Have you loved every one of your jobs and thought the organizations functioned to their fullest potential? Most likely, your answer would be no. Every organization has room for improvement. At times, organizations must quickly react to environmental challenges, whether from competing companies or economic disruptions. The business world changes constantly. Successful businesses use a process called organizational development (OD) to adapt to these changes, increasing their effectiveness and making the most of their resources.
Yet, OD is not simply what businesses do to change and grow or to react to external factors. OD is a strategic process of organizational improvement, addressing an organization’s changing needs through careful assessment and planned intervention. Once generally considered its own field or department in an organization, OD in modern business environments often falls within strategic human resources (HR) management.
The online Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Human Resource Management (HRM) program from Northwest Missouri State University offers courses in organizational development and behavior. Such studies help HR professionals fully grasp the intersection and application of these aligned fields.
What Is Organizational Development?
Although many people define the concept differently, its original definition by Richard Beckhard — a developer of OD in the 1950s — still remains fairly appropriate. According to Beckhard, “Organizational development is an effort planned, organization-wide, and managed from the top, to increase organizational effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization’s ‘processes,’ using behavioral-science knowledge. ”
The business world moves at a much faster pace than when Beckhard initially defined OD. Current OD theory adapted and evolved according to modern company organizational structures and business models, as well as the rapidity of change and globalization of the economy. But the basis of it remains the same: using interventions based in behavioral science concepts to facilitate positive change in and increase the effectiveness of an organization and its employees.
Why Is Organizational Development Important to Businesses?
The answer to this question may seem obvious: OD is important because it addresses and fixes a problem, thereby increasing a business’s effectiveness. While this can be true, OD works to improve organizations in a more systematic way — organization-wide, as Beckhard put it. The purpose of OD is to balance the strengths and weaknesses of a business, restructuring the employment of that business’ resources accordingly to use them most efficiently and productively. This means thorough assessment, strategic planning, employee engagement and training where necessary, and incremental measures to maintain employee performance.
What Does Organizational Development Mean for HR Managers?
HR management used to deal primarily with issues of employment and employment law. Previously, the duties of HR staff included recruiting, organizing training, filling vacancies and advising department heads on hiring and firing. But these days, HR management plays an increasingly strategic role in the development of organizations. This partly involves integrating OD into more traditional HR activities. When thought through, this is a natural combination.
Beyond the bottom line of an organization’s efficiency and productivity, OD can help create an environment of engaged employees living up to their potential. In turn, employee engagement drives organizational development and growth.
HR managers use OD principles to design jobs that best suit the company’s needs, recruit employees who best fit those jobs and give them all the tools they need to perform at high levels. HR managers may find a more fitting role for an employee who is performing poorly — one that better suits that employee’s skill set, thus fostering intrinsic motivation. Motivated, engaged and aligned employees are more likely to work hard to help achieve the company’s vision.
The fact that OD focuses on the health of both the individual and the entire organization is important for HR managers. One cannot exist without the other. Effective OD works to ensure every individual’s goals and vision align with those of the organization.
Clearly, there is a great deal of overlap between HR management and OD. More and more, strategic HR management is wholly or partially responsible for implementing OD. An in-depth understanding of OD and its underlying behavioral science can be very useful for those looking to enter HR at the managerial level.
Learn more about Northwest’s online MBA in HR Management.
