On top of that, advanced people analytics can help to further drive organizational outcomes. We already touched briefly on the goals of organizational development. These goals vary between organizations. In corporate companies, increasing profits is likely to be a chief concern.
Within charities, the cultural values are of high importance. And in health services, adaptability is central to maintaining good functioning. Competitiveness is the idea that every organization has unique resources and competencies that help the firms to win in the marketplace. It can also be how reactive the organization is to changing market demands. This means that organizational development differs from the incidental change process.
It is, therefore, a continuous process, whereas change processes are often temporarily. This also emphasizes the relevance of OD. In this VUCA world, change is becoming a constant factor. OD is an integral approach to ensuring this constant change. Organizational development is complex. It is a technical field, and so are the interventions. Using the work of Cummings and Worley as a basis, in this section, we will go through 18 organizational development interventions. This list is far from exhaustive.
It aims to help you grasp this vast topic better, and understand how OD relates to core HR functions. Typically, a classification of OD interventions would include human process interventions, technostructural interventions, HRM interventions, and strategic change interventions.
The most successful HR professionals in today's digital business environment have a T-shaped competency profile. Take the free assessment now! Human process interventions are change programs that relate to interpersonal relations, group, and organizational dynamics.
These are some of the earliest and best-known OD interventions. Individual interventions. These interventions are targeted to the individual, often aimed at improving communication with others. An employee is coached on interpersonal behaviors that are counterproductive. Group interventions. These interventions are aimed at the content, structure, or process of the group. The content is what the group is focused on. The structure is how a group is designed to act on the content.
The process is the way in which the group carries out its core tasks. For example, a contact center focuses on taking complaints from customers. The contact center has a hierarchical structure with a director, managers, and customer service staff. Only a certain percentage are escalated to management depending on how serious and complex, a complaint is. Third-party interventions. Third-party interventions are often used when there are conflicts.
Not all conflicts are bad, but bad conflicts should be resolved quickly. The third-party intervention helps to control and resolve the conflict. Often, the third party is the OD consultant. Team building. Team building is the best-known OD intervention. It refers to activities that help groups improve the way they accomplish tasks. Examples of team-building activities are volunteering, team sports, and Pictionary.
Organizational confrontation meeting. A confrontation meeting aims to identify problems and improvement targets, and set priorities. It is a starting point for addressing identified problems, across your organization. Intergroup relations interventions. Intergroup interventions are aimed at diagnosing and understanding in-group relations. Similarly, problems are identified and priorities and improvement targets are set, before working on the identified issues.
Large-group interventions. These interventions are somewhat in the middle, of confrontation and intergroup interventions. The aim is to bring a large number of organization members and other stakeholders together.
Internal and external stakeholders work together collaboratively. Large-group interventions may address organization-wide problems, or implement changes of structure or direction. For example, if you run a care home, you would seek feedback from service users, relatives, and staff on ways to improve the quality of life for residents.
This could be starting new activities or changing the menu options. Technostructural interventions refer to change programs aimed at the technology and structure of the organization. Organizational structural design. The functional structure of the organization is key to how it will operate.
You are likely familiar with the classical hierarchical organizational chart. This is referred to as the functional structure. Other structures are divisional, matrix, process, customer-centric, and network.
Key activities in organizational design are reengineering and downsizing. This involves rethinking the way work is done, preparing the organization, and restructuring it around the new business processes. Total quality management. Total quality management is also known as continuous process improvement, lean, and six-sigma.
It grew out of a manufacturing emphasis on quality control. It places customer satisfaction as central to the long-term success of an organization. To achieve this there is a strong focus on total employee involvement in the continuous improvement of products, processes, and workplace culture.
Companies such as car manufacturer Toyota and phone manufacturer Motorola, use this intervention. Work design. All work should be done in order to achieve outcomes. These outcomes vary across organizations.
Work can be designed to achieve an outcome as quickly as possible. Or, emphasis may be placed on employee satisfaction which can lead to a higher quality of outcome, but often this is more costly. Depending on which approach your organization chooses, the skills needed will differ. Designing work in a way that leads to optimum productivity is called work design. Job enrichment. The OD function had a strategic focus on systems and practices, talent management, structure, change and culture.
Increasingly Blurred Functions HR has changed considerably over the last 20 years with its move from being an 'administrative' function towards a 'strategic' function with a mandate to nurture the skills and capabilities of the workforce. Newsletter Sign-Up. Designed For You. Subscribe to Email Updates.
No Spam. Recent Posts. The Future of Work Looking for a practical guide to help you rewire your business for the future of work? Contact Us. We operate as a high performing fully remote team. You tend to find these roles in European or very large and complex companies but if you are recruiting a Head of OD for the first time, it is most likely that you have used consultants to perform this role to date.
So what does a Head of OD do? What does OD actually stand for? And how does this differ from Organisation Effectiveness? One of the first challenges in appointing a commercial Head of OD is defining what you want the role to do.
This may seem obvious but given the confusion about OD it is worth spending some time on being clear what they will deliver and how they will interact with other functions. There are many definitions of organisational development and even the website www.
In my experience, the most common outcome of the OD function is a workforce that works more effectively and productively together in furtherance of the company strategy. Firstly, they must be able to articulate the company strategy in terms of the workforce design, culture, behaviors and working practices and processes that will drive the strategy.
They should know how to analyse the gap between this desired state and the current state. They should be able to design, plan and cost the interventions that bring about the desired change and they should be able to place a financial value on the target state e. Finally, they must have actually implemented these interventions and produced the desired result, or something close to it, both in human terms and financial outcomes. One of the key attributes that sets commercial Heads of OD apart is their ability to combine their belief in human potential with a focus on business outcomes.
They understand how human endeavour and organisational purpose can be combined to create mutual benefit to the employee, the customer and investors. Such courage is based on a desire to make the organisation great not just successful. Every company fulfills a role in society, depending on the desirability and utility of its products and services.
However, the one thing they all have in common is that they also provide a means of channeling the potential of its employees to produce meaningful and valuable work. The truly commercial OD leader knows how to bring these two purposes together to create mutual success resulting in specific and lasting performance outcomes for the company. This is what makes companies great — the ability to create a win-win for all involved and sustain it over time.
As we all know, commercial success is not built on good intentions alone. If you need any advice on your search for your next truly commercial Head of OD, please contact me on or via email debbie paskpartnership.
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