Seeking Senior HR Insights: How Can We Boost Organizational Effectiveness with OD Interventions?

We are a fair employer with employee-oriented HR policies, a better communication system, and competitive salaries for all. Despite this, our progress is slow, and overall, employees are not concerned about it. I have been tasked by my boss to study the matter and submit a report pertaining to my manufacturing unit. Although I've started working on it, I am seeking the opinions of seniors on what OD interventions I (unit HR) should initiate to enhance organizational/operational effectiveness.

OD Interventions for Organizational Effectiveness

It will be easily understandable if opinions are given in a structured manner on the following:

1. Zero Cost
2. Low Cost
3. Medium Cost

Regards,

As an outsider, we may not be able to provide the right solutions without having any knowledge about your organization or people. I suggest you complete the OCS (Organizational Climate Survey) because people may not be ready to give information directly. Understanding, analyzing, and working out an action plan require knowing the root cause. It will be difficult to work out remedial actions unless you understand the core issues. Alternatively, you can hire an expert who can assess and suggest.

Regards,
Kamesh

Kamesh's reply is quite pertinent. You could have details of your finished product, geographical location, etc. I have copied the first two sentences of the post. Please check my comments in italics:

We are a fair employer having employee-oriented HR policies, a better communication system, competitive salaries for all, etc.

- Whose perceptions are these? Have you taken into account the perceptions of employees? If yes, then how?

Despite the above, our progress is slow, and overall employees are not bothered about this.

- Why do you say that employees are not "bothered"? Is the employee attrition level quite high?

As Kamesh has said, you need to conduct your organization's climate survey. For this, you may take the help of humanlinks.com. Various surveys are given on this website. You may take help from those.

Thanks,

Regards,
Dinesh V Divekar

The previous two comments are valid. "Something is wrong" means there is some problem, which may be related to organizational culture, a poor PMS system, poor leadership, inefficient managers, lack of an open culture or platforms/system to capture people's perceptions, etc.

Profitability depends on various factors such as market trends, competition in a particular segment, etc. The slowdown in production rate is also related to many factors, which may not be completely related to HR policies.

It is better to seek expert advice, but someone senior from the plant needs to take care, as external experts may provide advice, but the execution will have to be carried out by internal teams.

Regards,
Dhirendra

Suggestions for Increasing Organizational Effectiveness

I would like to suggest that if you want to increase organizational effectiveness, you may follow the suggestions below:

• Conduct thorough research about the history of your organization. Look into the past to understand how and why the organization grew at that time. If the growth has slowed down, identify the reasons behind it. Present a detailed report of this research to your top management and boss. Utilize questionnaires, interviews, and set objectives for your study.

• Evaluate if the individuals in your unit are the right fit for the company. Assess their contributions to the organization's profits. Retain those who significantly contribute and consider a performance enhancement plan for those who do not. Identify the high-potential and high-willingness employees as well as those with low potential and willingness for appropriate actions.

• Implement process re-engineering by identifying non-value-adding processes and eliminating them using methodologies like Six Sigma.

• Set challenging goals for all departments to align with customer satisfaction, finance, and other aspects, following the balanced scorecard approach.

• Conduct an HR Audit to assess the effectiveness of HR policies and processes using tools like the HR Scorecard and HR Metrics.

• Employee satisfaction surveys can provide valuable insights for improvement.

• Perform a SWOT analysis with the entire team of a specific department to identify areas that require attention.

I hope this helps.

Regards

Fantastic suggestions and comments, and very correct. But I think we need to relook at the problem statement itself from a different angle. If you look at these two statements of HR Prof, it says, and I quote:

1) "In spite of the above, our progress is slow, and overall employees are not bothered about this."

2) "I am seeking the opinion of seniors on what OD interventions I (unit HR) should initiate to make for organizational/operational effectiveness."

They are, in reality, two different yet critical problems. The first deals with Employee Engagement, while the second is Operational Effectiveness (and this could be, as Prafulla beautifully explained, due to process inefficiencies and not necessarily employee-related).

Understanding Organizational Growth Challenges

IMHO, you (read your Organization) are showing typical classic signs of a "growing organization," and every organization goes through this phase. Those that change and adapt to the needs of this growth go on to become bigger, while those that fail stay where they are and perish in the long run.

Steps to Address Organizational Challenges

So what are the steps you need to adopt? First, bring more clarity about what exactly the problem is. Define your problems in clear specific terms - multiple problems, multiple definitions. Don't worry; everything is interconnected, and the connection will become apparent and clear as you work through the problems. Just remember, there are real problems, and then there are speculated/opinionated/"I wish" problems. Try to keep the second category separate (they would require a different methodology to manage them). Take the help of all the cross-functional seniors in the unit. Identify all the problems and then categorize them - Employee-related or Process (systems)-related. Ideally, you should have around 15-20 small problems in each and 2-3 really large ones.

Now that we exactly know what the problems are, let's start solving them one by one on paper, propose the solution. Just remember, the solution to a problem, most times, will be found within the realm of the problem itself. Once you have a vague picture, it's time to bring in the Top Guns! Remember, no initiatives succeed if the top management is not considered or seen to be actively involved in an organizational strategy/change. Get the top guns' support and backing. Get them to commit to the funds needed and the timeframe, and NOW, only now you are ready to initiate change.

Cheers,

Navneet Chandra