THE TASK
This is an individual assessment task.
INSTRUCTIONS
Students are required to write a 1,200-word essay (excluding the reference list) in response to the question posed below:
ESSAY TOPIC: Workforce Agility
ESSAY BACKGROUND:
Workforce agility has been posited as important to the growth of businesses in competitive markets that face continuous and unanticipated change. An agile workforce can create impact, and therefore adapt to the environment of a firm. This agile workforce can use its knowledge and skills to anticipate and to pre-empt the dynamics of the environment.
RELATED QUESTIONS:
You should critically discuss the following related questions:
1. Describe the notion of “agile workforce”
2. Discuss the attributes or capabilities of an agile workforce
3. Analyse the factors compelling organisations to become more agile
4. Evaluate the implications of agile workforce for managers
RECOMMENDED READING LIST
The following resources will assist you in your preliminary understanding of and research for the topic.
Students are NOT restricted to these resources, and can use their own independent research to find relevant information. Students are however, expected to read and utilise intext, at least 3 of the below resources. Remember that for a pass grade, students are expected to utilise at least 6 resources overall.
Alavi, S., Wahab, D.A., Muhamad, N. and Arbab Shirani, B., 2014. Organic structure and organisational learning as the main antecedents of workforce agility. International Journal of Production Research, 52(21), pp.6273-6295.
Alavi, S. and Wahab, D.A., 2013. A review on workforce agility. Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology, 5(16), pp.4195-4199.
Breu, K., Hemingway, C.J., Strathern, M. and Bridger, D., 2002. Workforce agility: the new employee strategy for the knowledge economy. Journal of Information Technology, 17(1), pp.21-31.
Felipe, C.M., Roldán, J.L. and Leal-Rodríguez, A.L., 2016. An explanatory and predictive model for organizational agility. Journal of Business Research, 69(10), pp.4624-4631.
Plonka, F.E., 1997. Developing a lean and agile work force. Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries, 7(1), pp.11-20.
Singh, J., Sharma, G., Hill, J. and Schnackenberg, A., 2013. Organizational agility: What it is, what it is not, and why it matters. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2013, No. 1, p. 11813). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Sumukadas, N. and Sawhney, R., 2004. Workforce agility through employee involvement. Lie Transactions, 36(10), pp.1011-1021.
HOW TO PRESENT YOUR ASSIGNMENT
The marking criteria has been placed under the Assessment Section in iLearn.
The length of the essay, including citations, but excluding the reference list, is 1,200 words. Include the word count at the end of the essay, and before the reference list. Turnitin similarly should be 5% or lower.
Use 1.5 line spacing, 2.5 cm margins on top, bottom and on each side, Times New Roman font size 12. You are required to use the Harvard (AGPS) Referencing style throughout your essay.
All essays must cite, in total, a minimum of six (6) academic/scholarly and peer reviewed articles. This includes three (3) of the recommended articles featured above.
Do not use colour printing or formatting templates when submitting your report. Do not include an executive summary, content section, abstract, footnotes or endnotes. Do not use headings and subheadings.
WRITING STYLE: The essay should be written in a formal and academic style. The essay will be evaluated for discriminatory language, clarity of expression and overall presentation. Do not use bullet points, and casual language or bracketed comments. Do not use headings and subheadings, as they reduce the integration and flow of your essay.
Your essay must be fully and appropriately referenced, using Harvard (AGPS) intext citations. Substantial marks will be deducted for inadequate, or incorrect, referencing. Aim for, at least, two (2) in-text citations per 100 words.
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
This assessment must be submitted via Turnitin in iLearn. Hard copies will not be accepted or marked.
Guidance on how to submit a Turnitin assignment may be accessed from this link:
https://mq(dot)edu(dot)au/iLearn/student_info/assignments.htm#turnitin
If you cannot access or view your submission via Turnitin in iLearn, you have not correctly submitted your work and will need to do so prior to the due date. If you require assistance submitting through Turnitin, you may lodge a OneHelp Ticket or refer to the IT help page.
You may make several submissions via Turnitin to check your work for plagiarism and make adjustments accordingly up until the due date. If you submit your work after the due date your submission will be counted as a late submission and penalties stipulated in the Unit Guide will apply.
Please note that for a first-time submission the similarity report will be available immediately but for any subsequent submissions it may take 24 hours for the similarity report to be generated in Turnitin.
Please note that it is your responsibility to:
LATE SUBMISSIONS

