Organizational Development for Growth of Employees and the Company

Posted by BYLD Group on April 7th, 2021

It is an effort that focuses on improving an Organization’s capability through the alignment of strategy, structure, people, rewards, metrics, and management processes. It is a science-backed, interdisciplinary field rooted in psychology, culture, innovation, social sciences, adult education, human resource management, change management, organization behavior, and research analysis and design, among others. It involves an ongoing, systemic, long-range process of driving organizational effectiveness, solving problems, and improving organizational performance.

The purpose of Organization Development is to enable an organization to better respond and adapt to industry or market changes and technological advances.

The underlying principles of Organization Development are humanistic values. Some of them are as follows: 

1. Providing opportunities for people to function as human beings rather than as resources in the productive process

2. Providing opportunities for each organization member, as well as for the organization itself, to develop to their full potential

3. Seeking to increase the effectiveness of the organization in terms of all of its goals

4. Attempting to create an environment in which it is possible to find exciting and challenging work

5. Providing opportunities for people in organizations to influence how they relate to work, the organization, and the environment

6. Treating each human being as a person with a complex set of needs, all of which are important to their work and their life

There are observable five growth stages viz. Birth, Growth, Maturity, Decline, and Revival. These stages can be traced through changes in the organizational structure and managerial processes as the business proceeds through the growth stages.

Organizational Development can be used anytime to make a planned positive change in your company. It can be used to determine ways to improve your peoples’ job satisfaction. 

Let us also look into some additional reasons why you should work on organizational development: 

Conflict Management: Organizational Development can help identify ways to deal with conflict in your organization. You can create an action plan for resolving these conflicts, so everyone can work in tune towards your company’s common goal.

Strategic Planning: Companies often need a strategic plan for future growth, and an organization development mindset helps you determine the steps to effectively achieve this plan.

Aligning Teams: It can help align different teams towards the same goal, keeping your company running efficiently.

Assessing company culture: A solid organizational development process can help you understand the strengths and areas for improvement in your company’s work environment, and then tolerate an action plan and work towards improving the company culture.

An organization development process can help create positive changes in your company, but then it takes time. It can take a year or longer to fully implement this process. Since this is an involved process, you need to make sure you follow the right steps to create an effective organizational development process.

Let us discuss the steps to be followed in the process of Organizational Development:

Initial Diagnosis: This is the first step when the management should try to find out an overall view of the situation to find the real problem. Top management should meet the consultants and the experts to determine the type of program that is needed. In the first stage itself, the consultants will meet various persons in the organization and interview them to collect some information.

Data Collection: In this stage, the consultant makes surveys to determine the climate of the organization and the behavioral problems of the employees. The consultant will meet a group of people away from their work environment to get some answers to questions like (i) What specific job conditions contribute most to their job effectiveness? (ii) What kind of conditions interferes with their job effectiveness? (iii) What changes would they like to make in the working of the organization?

Data Feedback and confrontation: The data which has been collected in the second step will be given to the workgroups, who will be assigned the job of reviewing the data. Any areas of disagreement will be mediated among themselves only and priorities will be established for change.

Planning Strategy: In this stage, the consultant suggests the strategy for change. He will attempt to transform the diagnosis of the problem into a proper action plan involving the overall goals for change, determination of a basic approach for attaining these goals, and the sequence of detailed schemes for implementing the approach.

Intervening in the System: Intervening in the system refers to the planned programmed activities during an Organization Development program. These planned activities bring certain changes in the system, which is the basic objective of Organization Development. There may be various methods through which external consultants intervene in the system such as education and laboratory training, process consultation, team development, etc.

Team Building: During the entire process, the consultant encourages the groups to examine how they work together. The consultant will educate them about the value of free communication and trust as essentials for group functioning. The consultant can have team managers and their subordinates work together as a team in Organization Development sessions to further encourage team building. Following the development of small groups, there may be development among larger groups comprising several teams.

BYLD is one organization that can help you with an ideal organization development plan for your company, as it has extensive experience in this field and they have helped scores of companies across India to set right their business, by successfully running excellent organizational development plans for them.

Conclusion: Organizational Development is a field of research, theory, as well as practice, devoted to expanding the knowledge and effectiveness of how people accomplish successful organizational change and performance.