Strategic Human Capital Insights

Organizational development, or OD for short, refers to the process of improving an organization's overall effectiveness and efficiency through planned interventions. It is a long-term effort aimed at enhancing an organization's capacity to achieve its goals and objectives by fostering a healthy and productive work environment. OD is a complex field that involves various disciplines, including psychology, sociology, economics, and management. It is rooted in the belief that an organization's success depends on the performance of its people, systems, and processes. Therefore, OD seeks to improve these elements to enhance an organization's overall effectiveness.

The process of OD involves a range of activities, including data collection, analysis, and feedback. It requires a deep understanding of an organization's culture, values, and goals. The following are five of the critical components of organizational development:

1. Change Management:
   OD is a process of change that can be challenging for organizations. Change management is a critical component of OD that helps organizations effectively navigate through the process of change. It involves identifying the need for change and assessing the risks and benefits associated with it. Developing a plan for change requires a detailed analysis of the organization's current state, future goals, and available resources. Once a change plan has been developed, it's essential to implement it in a way that minimizes disruption and maximizes the likelihood of success. This may involve training employees, communicating effectively, and providing ongoing support throughout the change process. By effectively managing change, organizations can achieve their goals and improve their overall effectiveness.

Does your organization have a structure that has both a hierarchy and a matrix structure? To clarify:

• Hierarchy - A hierarchy structure is the traditional organizational structure broken down into functions. A manager heads up the function with employees reporting to the manager. It is depicted in the typical organization chart format.
  
  
• Matrix - A matrix structure is a fluid 'structure' typically described by the following statement: "This is the org chart, but here is how the organization really works." It is depicted by an 'organigram’©, a spaghetti chart of interlinked solid and dotted lines. The solid lines represent the traditional organization chart. The dotted lines represent the fluid matrix interactions.

If your answer to the above question is yes, you are like many other organizations. As the nature of work has changed over the years, the matrix organization has evolved to become today's new normal. In a matrix organization, your people must be responsive to a functional boss, accountable, and responsive to the many others in the matrix with whom they are linked, represented by the organigram's dotted lines.

In the matrix organization, the rules of engagement are gray and cloudy, and the skills needed are both knowledge skills and, just as importantly, soft skills. In the matrix organization, getting the work done looks effortless when things are working correctly. However, effortless takes a lot of effort. But when things go wrong in the matrix, they go very wrong. To make the matrix work effortlessly, employees need to know what is expected of them and the skills they need to make the matrix work.

So, now your employees want to continue to work remotely. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons from both the employee and employer perspective.

In response to COVID-19 and quarantine restrictions, many employees were forced to work remotely. A situation that would have once seemed inconceivable, has now become a reality. As many employees have started to now return to the office, what are the pros and cons of working remotely?

From the Employee Perspective: 

Pros of Working Remotely

• Working remotely really suits my lifestyle.

• I can get my work done so why do I need to go back to the office? I have flexibility about when I put my 8 hours in. 

• Why does the company need to spend money on office space? I can work from anywhere.  Why don’t they give me the money instead of using it for a facility? 

• Can’t I work part-time from home and part-time in the office?

• I really like not having to get dressed up for work.

This is a guest blog post written by Rodney Nelson, Vice President of Client Operations for the Arizona Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

A Multi-Faceted Process Flowchart Approach

For the past four years, I have been supporting local Arizona manufacturing businesses, providing them with a wide range of organizational development and training services. What I have found is that these businesses are looking for training they believe will help their teams and companies work more efficiently. Whether a company is choosing to do a single or numerous training and development sessions, the chance of that training sticking past the first two weeks is very slim.

How Can You ‘Make It Stick’? 
The “it” could be any type of change where employees are learning a new skill and are expected to use that skill going forward. Yes, we have all heard the saying, “you need management buy-in” but, unfortunately, that is not enough. Management’s expectations need to be documented all the way down the chain of command, and we need to hold both the workers and supervisors accountable.

How to Keep Your Human Capital Continuous Improvement Process© Continuous

Now that your performance review process is over and the forms are all filed away, the important part of the job awaits! Reviews should not be done for the sake of reviews and end up in the HR department. The review process should be the first step in the many steps of the ongoing employee development process.

