How To Drive Organizational Health

For many of us, assessing the level of employee wellness in our workforce is second nature, but there is another area of business wellbeing we often neglect – our company’s organizational health.

This is measured in a variety of ways, from financial growth to human capital development, and a health organization is influential when driving the sustainability and advancement of the business, ensuring the ability to function at the highest level while coping and adapting to change on a global scale.

Being able to measure, diagnose and improve your company’s organizational health is imperative when driving change and development, and the results of data relating to this area can be hugely beneficial when HR comes to make changes to employee policy and recruitment practices.

One of the tools that can be used is the Organizational Health Index (OHI), designed by McKinsey & Company

...measures and tracks the organizational elements that drive performance,” allowing for a “simple but powerful road map for leaders and managers.

The OHI provides companies with a score related to the responses employees gave when asked about the organizational health of their workface.

This structure relies on accurate direction, coordination, accountability, innovation and values to outline areas that are stopping performance advancement and highlight those which are furthering it, and recommends many different ways HR can diagnose the condition of their company’s health, such as conducting “in-depth interviews and focus groups, additional survey modules and rigorous analysis.”

The most effective way to measure organizational health is to provide talent with the opportunity to take part in an anonymous response survey which directly addresses potential concerns, areas that may require improvement or HR intervention and methods that are working the most effectively. These types of interviews can be conducted at the end of each quarter, or less frequently for smaller companies, to ensure HR’s strategies do not sway from the critical needs and direction of the business.

HR must decide if current techniques measuring employee engagement and organizational health are providing the most accurate results, and whether or not their leaders and focused on driving the business toward success.

Once the specifics of organizational health have been outlined, the next step is managing the current state of the company while continuing to analyze which areas need improvement. HR must develop a strategy based on their found data to manage business wellness without negatively affecting performance and profit-making, and this data can be massively helpful when it comes to assessing patterns and implementing new practices.

• Managing organizational health requires leaders who are able to easily influence the morale, work ethic and the general mindset of employees, leading to an environment with vast employee engagement.
• HR can create this foundation through team-building exercises, mentor roles and skills training tailored to the results found in surveys and interviews.

A healthy company culture is one formed by happy employees who trust in their superior’s ability to lead the business in the right direction, an innovative approach to changes in the business world on a global scale, and consistent development for talent in terms of training and career prospects.

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