Organisational Development (OD) Matters!

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Businesses across the world are struggling with a common problem: talent drainage. Talent retention is a long-term endeavour and short-term approaches are not effective in addressing it. Companies face challenges such as high turnover rates, difficulty competing against larger firms for high-quality candidates, and a lack of strategic plans to retain employees.

The Jan/Feb 2023 issue of HBR's article, Rethinking Your Employee Value Proposition - Offer Your People More than Just Flexibility by Mark Mortensen and Amy C. Edmonson outlines why organisations must adopt a systemic strategy to remain ahead in the talent retention game for long-term success. Rather than solely addressing the material facets of work that employees are concerned about, such as compensation or flexibility, this article outlines three essential steps companies should prioritise to ensure their employees' long-term success: Evaluating what resources you currently have and what your team needs; Having meaningful yet organised conversations with employees; and Continually reassessing and updating employees regularly.

Organise a systemic approach to retaining talent, a competitive advantage to leverage.

Adopting Organisational Development (OD) interventions, can we overcome the daunting task of talent retention to retain talents while ensuring they achieve a lasting impact from their efforts?

1. Conduct a Real Organisational Experience (ROE) assessment to diagnose your employee experience at work.

2. Analyse the results of the Real Organisational Experience (ROE) Assessment which consists the following 6 dimensions:

 a. Meaningful work - Measures the extent to which employees agree that their work is meaningful.

  b. Supportive management - Measures the extent to which employees agree that their management is supportive.

  c. A positive work environment - Measures the extent to which employees agree that their work environment is positive. 

  d. Growth opportunities - Measures the extent to which employees agree that there is growth opportunity in the organisation.

  e. Trust in leadership - Measures the extent to which employees agree that their leadership is trustworthy. 

  f. Cross-organisational collaboration and communication. - Measures the extent to which  employees agree there is cross-organisation collaboration and communication in the organisation.

3. Review employee experience with organisation and prioritise and take action to close the gaps to make the necessary changes to provide a positive employee experience.

4.  Equip your people managers with dialogic skills to help employees to conduct dialogue with employees to help them appreciate the interdependency of the 4 factors: material offerings, growth and development, connection and community, and meaning and purpose. 

5. Conduct regular Real Organisational Experience (ROE) assessments annually and take appropriate actions as necessary. 

“Corporate culture matters. How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything for better or for worse.” - Simon Sinek

Stay tuned for the upcoming second part of this article - Balancing Advocacy And Inquiry: The Key To Think Together

For more on Real Organisational Experience (ROE) visit https://www.pace-od.com/diagnostic-tools/roe

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