Introduction

When potential employees look for a company, they mostly search for a couple of things. The first one is if they are suitable for the position being offered, followed by whether the company can give them the salary they want. And lastly, is if they can see themselves growing with the company. Hence, people look for compatibility and sustainability. More than anything, they also want an organization that will never make them feel stagnant. This is where organizational development comes in.

Organizational development came from human relations studies in the 1930s. In this research, psychologists were able to prove that development of organizational structures and making changes in management processes influence the behavior and motivation of workers. Since this discovery, more companies have focused on ensuring that there are changes in management plans that benefit their employees and, at the same time, improve their work environment.

However, not all businesses are capable of hiring in-house human resource personnel who can create organizational development plans for them. With the help of companies like Q2 HR Solutions, every business that wishes to further understand and improve its operations has the chance to do so. We offer OD consulting services to help our clients implement the best management changes.

What Is Organizational Development in the Philippines?

Organization development is an evidence-based and science-backed effort focused on improving a company's operation by aligning strategy, structure, people, rewards, metrics, and management processes.

Many think that this process is simple and only revolves around increasing employee engagement and renewing structures for higher efficiency. However, organizational development goes deeper. It involves a series of strategic initiatives implemented by experienced HR personnel like the ones from Q2 HR Solutions.

Here are some of them:

Organizational Change Management

An organizational change pertains to the actions done by a company that alters major components in the organization. For instance, this can be changes in culture, underlying technologies, infrastructures used, or internal processes. The most common factors causing these changes are new company leaderships, shifts in the team structure, the introduction of new devices, and the adoption of new business models.

The role of organizational change management is to gradually introduce new processes or changes in order for the employees to acclimate and not get burnt out or shocked by the organization's actions. This method of leveraging commonly includes three phases: preparation, implementation, and follow-through.

During the first phase, HR managers are designated to prepare for the announcement of the changes. This includes sending out memos, setting up meetings with the supervisors, and crafting presentation materials or manuals in case detailed information needs to be discussed. At this part, managers should be able to mentally and physically prepare the employees. Furthermore, they must put an extra effort into ensuring that everyone is involved and informed, from the higher-ups to rank-and-file employees.

The second phase has something to do with everyone in the organization. During this part, the changes are implemented. To successfully do this, certain steps must be followed. Managers must identify the exact alterations in the process and provide the reason for the change. Moreover, they need to monitor how this affects the employees constantly.

The third phase is called follow-through. During this part, managers are expected to gather feedback and talk to each employee if the changes impacted them positively. They have to ensure that everyone, including the company, is improving in a good way to ascertain that the change was successful.

Ensuring Compliance

Implementing changes is hard. However, some consider ensuring compliance more complicated. This is because most, if not all employees, are involved, and you have to monitor each to ensure that everyone is following the changes in the organization. Experts from companies like Q2 HR Solutions have a few techniques to help managers ensure 100% compliance.

First, HR managers must prepare physical and digital documents that are readily available for employees to read in case they have questions about the changes. This will reduce confusion and remind the workers why certain policies were made.

Second, managers should consider implementing a reward system for employees who comply. This will motivate others to follow the rules as they know they will get something out of it. Moreover, managers can develop sanctions for those who will not comply or violate the changes.

Third, HR managers should schedule internal audits and formulate a report about how effective the change is in improving the company's organizational development. This helps everyone see the bigger picture -- how the new rules or culture impact their productivity as a company. Therefore, employees will try their best to comply in order to contribute to the organization's improvement.

Mitigating Risks

One of the tasks HR officers have to take on is to mitigate risks caused by organizational development. This is done to lessen the negative effects of changes in the company. General steps must be followed while developing a risk mitigation strategy.

First, they must identify all the possible events in which risks are present. This does not only include protecting critical data but also factors in the employees and their needs.

Once the risks are identified, the next task is to perform a risk assessment involving quantifying the level of risk and measuring, processing, and controlling variables to reduce the impact.

The third step is to track risks and monitor them as they change. Sometimes, the severity of risks cannot be identified at once. Hence, constant checking is needed. It is vital to have metrics at hand to check if the organization is being affected.

Lastly, HR officers must implement and monitor progress. In this phase, they should reevaluate the risk mitigation strategy's effectiveness in identifying potential problems. This way, they can improve and tailor it to be more accurate. In addition, they should also plan to conduct regular tests and analyses to ensure that the strategy is up to date as organizational changes are constantly evolving.

Developing Policies and Procedures

Having policies in place helps any institution keep things in order. On top of organizing the workplace, these documents provide guidance, consistency, accountability, efficiency, and clarity of how the organization works.

Without a set of guidelines, the management will have difficulty implementing new changes and holding employees accountable when they do something that harms the company or their fellow employees.

Companies that offer organizational development services in the Philippines are responsible for crafting policies and procedures that benefit employees and organizations. Before doing so, they make sure to talk with the management as well as ask higher-ups about their expectations, changes in management, things they want to implement, and other plans that may require compliance from their employees.

The most common policies that organizational development officers make are related to the code of conduct, recruitment, email, mobile phone usage, drug and alcohol intake, discrimination, harassment, and termination.

These policies can be implemented regardless of the business industry as they are mainly to keep the office peaceful, set boundaries between work and personal life, and ensure the employees are safe physically and mentally once they step inside their workplaces.

