Abstract

With increased digitization and mercurial changes in the market, organisations across the world are feeling the heat to be more nimble-footed in their business process management (BPM) practices. Speed has been turned into a strategic necessity, and it has helped companies be quick to notice changing customer needs, technological changes and threat of competitors. Nonetheless, this latest ramp to agility frequently runs into conflict with another overriding organizational concern, particularly in the current tight labor market: the desire to create and retain a stable, engaged, and psychologically healthy workforce. This paper discusses the dynamics tension that tends to exist between process agility and workforce stability within BPM processes across global environments. It seeks to reveal the dynamic in how companies overcome the paradox of continuously achieving while not negative affecting the welfare, morale and retention of the employees. The study applies a multi-disciplinary lens to the study- a combination of the literature on BPM, organizational psychology, change management, and global business- that explores the trade-off and synergies between the seemingly divergent priorities. It also introduces the effectual planning schemes and real suggestions to keep a point of balance between agility and human sustainability, especially in the cross-cultural and digitally transformed settings.