Executive summary
The argument that organizational development in relation to change is only achievable through the development of people is a solid argument. Facts indicate that the organizational development is driven by a people who have been influenced to put to full use the knowledge and skills acquired to propel the respective organization into new levels of development. Therefore, organizational development and people development are strongly correlated variables.
People develop by changing the cultural orientation of the organization they work for, developing the organization in the process. As people working in an organization develop, so do the people within that organization. People are the main force being the development of an organization. The findings of this report takes one through the relationship between the development of an organization and people and shows how the correlation between two variables.
Methodology
A qualitative research study that focused on available literature was conducted to reinforce argument that organisational development in relation to a change in its circumstances is only achievable through the development of people.Five sources were considered in the process of the research as findings indicate that people are an indispensable part of organizational development and an organization develops as people who work for the organization develop.
Literature review
The People and the Organization
People are an indispensable asset to any organization. To propel an organization to higher levels of performance with the strategic objective of developing an organization, people working in the respective organization have to be developed in the process. Therefore organizational development is a process that integrates all aspects of employee or people development. It can be argued, therefore, that organizational development is strongly related to the development of people working within an organization.
Organizations that thrive on success have successful people working for them. Such organizations have identified and incorporated the aspect of developing people to exploit the opportunities inherent in developed people. Therefore, it can be tenaciously argued that “Organization Development (OD) is a complex strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values, culture and structure of organizations so that they can better adapt to new technologies, markets, and challenges.
Organizational Development methods are employed to improve Organizational Effectiveness (OE)” (Morrison, 2008). As the people develop, so does an organization develop. Therefore, a strong correlation exists between people development and organizational development.
Organizational Development
It is worth noting that organizational development is done solely because the human resource personnel or the people working within the organization determine the success or failure of an organization. It is vital when doing organizational development for the management to know how to manage the human resource personnel. Managing the human resources is, therefore, in terms of their development. A well developed people lead to a well developed organization.
It has been argued that achieving organizational development is a task that focuses on the workplace. Morrison (2008) notes that changing the workplace includes a system through which feedback can give to the workers.
The need for feedback within an organization is important as workers are able to rate their performance and know specific areas that need improvements. Feedback contributes to the development of people working within an organization in a number of ways. People feel a sense of accomplishment within their workplace.
They develop a strong feeling and sense of being valued, and in the process develop a strong commitment to social responsibility. Morrison (2008) argues that these feelings inculcate a culture of time management, more efficiency, and leads to improved processes at the place of work. When processes improve at the pace of work, the quality of work improves and the cost of labor reduces with the overall effect of improving performance and profitability.
Morrison (2008) argues that clever organizational executives know well that organizational development must capture the ever changing needs of the customer and the operating environment with the changing times. It is the strength of the partnership with the customer that determines the success of an organization. Therefore, changing times, changing customer needs and expectations, and changing operating environments are the driving forces behind the need to develop.
People and Organizational Development
Pakhare (2009) affirms that as organizations develop, skilled managers always come up with new strategies and objectives relevant to the vision and the new strategy.
The new strategy is designed to place an organization at a competitive edge in the global market. To effectively achieve the new objectives and drive the organization towards fulfilling the new vision, the people have to be continually developed. Pakhare (2009) has argues that organizational employees have to be made aware of the new vision and objectives to stay aligned to the new vision.
Pakhare (2009) affirms that developing employees by aligning them to the new vision equips them with new skills and abilities to solve problems they encounter in the process of organizational development. As noted earlier, organizational development is a systematically planned process.
The process, in its entirety, is aimed at improving organizational effectiveness. Organizational development, as argued by Pakhare (2009) focuses at the entire organization and the behavior of employees has to e changed to arguer well with new organizational developments.
Analytically, it is the behavior of the people who work in an organization that has to be changed. Thus, an organization’s culture gets evolved in the process. The organizational evolution process is inclusive of organizational employees and not just the organization as an individual. Therefore, employees must evolve with evolving organizational culture.
Therefore, as an organization undergoes cultural development, the people should also be developed. Organizational culture incorporates share values and beliefs and the general way of life within an organization. The beliefs and values are defined in the mission statement of an organization (Rasing, 2010).
Developing People
On the other hand, as an organization develops people have to be developed through all the stages of organizational development (Rouda & Kusy, 1995). Rouda and Kusy (1995) argue that at the entry level of organizational development, employees need to be trained to identify areas of improvements. In addition to that, a strong relationship has to be built between employees of an organization and the management. If the working relationship is poor, the probability of moving to new levels of development is always low.
People are developed at this stage by adapting to new communication skills and better interpersonal relationships. In addition to that, the possibility of conflicts arising due to the poor relationships between employees is minimized. Therefore, people development incorporates the establishment of strong interpersonal relationships and trust between employees and the management.
