THE KEY BENEFITS OF ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The process of implementing systematically planned actions in an organization-wide manner in effort of improving efficiency and reaching a vision collectively is known as Organizational Development. The aims of implementing organizational development are generally to improve the performance, adaptability and employee-management relations inside an organization. The most effective way of implementing organizational development is to motivate teams to organize themselves and find their own streamlined methods of organization by introducing a ‘change agent’. What this change agent does, is simply to guide change in a certain desired direction. It does not set any guidelines as to how the changes should occur. Organizational Development also aims at elevation of human relations and works in direction of making the workplace a more comfortable and approachable environment.

Organizational Development is a time consuming process and has to take its course naturally. It cannot be implemented in a short period of time. The steps of identifying the problem areas, introducing the change agent and then evaluating if the change is up to expectations are long drawn out processes. However, the benefits of investing time in this process are abundant and extremely profitable.

The key benefits of Organizational Development are…

• Clarity of vision – The basic goal of organizational development is to provide a vision or goal to the organization which it may have previously lacked. In order to do this, employees and teams have to work collectively towards identifying and then strengthening this vision by working towards it as a whole. Individually, each employee may have a different idea and goal in mind, which has to amalgamate into the vision of the organization. Having a clear vision sets things in perspective for the organization as well as all its employees.
• Increased input from employees – In order to create a clearer vision for the organization, each individual employee is required to contribute their opinions, strategies and even feedback. It also becomes important that they put their best foot forward and make sure their performance is not substandard.
•  Increased communication between employees – The introduction of a change agent generally stirs things up in the organization and requires employees of different teams to interact and coordinate with each other. This ultimately increases communication between the employees themselves. It also opens channels of communication between the employee and management and creates a more humanistic approach to office conduct.
• Increased efficiency – The increased communication between employees lifts morale and in turn increases the productivity of the employees. Having a clearer vision and a goal to work towards also reduces wastage of time or physical resources.
• Improvement of competitive spirit – Communication between workers brings a sense of familiarity to them. This gives rise to a healthy competitive spirit devoid of jealousy and underhandedness. This indirectly contributes to increasing efficiency.
• Smooth-flowing operation – The opening of channels of communication, familiarity between employees and growing efficiency in them provides the perfect base for unhindered flow of procedures.  It makes actions happen quicker and eliminates the chances of problems occurring during operation.
• Increased profits – All the factors mentioned above ultimately lead to increase in profits for the organization and in effect for its employees, customers/clients and even stakeholders.