Organization Development: A Complete Guide In 2021

Introduction

In today’s world organizations have to keep up with changing environment around them & fortunately, one of the important assets of the organization is the opportunity to handle change — and for people to keep vigilant and realistic. Organizational development is a technique for embracing change towards the whole organisation. As a result, transformation is easily accepted.

1. What is organization development?
2. The goals of organization development
3. 18 examples of OD interventions 
4. How Human Resources and OD relate
5. The organization development process
6. Organization development certification

1. What is organization development?

Organization Development is the systematic application of human relations expertise to bring about increase/decrease at different levels, such as community, inter-group, community, and so on. Its goal is to maximize work performance, competitiveness, versatility, and longevity.

2. The goals of organization development

Organizational Development Assists in setting priorities are designed in the context of the enterprise’s challenges. Some of the goals of Organizational development are-

• It helps the employees update themselves about & be in line with the Organizations mission & vision.

• Inculcate the habit of problem-solving in the employees to make them feel confident about themselves, thereby boosting their morale & quality of the work they deliver.

• Informing the employees about new changes and making them participate in the planning process according to their roles helps in easy implementation of the proposed changes.

• Providing a stress-free environment for the employees not only enables the employees to produce a quality output but also increases the profitability of the organization.

• The main reason for the initiation of any problem in an organization is the lack of communication, and this affects the organization to grow up the ladder. So effective communication is required to trust & commitment among employees.

3. 18 examples of OD interventions 

• Human Interventions are carefully addressed, which are aimed at improving human interaction & how to avoid engaging in workplace deviance.

• Transorganizational changes involve making fundamental structural changes to the organization.

• Continual interventions enable organizations to continuously update themselves according to changes in the industry they belong to.

• Employee interventions include changes that assist employees in maintaining an effective work-life balance & managing stress appropriately.

• Equality Changes such as gender, race, disability, culture & sexual variations, which are aimed at improving diversity.

• Career progress like counselling, mentoring & coaching for enhancing talent & teaching leadership skills.

• Development of efficiency involves goal setting, aligning goals with objectives of the organization & reward scheme.

• The impoverishment of the workplace is a component of career development. The aim is to make a job that is both exciting and demanding for the individual who performs it. Ability diversity & input are important factors for consideration.

• Jobs can be structured to accomplish this goal in the most effective way possible, or the expectations and morale of employees can be prioritised. Different skills are needed depending on the approach chosen. 

• It is a long-term endeavour to focus all of an organization’s operational around the idea of quality. It arose from a manufacturing emphasis on quality control.

• Third-party conflicts should be resolved quickly. All Conflicts are not necessarily bad. Conflicts can be bad or good.

• Team building between different groups in an organization is necessary to help teams achieve their objectives.

• Altercation gathering in the workplace helps in working on identified problems, set priorities & plan Targets.

• A large number of members & stakeholders meet, generally referred to as open space meets, to identify problems & concerns, identify & resolve issues, structure new plans & future directions of the enterprise.

• Functional structure defines how the organization will work. Key activities in a structure/design are redesigning and restructuring. This includes reevaluating how tasks are performed, reforming the company, and revamping it to fit the modern business processes.

• Continuous improvement, lean, and six-sigma are all terms used to describe total process improvement. It is a long-term endeavour to focus all of an organization’s operations around the idea of quality. It arose from a manufacturing emphasis on quality control.

4. How Human Resources and OD relate

Apart from routine Hr services, Hr departments make the most contribution to an organisation through these Organization Development functions. To achieve effectiveness, the most impact and efficient organisations are deliberate about how they are structured, how they carry out their work, and how they use and grow their talent.

5. The organization development process

The process starts with Problem Identification, where the problem is identified from reports & other data. Assessment of the problem by interview, survey, or going through documents & other facts related to the situation. An action plan is a next step, which involves examining all the documents, records & all the information collected. Sometimes this step would be one of the lengthy processes.

Implementation of the action plan drafted in the previous step is the next step in the process & this step involves adequate training & skill of the persons implementing the plan. Result analysis is the next step to see whether there is any improvement due to the plan or is making the situation worse. Feedback from the parties concerned is very important to find out whether the process the achieved the results are not. If not, the cycle again starts with problem identification.  

6. Organization development certification

The position of the OD professional, OD consulting skills, and the fundamentals of OD practical tools are all covered in this Organization Development certification program. Participants will gain critical knowledge of organisational development’s (OD) past, as well as the behavioural science and theoretical foundations of the practice, which are critical to understanding why and how OD works to deliver people-led change.

Conclusion

From small companies to large enterprises, everyone will have to make changes at some point, and the best way to handle these changes is through good leadership, positive attitudes, and the desire to adopt a change model. For the success of this process, the organization should not only change its attitude but also bring about a change in the attitude of the employees.

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