Organizational Development has multifaceted parts of an organization. Due to COVID-19, businesses have had to transform their internal framework to reflect the procedures to decrease the spread of COVID-19. The increase in digital collaboration has catapulted more businesses to assess their internal framework. For instance, Culture of the Organization, Self and Personality traits in the workplace, Socialization and Mentoring, Global Cultures, and specific attitudes and emotions to social-political issues. 

In this article, Omega will take a deeper-dive into the realm of organizational development and some key areas that indicates areas of opportunities in the Digital Age. 

Nokia Phone Transformation

The Nokia phone was held in high regards after releasing some of the earliest cellular phone models. Their Mobira Cityman 900 was revolutionary during 1989; Nokia was able to reduce the weight of a cell phone from 9.8kg to 800g. In 2010, we saw the universal release of the iPhone which had the  absence of a keyboard and touch screen, making Nokia phones obsolete.

As more consumers in the technological industry became loyal to brands such as Apple and Samsung, Nokia became increasingly concerned over their diminishing presence and lack of consumer loyalty. In 2008, the company launched what they hoped to be a game changer: Symbian. Symbian served as Nokia’s primary operating system, and although it had early potential for putting the company’s devices back into prominence, it lacked the ability to implement these technological advancements to their phone models and continued to push out products that consumers were not interested in. 

Although we lack true knowledge of what happened inside the companies internal structure, speculations could be made: the employees could have been unaware of the technological changes, they may have disagreed with the benefits of implementing them, or they lacked knowledge on how to implement them. By 2018, the company realized their shortcomings; they restructured their business plan and hired a new leadership team. With the implementation of  Nokia, the experience increased the share price and an increased enterprise value, proving the importance of preparation and organizational development.

Nokia could have improved sooner if their employees had understood the importance of organizational development, or the study of how people working for large companies or organizations think and behave, as well as the effect it has on the company or organization they work for. A company must identify the industry, economic, and internal changes when they occur. Constructive communication with all levels of employees, extensive comprehension of the company’s industry, and consistent examination of economic well being are significant ways of improving crisis identification. These are contingent on all employees being willing to implement plans to combat changes and ensuring their plans are effective, concise, and understood organization-wide. 

A company that wishes to undergo organizational development must undergo an internal evaluation of their company before committing to the process. This allows companies or organizations to pinpoint areas of internal improvement and ways to achieve their operating and long-term objectives. A great example of this occurs in jobs with low employee satisfaction. These positions typically have high turnover rates and create financial distress, especially during a crisis when companies hasten to fill empty positions. Internal evaluation opens up a company like a bandaid, allowing them to see the wound and prepare to treat it.

Figure 1: Omega Organizational Framework for Development (Accessible in PDF Version) 

Effective Change in 5 Major Phases

After understanding a company’s internal weakness, Effective change can begin. 

1. Increase Organization Effectiveness and Health: Improvement can only be made if all cogs are well-oiled in the machine. Each cog is important: if one fails, so does the machine. When applied to a company, this equates to a constant push toward increasing employees’ health and happiness, efficiency, and continuous personal development. Employees who are treated well have high job satisfaction and are quick to respond to environmental changes.
2. Behavioral Science Knowledge: Knowledge or even familiarity of behavioral science allows for awareness when environmental changes occur, how to mitigate the damages, and where to begin the planning stage. The study of organizational development is typically mistaken for being abstract, however, it is developed with more of a structured, evidence-based process and focuses on scientific tests to create correlations and causations. Human behavior, cause-and-effect, and economic shift patterns are all analyzed to determine the most efficient ways to prepare for economic blows. 
3. Planned: Building a strategic plan for organizational improvement and efficiently re-distributing resources during changes is an important part of organizational development. Planning is typically long-term and focuses on factoring a fluctuating environment into company’s or organization’s objectives. 
4. Organization-Wide: In this phase, the problems created by environmental changes begin to affect the company. Meetings may be called in which multiple departments can discuss the full scope of the problem, what the economic projections are, and how to create a draft strategy to find the solution.
5. Managed from the Top: It is vital to have a top-down approach in which department heads and top management provide guidance when implementing an improvement strategy. Serving as the voice for departments or potentially the entire organization, managers and leaders can use influential management styles to ensure the plan is being implemented in the most unified way possible. Avoiding a “sink-or-swim” approach, obtaining information directly from the CEO, enforcing proactive socialization through training, and attention to employee diversity are key ways management can obtain accurate information, implement it, and encourage input from all employees.

These five phases have guided many companies and organizations through the arrival of COVID-19. Unfortunately, without an organizational development plan to guide companies step-by-step through the crisis, departments and employees find themselves unprepared. Lack of preparation forces an organization to find methods of saving and re-allocating money to later fiscal periods while resorting to an extensive use of “labor cost tools,” which may include shutting down of physical offices, decreased revenue, mass layoffs or budget cuts implemented to prevent bankruptcy. Labor cost tools during a crisis are dependent on prior preparation, company size, employee numbers, and the severity of the crisis. An organization or company unprepared to handle economic crises finds itself far more deprived of money, time, and resources than a company that prepares well in advance. This may due to the lack of time and resources available during hardships. Although companies use labor tools on an ongoing basis, preparation decreases the use of labor tools, allows for resource retainment, and creates synergy when these crises occur.

Figure 2: Omega Organizational Framework for Development (Accessible in PDF Version) 

The ability to understand a company depends on its organizational culture, or “the set of shared, taken-for-granted, implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its various environments.” A groupthink mentality has an organizational culture of not openly sharing thoughts or ideas. An organization with frequent activities or events for employees may have a more laid-back organizational culture. It is up to company leaders to analyze whether their culture aids them in achieving their objectives. If contrary, steps must be taken to improve culture in a similar approach to the organizational development process: top-down, organization-wide, and managed from the top. 

Conclusion

The organizational development process must not be taken lightly; every decision an organization or company makes will affect their likelihood of either success or failure. Good organizational development planning can allow a company to analyze their strengths and weaknesses and improve over time. As it is a systematic planning process, if done correctly, it can benefit every department in an organization and keep them from experiencing financial and brand damage during economic crises. Employees can also be negatively impacted by lack of planning, as increased labor costs tool usage leads to more individuals without jobs and an income. Changes within the economy must be identified quickly to leave adequate time for planning within a company using organizational development, whereas plans must be developed relatively slowly to ensure accuracy and plan functionality. Synergy is the only way to make organizational development possible, and like Nokia, it may require getting rid of the people at the top.