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Today’s business environment requires leaders to be able to react quickly to the changes that are constantly emerging. Agile techniques help leaders face such challenges and engage the organization in an environment where it can respond flexibly to emerging changes (Fincke et al. 2020; Hitka et al., 2018). Agile people leadership is based on motivating team members while allowing them to communicate with each other and set goals, with each of them involved in decisionmaking and capable of self-management (Salajová, 2020). In the past, people leadership has mainly focused on the individual and his or her relationship with subordinates or successors. The field of leadership has primarily focused on the behavior, thinking, and actions of the leader in a team or organization (Blštáková et al., 2020; Jankelová et al., 2021; Salajová 2020). This paradigm has dominated the field of organizational behavior for decades.

The paper’s aim is, in a broader sense, human resource management in the context of change management. Different groups of individuals manage change differently. Therefore, it is essential, appropriate and expedient to examine the perception of change in the 21st century. Changes are happening more and more frequently due to scientific and technical progress. Changes are part of the life of every single member of society or every organisation. Therefore, a study of this issue must be considered justified. This paper presents the results of research focused on small and medium-sized enterprises. Employees of small and mediumsized enterprises in the study evaluated the effects of possible changes in enterprises from their work and organisation. The article examined in more depth personal perceptions, especially those who have not yet undergone a change. The second group surveyed are- employees who have already passed through the ground in their professional lives.

Businesses today are facing fiercely competitive global environments and firms use widespread mass production of goods and services for lower cost and larger market shares to sustain their survival and growth (Shalley & Gilson, 2017). Therefore, a job design and characteristic of standardization has long been adopted to stifle production variation by individual employees and to maintain output consistency, effectiveness and efficiency (Koval et al., 2019; Luoh et al., 2014; Shalley & Gilson, 2017). Job standardization has long been recognized and shown to be essential for production efficiency and best-practice reasons (Shalley & Gilson, 2017). However, Keeley (1988) maintained that organizations have a fundamental tension between the goal of efficiency and the goal of morality and struggle for a delicate balance between these competing objectives.

Since December 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread rapidly on a global scale (WHO, 2021), strongly affecting organizations from all sectors of activity. Employees, in particular (ILO, 2020), have been forced to quickly alter their work behaviors and manner of working, being obliged to abandon commuting to the workplace and resort to large-scale remote working (Nemțeanu et al., 2021a). The pandemic has made its strongest imprint on the sector of services (Fernandes, 2020), for whom teleworking has become ‘the new normal’ (Belzunegui-Eraso & Erro-Garcés, 2020; Nemțeanu & Dabija, 2021). This new context has dramatically altered task performance – employee productivity having been strongly affected due to the time needed to adapt to the new reality and working conditions (Belzunegui-Eraso & Erro-Garcés, 2020).

In recent years, the importance of human resource management in companies has been growing unstoppably. It is related to the growth of modern technologies, the education of the population, dynamic movements in the market of goods and labour, the democratisation of society, etc. However, in the face of growing pressure, the complexity of change, and the competition they face on a daily basis, most executives have to cope with the growing conflict and divide between management and leadership requirements of organisations. Managers work under a lot of pressure and stress, so they do not have the time and sometimes the desire to be a leader, and conversely, leaders do not manage to be managers. Combining the two functions is extremely difficult. Because every company works first and foremost with people, there is always a large number of tasks that the company must successfully solve in order to exist. Since human resources are of strategic importance to everyone today, they are a prerequisite for the existence of the company and its further development.

Cultural intelligence (CQ) is the ability to effectively function in a culturally diverse environment and succeed in such environment (Ang et al., 2007). CQ gives people and organizations a competitive advantage in international markets (Ang & Inkpen, 2008; Groves & Feyerherm, 2011) and is seen as a prerequisite for the success of any subject in an international environment (Elenkov & Manev, 2009; Creque & Gooden, 2011; Groves & Feyerherm, 2011; Livermore, 2015). Present success or failure in an international and intercultural environment is strongly affected by intercultural sensitivity, cultural intelligence, and ‘cross-cultural competencies’ as an overarching way of thinking (Johnson et al., 2006). These competencies make people more capable of making important global strategic decisions and communicating better on an intercultural level.

Today, the concept of agile is increasingly associated with the success of companies. It is not only about project management but also elements of agility support success in today’s dynamic business environment. The attitude to agility may vary from generation to generation. At present, Generation Y (also called as Millennials) is increasingly represented on the labour market not only among employees but also in managerial positions. The Millennial generation has now become the largest generational cohort in the workforce. As Millennials become more prevalent in organisations and in management, there is a need to understand how these persons will manage the incoming generation of workers, how Millennials will want to be managed in the future (Crocitto & Youssef, 2003). The aim of the authors is to explore this issue concerning elements of agile management.

The paper focuses on a relatively new and prospective application of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) in the employee performance assessment. In the paper, a novel DEA approach is proposed for evaluating the performance of call centre agents, based on their relative efficiency. Since call centres handle a majority of customer-company interactions, performance of call centre agents largely influences the future success or failure of a company. To ensure the quality of customer service, permanent evaluation of call centre agents’ performance is essential. The proposed DEA model consisting of two input variables (wage and working time) and five output variables (quick-answer calls proportion, customer satisfaction, net first contact resolution, call quality and inbound contact handle time) has been tested on 55 call centre agents working at the call centre of one of the largest telecommunications operators in the Slovak Republic. After measuring the performance of each agent, based on the DEA models, the call centre agents’ performance was evaluated in the DEA matrix format. As a result, the call centre agents were divided into four groups: Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks and Poor Dogs. Finally, based on the proposed approach, recommendations for call centre managers on how to improve or maintain the performance of each of these groups were drawn. The proposed approach provides a practical framework for call centre managers to assess the performance of the agents, and to plan and také steps to improve the quality of call centre services.

Usually an individual performs two most prominent roles in daily life. One is the work role, other is the family role. It is not uncommon to find it difficult for an employee to balance both roles simultaneously and as a result they may face work family conflict. Following this conflict perspective, mostly studies have looked into the darker side of work family balance i.e., work family conflict (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006; McNall, Nicklin, & Masuda, 2010) but some researchers argued the positive side of work family interface (Aldous, 1969; Marks, 1977; Sieber, 1974). The conflict perspective of work and family role has been paid with extra attention in work place.

If you are an economist, you are reading this article without any financial incentive from your employer. It is equally difficult to verify that such activity will contribute to your growth of human capital and increased productivity in research or teaching. (That does not prevent the authors from hoping it will.) The standard economic model, which explains employee’s effort only through the wage (determined by productivity), is therefore incomplete.