Thriving organizations have Org Dev & Ops Team as partners

The only thing that stays constant in your business is change.?In order to stay competitive, organizations must always be changing and improving as often as consumer needs, preferences, and tastes demand. ?

In this article, let’s explore how a close partnership between your organizational development and operations team members will enable your company to stay competitive and thrive.?

How Human Resources and Organization Development folks relate to each other?

Both Human Resources Management (HRM) and Organizational Development (OD) have their roots in the key pillars of the business strategy viz. mission, values, vision, and goals of the organization. Both in their respective fields, outline the actions needed to implement that strategy. The main goal of HRM is effective people management.?Whereas the main goal of?OD?is the improvement of the business.

The Org Dev team diagnoses problems and creates a strategic plan which is then implemented by the Operations team. This is a continuous change management process that results in organizational effectiveness. It enables the organization to fulfill its mission and stay on track with its vision while continuing the day-to-day business in a smooth manner.???

At first glance, this change management process for achieving organizational effectiveness seems fairly simple. However, in order to implement change smoothly and effectively, you need clarity on the steps and the active engagement of all employees and upper management. While the Org Dev team formulates the strategy, the Operations team implements these initiatives.?The collaboration between these two teams will facilitate the effectiveness of the change that’s needed in order to stay competitive and continue to thrive. That’s why the need for org dev and operations folks to partner closely.?

Areas where your organization could benefit from the continuous partnering of the organizational development and operations teams:??

·???????Improved communication?- internally and externally?

·???????Enhanced team relations?

·???????Cost savings through improved efficiency?

·???????Enhanced products and services

·???????Service quality improvement

·???????Increased productivity

Stages of building organizational effectiveness?

1. Scoping?

This starts when someone in your organization spots an opportunity for improvement. There are different events that could trigger it including external changes, complaints from customers, employee turnover, citations from auditors, conflicts in teams, high absenteeism, lack of innovation, reduced profits, etc. These events are usually symptoms of a deeper problem.

2.?Data collection

The main reason for collecting information is to understand the current manner of functioning. Collecting this data can be done through ‘fly on the wall’ observations, interviews, questionnaires, surveys, etc. ?

3.?Analysis

Analysis is aimed at finding the root cause of the issues. Effectively analyzing the issue or the problem will lead to gathering the required knowledge for designing appropriate interventions or solutions.?

4. Feedback?

It is critical to present the key findings back to all the stakeholders and decision-makers in a manner that’s relevant, understandable, and action-driven. You could use storytelling and visualization techniques to effectively present the feedback.?

5. Interventions?

After providing feedback an intervention needs to be created that fits the needs of the organization and is oriented to the desired outcomes. Defining a clear success criteria will facilitate a smoother intervention. ?

6. Leading and managing change?

Executing the intervention involves a compelling call to action, developing support, motivating for change, managing the transition, and sustaining momentum.

7. Evaluation and improvement?

Once the change has been implemented, opportunities for improvement start to show up. It begins a new loop of scoping and implementing these improvements for better outcomes.

When Operations Managers and Organizational Development Managers work in sync it will result in organizational-wide improvements.?