• allow sufficient time for submission of your work and any uploading of documents so try to avoid submitting your work just prior to the deadline.
• ensure that you make the correct submission and that your document can be viewed in Turnitin.
Please also note that technical issues, such as an internet outage or computer failure are not considered grounds for special consideration. For further details, please check the Special Consideration Policy.
Late submissions are possible but they will be penalised unless the student has been granted an approved extension (refer to the Special Consideration Policy). Late penalties will be calculated based on the marks allocated to the specific assessment task. The penalty for late submission is as follows:
• 5% of the total possible marks will be deducted if it is late by up to 30 minutes
• 10% of the total possible marks will be deducted if it is more than 30 minutes late and
up to 24 hours late
• A further 10% of the total possible marks will be deducted for each 24-hour period up to 3 days (including weekends)
• 100% of the marks will be deducted after 3 days and zero marks will be awarded
Please note that online submissions are electronically tracked, and the electronic record of submission will be used to determine late penalties. This means that submitting your work even a few seconds after the allocated deadline will result in a late submission which will attract the penalty noted above. There is no flexibility with the applying of penalties as they must be applied fairly and consistently to all students. It is your responsibility to allow sufficient time for submission of your work and any uploading of documents so try to avoid submitting your work just prior to the deadline.

Essay Sample Content Preview:

WORKFORCE AGILITY
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Workforce Agility
Agility is a global strategy for reacting to a volatile and competitive business environment. A business’ capability to rapidly change and become accustomed to changes in the work environment without losing its vision and momentum is defined as workforce agility. The agility is only possible if the workforce has three distinct qualities, which are stability, adaptability, and flexibility. Organizations that are committed to ongoing success recognize that a business is a value created for its customers, and to keep adding value to the consumer base, they have to rapidly focus and adapt to the reality of their target market. Competitive markets are characterized by endless and unforeseen changes that require an agile workforce that can use their skills and knowledge to anticipate and preempt the market, and this enables the business to adapt easily to the dynamics of the market environment. Agility is also considered as a set of sense-response movements that are usual for organizations functioning in an environment of turbulence and fast change. The actions are based on the businesses’ ability to precipitate intended change, which results in quick modifications in planning actions, asset deployment, and venture strategies. Tallon and Pinsonneault (2011, p. 471) specify agility as persistent methodical variations in an establishment’s outputs, procedures that are identified, calculated, and implemented as a careful strategy to achieve competitive advantage. The sense response actions that are considered agile can be specified into two concepts of the magnitude of variety change and the rate of generating the change in variety. The scale of the change in variety is mainly about the degree to which an organization’s structure can adjust the level of generating variety in its services, processes, and products, among others. Establishments with a greater extent of range generation and more variety are considered more agile. The rate of change in the variety is characterized by the time taken to anticipate and implement a given change in the range of products or services. The speed of change makes organizations distinct, giving them a competitive advantage in the market because a high rate of change is associated with greater agility (Muduli 2009, p. 4). An agile workforce supports the strategic objectives of time, cost, variety, and quality.
For any focal organization, workforce agility is defined through the attributes shown in the structural procedures and strategies as well as their implementation. The primary attributes are flexibility, competent speed, and stability, exploiting changes through innovation, adaptivity, and the ability to develop. These characteristics have led to an increase in productivity, output and market shares, business growth in competitive markets, and to enhance an establishment’s prospect for continued existence in the increasingly turbulent and global environments. Flexibility enables the organization’s workforce to attend to different duties and responsibilities within its functional structure in line with changes in the market (Alavi...
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