Promoting Workplace Health and Safety

Organizational development in the Philippines does not stop with keeping workplaces in order and ensuring no employees will have stagnant experience or career paths. This also encompasses promoting workplace health and safety. It is done by organizing meetings, training sessions, and educational conferences that will inform the employees on how they can be safeguarded when working.

 

Once you partner with a reliable HR company like Q2 HR Solutions, rest assured that we can line up a series of training for your employees. This may include educating them on what to do during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, we can provide safety training for businesses that involve the usage of machinery and harmful chemicals. This is great for eliminating possible hazards and avoiding workplace accidents.

In addition to promoting workplace health, we can also organize a session that focuses on the mental well-being of your employees. Most of the time, when people work for corporate jobs, they may experience a lot of stress, leading to burnout and fatigue. Having a session that solely focuses on improving their mental state may help them get back on track.

In the end, having safe, happy, and healthy employees will benefit your company. In fact, according to studies, motivated employees are 87% less likely to resign.

Why Should Companies Invest in HR Structuring and Organizational Development?

Often, company owners do not immediately find the value in having a structured organization. They may think it is unnecessary and that implementing things their way is better.

However, having an HR professional, who has experience in increasing the productivity, morale, and efficiency of employees in different businesses, gives you various advantages. Here are some of them:

Continuous Improvement

The last thing you want is for your organization to be stagnant. This is a very dangerous stage to be in, especially if you have highly competitive workers with goals and better career paths in mind.

When you engage in organizational development, you commit to improving your business processes and offerings continuously. The organizational development process that HR officers create allows you to have an unending cycle of improvement where strategies are planned, implemented, evaluated, revised, and monitored.

This gives you a proactive approach that embraces changes, internally and externally, improving and accelerating your employees' knowledge and careers.

Increased Communication

Organizational development encourages communication, feedback, and interaction between employees and management.

This is vital for both parties as it allows them to connect with everyone and confidently voice their concerns, thoughts, and ideas that may help the company. As a result, the higher-ups can have a better understanding of the need for changes within the organization.

Usually, when there is miscommunication or no communication within an organization, problems tend to be unsolved. This may lead to the demotivation of employees because their needs are not met.

Employee Development

People are hired for a reason—it is because they are skilled, educated, and experienced enough to perform the tasks that the position asks for. But it should not stop there. A good company should prioritize their employees' development because every industry and market changes, and their skills should keep up with them.

To regularly enhance employee skills, organizations must make an effort to build and host programs of learning, training, skills or competency enhancement sessions, and work process improvements. These can all be done with an organizational development process in place.

Product and Service Enhancement

When you have organizational development in place, you are embracing innovation, which leads to product and service enhancement.

This is achieved by giving your employees the chance to further develop their skills through training, focusing on rewarding successes and boosting motivation and morale. With a well-rewarded team, you can expect higher productivity, more ideas from their educational training, and increased innovation.

Furthermore, it also affects your products in a good way because organizational development uses competitive analysis, market research, and consumer expectation and preferences.

Increased Profit

Admit it or not, a company's success is greatly affected by the profit they gain. Organizational development in the Philippines affects businesses' bottom line in various ways.

When companies do not invest in this kind of service, they are letting their employees' skills, offerings, and processes become stagnant. Therefore, there is no continuous improvement within the organization. This affects how they'll gain profit and sell their services in an evolving market.

Through raised innovation, knowledge, and productivity from organizational development, profits are increased. And, companies are given a distinct advantage in the competitive marketplace.

How To Promote Organizational Development Within Your Company in the Philippines?

HR companies like Q2 HR Solutions have established their own techniques when it comes to implementing and promoting organizational development within businesses.

Human Process Interventions

Organizational developments are done to improve employee experience within the company. With human process interventions, the management can change processes related to interpersonal relationships and group dynamics.

There are individual interventions that give employees the chance to say what they want to improve on and suggest training that they’d like to participate in. Moreover, to improve relationships within groups, team building is done, wherein a series of activities are accomplished.

Human Resource Management Interventions

This technique focuses on how an individual is managed, and it is frequently used by strategic HR departments. Here, they observe and set meetings with individuals to monitor their performance, develop their talent, and see if they need wellness interventions.

By doing this, the HR department can keep track of their employees, giving them a clue about who’s doing well and who needs more help on tasks and other responsibilities.

Strategic Change Interventions

Changes in management processes are normal. But, there are better and more strategic ways to implement them so that the employees will not have difficulty adjusting to the improvements made.

Strategic change intervention is a technique used by HR departments. This involves planning and preparing materials about the changes so that everyone is informed about what is happening. Moreover, it includes monitoring the effects of such improvements and tweaking some processes when results are not that good.

HR Specialists Can Help You With Organizational Change

Running an organization is hard, especially for new business owners who do not have an established HR department. With Q2 HR Solutions by your side, you can be confident that knowledgeable and experienced HR specialists can guide you in improving your company.

We have a presence worldwide, particularly in Japan, Canada, Germany, the UK, the US, and Australia, and we are more than ready to uplift your business through effective organizational development.

For inquiries and questions about our offerings, feel free to schedule a meeting with us.

Conclusion

The role of a human resource department is not limited to recruiting the best employees available and finally convincing them to join your operations. It goes beyond that. Without organizational development, you are bound to lose those great employees due to a lack of improvement and career advancement.

Q2 HR Solutions can help you avoid that from happening. With us by your side, you’ll have access to our experience and expertise in improving a team’s efficiency and effectiveness. Talk to us now!