So, What Comes Next?
In a robust human capital continuous improvement process, it’s time to make sure that employee performance and capacity stay aligned with the following: 

• Strategic goals and initiatives of the organization
• Skills and knowledge needed to stay relevant with the evolving business skills and tools for today and tomorrow
  
  

1. Create Individual Employee Development Plans
It’s time to data-mine the rich information in the Performance Reviews and identify the gaps in knowledge, skills, and tools. Create an ongoing monthly/quarterly development plan for each employee from that information. In today’s changing world, skills are eroding faster than before. New knowledge and skills are required to help employees stay current and relevant to the job demands and optimize the many business tools available. Development plans are the mechanism to ensure that employee skills and knowledge remain aligned with organizational goals.

Here are some skills to evaluate:

• Technical Knowledge and Skills
• Business Tools Knowledge and Skills
• Professional Skills (communication, critical thinking, effective presentations, etc.)
• Leadership Skills (at all levels)
• Customer Experience / Culture Skills

Like everything else in business today that is undergoing constant growth and change, the strategic review of the Performance Review process is not exempt. Too often, outdated, irrelevant performance review forms, which drive the performance review process, are kept in place without question. However, this form should be constantly reviewed since strategically-aligned performance is critical to any high-growth organization.

As often as your strategy is reviewed, that’s how constantly your performance review form should be reviewed, as well. Why? The accompanying job description will likely be evolving and/or completely changing. And as new skills are required to perform a task, these new skills and competencies must also be reevaluated.

A Typical Example 

A paper-intensive and manual ordering process has been replaced by a software application that virtually eliminates paper from the process. This will allow orders to bypass the customer service department and move directly into the fulfillment department. Only exceptional cases will now be handled by the customer service department. The clerical function of routinely double-checking for correct orders and sales tax has been replaced by software. Four things will happen:

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Joanne Flynn's co-authored career development book, Brand YOU, Brand NEW, a Step-by-Step Guide to Take Your Career to the Next Level.📚
 

Joanne Toth Flynn and Elyse Flynn Meyer, a mother-daughter team, co-authored, Brand YOU, Brand NEW  from a multigenerational perspective. Through their collaborative approach, they provide a range of universal perspectives to help you optimize your personal Brand YOU. This book takes you through the critical steps needed to proactively manage your brand and your personal development. The goal is to put you in the ultimate career control seat.

Take an Organizational Quality Assurance Diagnostic.

As organizations move through continual change, staying up-to-date and relevant is now a strategic imperative.  Nowhere in the organization is this more relevant than to a Quality Assurance Department whose function is to always maintain quality despite the change swirling around it. The challenge of managing quality assurance in a changing workplace is analogous to changing the tires on a car while the car is traveling at 60 miles per hour.  As difficult as it may seem, the goal is to always maintain Quality Assurance.

The employee handbook may be underestimated, but it is certainly strategic!

Do you really need an employee handbook? This question predictably comes up when I speak with company management, often because the Employee Handbook is considered moderately useful but not on the top of management’s priority list. Why is that? Because often the Employee Handbook:

• Isn’t current
• Doesn’t cover the full range of issues
• Isn’t specific enough to be meaningful
• Isn’t given to new employees
• Isn’t used by management

However, one thing is for certain, when something goes wrong in an organization, the following happens:

• From the manager’s perspective: Managers look to the Employee Handbook for guidance and protection from liability.
  
  
• From the employee's perspective: Employees look to the Employee Handbook for guidance and protection from liability or loopholes created by omission or ambiguity.

Both employee and manager loyalty has always been considered a good thing. So what’s changed? When does being loyal long-term, at all costs, go from a virtue to a liability?

The concept of "change" has changed everything. When companies grew at standard rates, and change was incremental and predictable, manager and employee loyalty could keep pace with each other and the organization's direction. Now, however, when organizations are growing fast and adapting to new technology, new processes and methods, increased customer demands, and additional new employees, the predictable, static environment that many employees are comfortable with has morphed into chaotic, change-driven, unpredictable frontiers where the old rules and controls have evaporated. Increasingly, the latter describes today’s work reality. 

Here are some essential questions to consider when thinking about loyalty:

• What does it mean for the employee to be attached to the old rules and controls and have real issues adapting to the new work reality? 

• What does it mean for new employees who don’t know the old rules and controls and don’t need to work under those constraints since that work environment has shifted?

• What does it mean for the manager who must manage these two conflicting and competing employee needs?