Is Your Organization RESPONSIVE & RELEVANT?

Let’s set the stage with a quick look at Organizational Effectiveness.

Organizational Effectiveness can be defined as how successfully and efficiently your company is meeting its goals and achieving desired outcomes. 

Organizational Effectiveness is measured across many areas including talent management, leadership development, adoption and sustainment of change,  deployment of new processes and technologies, , and more! 

Your effectiveness and efficiency in these areas can also influence the degree to which your organization is perceived as responsive and relevant.

RESPONSIVE to WHAT and RELEVANT to WHOM?

Responsive to change in — your industry, technology, the business environment, workforce, opportunities, challenges, we could go on and on.

Relevant to your employees, customers, investors.

For purposes of this discussion, we are looking at 

• responsiveness to change in the workplace

• how change relates to today’s workforce

Why is responsiveness to change important?

If you’re like me and were “coming up” in your career in the 90’s, or even early 00’s, the workplace today seems quite different. Things changed at a snail’s pace in the 90’s compared to today’s standards. The oft-stated, “change is the only constant in life” is certainly a truism for today’s business environment. 

Today’s workforce is expected to manage a lot more change at a much faster pace — technology, process, and strategic changes — than we did in the 90’s and early 00’s. 

The good news is that today’s workforce, especially the newcomers, are accustom to change.  They grew up in the age of ever-changing technologies.  They cut their teeth on iPhones, iPads, and iPods with upgrades, releases and enhancements every time you turn around!

Today, it’s all about agile, iterative, and continuous changes in the workplace.  These changes impact employees to varying degrees depending on the magnitude of the changes.  How your staff responds to change and manages change is important.

For organizations to be effective, we must be flexible in our ability to respond to new opportunities and ways of doing things.  We must be strategic in our thinking and look for opportunities to improve everything that we do. 

How is the workforce changing?

Not only is the business environment changing, so is the workforce — what they need, want, and expect from their career is different.

I recently had a conversation with a corporate C-suite officer about the differences between workforce generations and he stated, “In my day we came to work, did our job, and got a paycheck.” 

There is no doubt — expectations are shifting!

Today’s workforce wants to:

• find purpose in their work

• have developmental opportunities

• receive coaching to improve their performance

• cultivate relationships with supervisors

• work in a job that allows them to use their skills & strengths

• maintain a work-life balance 

 (Gallup, State of the American Workforce, 2017)

How do you make your organization relevant to today’s workforce?

Who you have on your team will impact how effectively and efficiently your organization can respond to change, meet your goals, and achieve desired outcomes — bringing us back to organizational effectiveness!

To be relevant and attractive to today’s workforce high performers, some of the old ways of managing employees — like performance management, annual reviews, employee management, etc. — are changing. 

Talent Management practices are evolving and we are seeing outdated Performance Management programs becoming more about Performance Development.  Annual Review processes are moving to frequent, future-oriented performance discussions that occur throughout the year.  The management of employees is being recast as coaching relationships with continuous dialogue between managers and employees. 

To remain relevant, attract and retain high performers, and ensure employee engagement (which directly impacts productivity) it’s important that your organization adapts to the changing needs of today’s shifting workforce. 

Based on this discussion — is your organization responsive and relevant?

If you heard the “call to action” and are interested in learning more, watch for future blog posts for a deeper-dive into topics mentioned in this article: 

• Organizational Effectiveness

• Employee Engagement Increases Productivity

• Talent Management and Meeting Employee Needs

• Coaching vs Managing Your Employees

We also invite you to contact our office and speak with someone about our Change & Adoption business consulting services.  

Let’s talk about how you can embrace change and ensure successful implementation, adoption and sustainment of new strategies, technologies and processes.

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