Introduction
The covid situation which struck the world had an adverse effect on everything in life.
But did life stop? Me working in an IT organisation didn’t stop working even a day during
this period of Pandemic. The organisation was quite well equipped to handle the pandemic,
but simultaneously there were other industries who went into complete halt. But slowly they
also worked on the process of change and getting back to normal functioning of the industry.
So, what is change and organisation dynamics or development. Many experts have
defined Organisation Development (OD) in different ways. One of my personal favourites is
according to Richard Beckhand: “Organization development is a planned effort, organization
wide, and managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health through
planned interventions in the organization’s processes, using behavioural-science knowledge.”
So, in the above definition it clearly states that OD is set of plans/changes which is
applied throughout the organisation and this is driven by the top management (change
managers), the outcome of which results in organisation effectiveness and health, using
strategies which uses concepts of behavioural science. To understand this further I had an
interview conducted with an HR from a reputed organisation.
Reflection on the Interview
Ms.HR has been in the industry for 14+ years and have worked with multiple
industries and organizations, majorly with some of the world’s leading IT Services and
product-based organizations as HR professional. She has extensive experience in the field of
recruitment of college graduates and managing director level.
According to Ms. HR, “Organisation Development shows the growth trajectory of an
organization. It is the measurement of the organization success. People are the core to any
organization; it is the like the fuel of a machine or engine with which it runs. Employees with
skills and ethics form growing successful organizations irrespective of the industry.”
As the discussion went further, Ms.HR was explaining of the about change and its
importance, Change is one of the key components that fuels the growth and expansion of an
organization and what she has seen over years is that the organization that are agile and have
people who are flexible and easy to adopt change grow at a faster phase than organization
which finds it difficult to implement and struggle to implement change in the system.
Over the last two years there has been drastic and rapid change across all industries and
organization around the globe. As we were hit by the pandemic in the beginning of 2020
there was a complete slowdown in the economy and normal functioning of society in large
around the world. The organization where Ms. HR was working with was very quick and
agile in shifting into work from home arrangement at a huge scale for their employees around
the world. The Organisation provided laptops and desktops for our employees, helped
employee create their working space at home, frequent leadership connects were created to
take update on how employees are feeling as they are working from home. Special dedicated
helpline numbers were created for who are going through COVID and for their families.
There were helpline numbers to cater to mental health of the employees too.
As the organization, Ms.HR adopted to the change in a quicker phase though there was a
slight dip in the business in the initial phase, the business started growing at a rapid phase
through the pandemic as most of the businesses went online.
Ms.HR being part of the recruitment team, she poured her light on how the
organisation went into change especially dealing with campus recruitment. The organisation
worked with campus to run the drive online completely. On cross verify she confirmed that
this change not only worked in the quantity of hires but also didn’t compromise the quality of
the hires. Also moving to online there was huge profit on budget as they didn’t have travel
expenses, venue for the event etc.
As we discussed, Ms.HR was saying about the change in work culture during the
pandemic. In the beginning, as most of them started working from home, it was accepted
greatly, thinking that staying at home will give them more of personal time. But as things
moved on it became very hectic as there was very thin line to define the personal and work
life.
The change drivers in an organisation are the top management, Ms.HR was sharing
that for a change to work every single employee will be driver of the change. And by
checking on the progress the deliverables and budget profits measure the progress of the
organisation.
New work cultures are very challenging for all, this where most of the organisation
adopt Lewin’s Framework of change of Unfreeze, Change and Freeze model. Ms. HR was
also sharing her experience on how the change affect her as she was not able to manage her
personal life as children also moved to online mode. When checked was change affecting
only one set of gender she confirmed the other sector of gender had different challenges to
face when virtual office came into existence.
We concluded on how the organisation is becoming future ready to work on a hybrid
model, where employees have the freedom to choose to work from office as well as home
environment.
From the conversation I had with the Ms.HR I could reflect on how my own
organisation took over the change due to pandemic. One of the observations was how
efficiently the Organisation was ready to slip into a fast change. Usually, to bring a change
we have a lot of planning, research, survey etc. But the pandemic was an eyeopener for many
organisations that they didn’t have to move into change in the traditional ways, the
companies can adopt any change in an agile way depending on what the situation demand.
Conclusion
According to Newman & Ford, 2020 in their journal ‘Five steps to leading your team
in the VIRTUAL COVID-19 Workplace’ states that, the new reality has to be identified and
explored; a trust of culture has to be secured; employees must be informed by the leadership
on the upgraded communication tools and techniques; sharing the leadership responsibilities
has to be encouraged among team members; and finally analysing and verify the performance
of the employees if they are able to cope up with new organization’s cultural values including
its commitment to mission (Newman & Ford, 2020).
In one of the articles published on Mckinsey.com an article by Smet et al., 2021,
mentioned the process of reinventing the organization for speed in the post-COVID-19 era.
As mentioned by Ms.HR, the article also states about the future of the Organisation. Many
organisations were thought initially that post pandemic everything will get back to normal;
But Organisation have realised that the next normal is the hybrid mode of work, where
companies reimagine and reinvent the future by rebuilding new muscle make their
foundations strong (Smet et al., 2021).
References
Newman, S. A., & Ford, R. C. (2020, October 31). Five steps to leading your team in the
VIRTUAL COVID-19 Workplace. Organizational Dynamics.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0090261620300541.
Newman, S. A., & Ford, R. C. (2021). Five steps to leading your team in the VIRTUAL
COVID-19 Workplace. Organizational Dynamics, 50(1), 100802.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2020.100802
Smet, A. D., Pacthod, D., Relyea, C., & Sternfels, B. (2021, March 10). Ready, set, go:
Reinventing the organization for speed in the post-covid-19 era. McKinsey &
Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/ourinsights/
ready-set-go-reinventing-the-organization-for-speed-in-the-post-covid-19-era.
