HR & OD Strategies for Organization Success

"Vision without action is daydream, action without vision is nightmare"

The above words aptly underline the importance of having a vision for a business and directing our actions as per the vision. If the actions are not aligned with the vision, mission of an organization, then it can spell serious trouble for its development. HR and OD consultants are qualified experts who can bridge the gap between the organization's goals and its current status. They implement various HR and OD strategies that can accelerate the growth of an organization.

Impact of HR and OD Strategies on Organization Success

Quality of work and service, profitability, productivity, morale of employees are some of the factors that are integral to an organization's success. HR and OD strategies are not simply formulated to bring about a change to better the working of an organization. In fact, it is a change process that is implemented to achieve a certain predefined goal, result or an organizational objective. In this sense, they bring about a drastic change in the perception of above mentioned factors. Self- analysis, evaluation, planning, and system improvement are some of the core principles of organizational development strategies. HR policies are formulated in such a way that the employee feels he is a part of an entire process. The current trend in HR and OD indicates that the organizations are inclined towards formulating policies that are employee-centric. Hence, the intervention policies are carefully planned by HR and OD consultants by keeping in mind the interest of all stakeholders. 

Given below are a few HR and OD strategies that are often implemented to achieve organizational success:

Using Organizational Diagnosis Models in Strategic Planning: This includes using various organizational analysis models to find present status of organizational performance, conducting SWOT analysis and taking steps to realign the current activities of an organization with its mission, vision.

Organizational Learning Strategies: Identifying the problem areas of employees that are critical to business success and providing learning solutions to overcome them.

Building a Leadership Pipeline: Creating new leaders who can take up challenges and put the organization back on track. 

Organizational Performance Improvement: Time to time evaluation to check if the organizational activities are in harmony with its goals and objectives and implementing initiatives to bridge the gap between current and desired status. 

Change Management: Implementing change management initiatives helps the employees to cope with the changing work scenario in a better way. 

Hence business result focused, HR and OD strategies are critical to an organization's success. It is strongly recommended to review and realign your business strategies periodically to -successfully compete and grow in today’s uncertain and most dynamic market conditions.

Success Tips for New Managers

Climbing a management ladder is indeed a great achievement in one's career. It definitely signifies the fact that you are a talented individual, better skilled than your peers. However, the story begins only after you have assumed your managerial duties. Few days into this new role and people sure realize what a tightrope walk it is! While there is no sure shot formula that assures success with immediate effect, you can definitely implement these tips to stay afloat while you devise your own strategies to succeed in this role. 

Seek Guidance from Your Boss   

If you are lucky to have a mentor at work, then go ahead and make the most of this opportunity. If not, you can still rely on your immediate boss to offer you support and guidance. Understand your role thoroughly, so that you can devise your plan of action accordingly. Miscommunication or ambiguity at this very first stage can be detrimental to your role as a manager.

Know Your Team

As you are going to be working closely with your team, it sure makes sense to understand their strengths and weaknesses. A few of its members could be your former peers. Chances are, some of them may not like reporting to you and may resist in every possible way. Hence, it is important to know every member's agenda. 

Know Your Own Role

Now this one is tricky! While some managers let the new role go into their heads, a few others may struggle with their first encounter with a power position. So, what is the correct way to approach this new role? A better approach is to let your actions speak rather than your words. Exude confidence and motivate your employees. While it is certainly not a good idea to reprimand employees for every small error that they commit, there is definitely no harm in giving them a strong but constructive feedback when things are going wrong. 

Perform

It is a misconception that managers only need to monitor and evaluate the performance of their employees. Remember, it was your competency and performance that helped you bag the position of a manager in the first place. So, always be on your toes to perform even better and never let complacency seep in. Your employees are going to emulate your behavior, so it is best to set an ideal example for them to follow.     

Be Ready to Get Scrutinized

A manager is subjected to scrutiny all the time. Your smallest of errors are going to be amplified and talked about. So be prepared to take any criticism that is bound to come your way. You may not be able to motivate every employee to accept your leadership, hence be prepared to let go of the ones who refuse to accept your positive guidance and spread negativity/hostility in your team. -. However, do not commit the biggest mistake of favouring some employees over others. This can cause a rift in your team and lead to diminishing performance. 

Devise Your Own Strategy

Your predecessor may have their own way of getting things done and your team may have gotten used to it. When you try to implement your own management theories and practices, you may counter some resistance. However, instead of immediately sending the rebelling employees to a change management training program, it definitely makes sense to encourage and involve them in the decision making process. This way they are bound to be cooperative as they themselves are a part of it. 

