Essay On Organizational Development

The quick pace of business has changed market conditions. The Organization today is faced with fierce competition, financial pressures from corporate due to limited funds, ineffective interpersonal and interdepartmental communication and losing market share.

To be effective in today's competitive environment the organization has to be restructured with the aim of creating and organization that is more efficient and responsive to changing market needs by encouraging open communication, maintaining quality of products, employee satisfaction and ensuring that adequate decision making authority is provided to employees at that are in direct contact with the customers. The new organization structure will help in cost reduction, improved production and service quality and will enable the organization to respond quickly and effectively to new opportunities.

Individuals would be realigned in a matrix structure that is more function oriented. The structure is administratively decentralized. The vision is to create a learning organization with the key focus being the customer. Teams would be created across functional boundaries to ensure participation from all areas of the organization. The chosen structure would be a mix of a learning and matrix organizations where employees would be grouped by product, service or focus area such as customer satisfaction. Departmentalization allows employees to carry out tasks more efficiently.

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The first steps towards this would be to assess the actual business and organization needs and then staff it with competent individuals. The assessment has to be both qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative assessments could use tools like open-ended interviews with selected staff. Quantitative assessments could be in the form of surveys either online or by mail. Staff would be added to the new organization after performing a job analysis to assesses which skills are relevant and meet business and organizational needs.

Job specifications would change based upon the new organization structure. "An Efficient, Open, flexible and continuously adaptive Organization. " Why Restructure? Effective organizations must continuously meets the needs of and respond to a dynamic market environment. Adaptability and responsiveness are essential to survive and thrive. An organizational structure must support this dynamism. Restructuring the organization is a disruptive process and likely to face resistance from all areas of the organization.

The following steps could be taken to minimize risks from resistance and ensure that change is seen as a positive move that would benefit all. Minimize hierarchical processes and bureaucratic thinking by initiating discussion on organization change by creating group workshops built to encourage participation. This will encourage building relationships among members enabling effective delegation and gain the buy-in from key resources, which further enables change within the organization. Encourage working cross-functionally by creating teams that have personnel from different departments.

Listen and communicate with staff, if possible face-to-face and if not by participating in an interactive forum such as video conferencing. No matter how well laid out a plan or structure is, people will not follow without a sense of ownership and commitment to the organization. Interaction with staff will help build trust and ownership (Laka-Mathebula, 2004) Empower teams by delegating responsibility to come up with the best practices.  Involve employees in the change process, the level of commitment to success of the change is directly tied to the involvement of stakeholders in the process (Laka-Mathebula, 2004)

Understand and manage individual and team level resistance by honest and effective communication, giving clear feedback and a sense of direction. Address concerns raised by employees in an honest and consistent manner.  Reward and provide positive feedback to initiatives that support working towards the intended goals. Ensure that employees receive sufficient training and provide on-the-job training and resources to raise people's level of confidence and awareness. This could be done through structured learning programs or by initiating workshops that encourage discussion on change and how best to effectively adapt.

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