Rouda and Kusy (1995) argue that an organization’s critical success factors are identified and linked to the new organizational culture that is defined in the new vision and mission statements. One can argue that the change or development process, at this point of organizational growth, faces resistance form employees and other organizational employees.
The need to educate the people about the new changes is critical at this point. When people remain undeveloped, the degree of resistance to change becomes stronger. On the other hand, when organizational employees are continually factored into the change process, they become informed and readily accept change.
Rouda and Kusy (1995) strongly affirm that needs assessment is done at this stage of organizational development to identify specific areas of improvements, what should be done, and how that should be done. This point of organizational development critically focuses critical learning points of organizational employees, approaches in changing employee behaviors and employee performance and attitudes, and a cost benefit analysis of the outcome of the overall investment in the human resource development.
Needs Assessment
It is therefore worth making a brief discussion on needs assessment and how the needs assessment impact on employee productivity, performance, and overall organizational development. Moreover, the link between needs assessment, employee development, and organizational development has to be established (Rouda & Kusy, 1995). In terms of organizational and employee development, needs assessment, a needs assessment unearths areas that need improvement.
A needs assessment directs management and other concerned parties specific areas that need improvement by identifying problem areas and the effectiveness with which organizational employees do their jobs in the specified areas. The needs assessment form answers management concerns about the abilities and skills of organizational employees and any areas where skills need to be improved. Improving the skills of organizational employees is one part of developing them and developing an organization (Rouda & Kusy, 1995).
Training and development need are addressed in the development process through strategic planning interventions to introduce systematic changes within the parent organization. Rouda and Kusy (1995) and Rasing (2010) agree that team building enhances people development.
On the other hand, organizational restructuring introduces new strategic development options and enhances people and organizational development to tailor an organization in meeting its strategic objectives outlined in an origination’s mission statement. In addition to that, a needs assessment is a strategic tool for conducting a gap analysis to indentify priority areas of improvement, people’s current skills and skills gap, and in identifying development opportunities.
Feed back
As a critical component that is strongly linked to the development of organizational employees in line with organizational development, feedback forms an essential component in employee development process. Feedback has been identified as an approach in enabling all organizational employees in understanding the interactive nature of all organizational departments, opportunities to participate in the development of an organization, and people involvement in the development process (Rasing, 2010).
This is an important step in an organizations’ development process that incorporates people’s development. It can be analytically argued that people’s development at every stage is critically addressed by the development of an organization at the same rate (Weightman, 1999).
Other Phases
Other phases of organizational development call upon people’s development to make the development process focused at improving both its performance and development through the development of people. These phases include the action planning phase where various options are considered for adoption in the development process.
The best option is taken in view of the leverages and the degree to which the new changes can impact on the overall performance of an organization. The overall impact affects both the performance of the organization and the people’s productivity. The option has to be action oriented and inclusive in decision making (Rouda & Kusy, 1995).
Further development of an organization is effected by an intervention that is drawn from the action plan developed from data obtained during the needs assessment. The effectiveness with which the intervention plan becomes effective depends heavily on the abilities of organizational employees and the extent to which they are skilled in the change management initiatives to bring about change.
Churchhouse and Churchouse (1998) argue that successful organizations continually reflects the degree of success in the development process and how much has been achieved in developing employees and their contribution towards the development of an organization.
These evaluations sometimes lead organizational managers and stakeholders to identify areas that may need modifications and approaches to the modification process. Once modifications have been done and introduced into the development process, people working within the organization have to be educated on approaches of introducing the new changes to the organization in the development process.
Once the change process has been implemented in the development process, it can be analytically observed that the development process is an inclusive process where employees are continually developed as an organization is developed. All aspects of organizational development are optimized by making optimal use of organizational employees with skills that are relevant to the development process (Weightman, 1999).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that people are an indispensable part of organizational development. No organization can develop and reach new levels of development without developing the cultural orientation of the people who are the change agents within the organization.
As people acquire more skills and knowledge, productivity and performance improves. All development processes involve people within an organization. Successful organizations continually reflects the degree of success in the development process and how much has been achieved in developing employees who are contributing factors towards the development of an organization.
References
Churchhouse, J., & Churchouse, C., 1998. Managing People. Hampshire, England: Gower Publishing Limited.
Morrison. Mike. 2008. Organizational Development, Organizational Effectiveness, OD Culture and needs assessment Web.Available at: https://rapidbi.com/organizational_development_od/ .
Pakhare, Jayashree. 2009. Organizational Development. Web.
Rasing, M. 2010. The Relationship Between Organizational Culture and Effectiveness https://ezinearticles.com/?The-Relationship-Between-Organizational-Culture-and-Effectiveness&id=3949899 .
Rouda, Robert, H. & Kusy, Mitchell, E. Jr., 1995.
Organization Development. the management of change Web. Web.
Weightman, J.,1999. Managing People. 2nd edition. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.