Train and Delegate

It is tempting for you as a new manager to keep doing the things that earned you a promotion. However one must remember that post your managerial promotion not only yours but your team’s performance becomes your most important responsibility. Hence avoid the temptation of doing your subordinates tasks because you believe you can do those better than them and must continue to do those to boost your team’s performance. Instead selflessly teach your best skills /work methods to all your employees and get out of their way to give them a space to develop. Finally a competent, motivated and high performing team will be taken as a strong indicator of your managerial capabilities.

The most important thing while you are fulfilling your managerial duties is not to waver from the organizational goals and objectives. All your efforts should be aligned with your company's mission and vision.

Strategic Management vs. Leadership

The terms Strategic Management and Leadership are often used interchangeably. The prefix 'strategic' before management makes people believe that it has something to do with leadership skills. However, in a nutshell, strategic management is one of the many skills that a good leader must possess. While it is not difficult to distinctly define the two, both these terms are often interconnected. Let us explore some of the similarities and differences between these two terms. 

Managers and Leaders   

It is a common mistake to assume managers for leaders. Using misleading terms such as 'team leaders' for managers invoke even more confusion. However, one must understand that there is a significant difference between the core responsibilities of managers and leaders. While managers are more concerned with running day-to-day activities of an organization as per a predefined plan, leaders are more involved with 'making' of these plans. In simple words, leaders formulate policies while managers implement them. Some of the differentiating aspects of managers and leaders are:

• Managers are often resistant to change and focus on dispatching their duties as per a pre-defined strategy.

• The very source of a leader's existence comes from the need to 'change'. Leaders sense the changing behaviors of internal (employees, organization) and external (client, market, competitors etc.) entities and bring about necessary changes in the organizational policies. 

• Managers are more concerned with maintaining status-quo, whereas leaders associate themselves with the mission and vision of an organization. 

Strategic Management and Leadership

Strategic management is closely associated with leadership. It is different in a way that strategic managers do not blindly follow the policies. They implement advanced performance metrics to assess the performance of their employees and actively participate in the appraisal process. They focus on the core competencies of the employees and align their tasks accordingly. In fact, they are instrumental in creating future leaders.  

Strategic managers are not resistant to change. In fact, they are pivotal in bringing about changes that can positively impact the organizational development. Strategic managers possess comprehensive knowledge about the organization; hence prove to be a valuable resource in critical tasks such as initiating planning, execution, control and evaluation. Strategic managers supervise and coordinate technological, material, financial and human resources of an organization. Their objective is to help an organization and its stakeholders to achieve the stipulated goals and mission effectively. 

Last but not the least; management is a position that is assigned to an individual whereas leadership is a quality that renders him followers!

Role of HR Beyond Hiring and Firing

Human Resources is an integral part of business management and organizational development. Recruitment, executing compensation policy and implementing exit formalities are considered to be some of the conventional roles of HR. In fact, HR personnel have been primarily associated with hiring and firing only. However, owing to changing economic and management scenarios, these traditional roles of HR have undergone a metamorphosis. Modern day HR personnel are more involved in the 'strategic' part of business management.

Scope of HR Beyond Hiring and Firing

The primary objective of HRM is to create an employee-centric work environment. As HRM is a connecting link between management and workforce, its focus should be on improving the employee-employer relationship and create a conducive environment for employees to work. To achieve this, an HR professional must shed his traditional image and adopt newer ways to devise and transform his conventional profile of hiring and firing. Given below are some of the job responsibilities of HR beyond hiring and firing.

Employee Development and Training

An HR professional must constantly look out for newer ways to enhance the personal and professional growth of employees. Implementing training programs is a good way of achieving this. The training topic can be specific, pertaining to an organization's intrinsic strategies or it can be generic such as communication, business ethics etc.   

Devising Compensation Plans

Although HRM has traditionally being associated with only the 'execution' of compensation policies, modern day HR personnel are expected to get involved in 'formulation' of compensation plans as well. An HR must be able to devise a fair compensation and benefits plan that is competency based.

Implementing Performance Evaluation Methodologies

An HR must upgrade his knowledge regarding the latest performance evaluation tools and techniques. It is important to establish a common ground for evaluating the performance of employees to develop a sense of trust. HR and OD consulting firms are extremely efficient in this area. 

Ensuring Employee Welfare  

This is the gist of all HR roles and responsibilities. An HR must never ignore the 'human' part of Human Resources Management. An HR should supervise all the policies related to employee health and safety at workplace. An HR should also ensure compliance with all the mandatory employee welfare policies, such as ensuring there is a committee to address issues such as sexual harassment, racial discrimination etc. 

Thus, the roles and responsibilities of HR have become even more critical from the point of view of an organization as well as employees.