Organization Dynamics and

Human Resource Management

`Organisational development is entirely dependent upon the effective

management of the resources employed. But for a wide range of reasons,
people rarely perform consistently in their jobs, and ensuring staff perform
well consistently is the most significant challenge facing HR managers in
2010.’

Name: Manu Mohana Rao

St Id : 1006079
Organization Dynamics and Human Resource Management

INTRODUCTION

‘A prosperous organization cannot be at state of war with its own employees.’ The development
of the organization is directly associated with the growth or development of the individual.

AN OVERVIEW OF ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Organisation develops automatically when an individual develops within the organization. If we

split the term organisational development into two, the word ‘Organisation’ is group of people
and resources organised to fulfil a common goal or set of goals, and ‘Development’ in simple
words stands for growth. Therefore, Organisational development can be defined as ‘the practice
of organising people for a positive growth.’  Organisational development in simple words is
responding effectively to the changes in external and internal environment. Organisational
development is a continuous process. Development programmes are implemented on long-term
or short-term basis.

Definitions

Beckhard (1969) has defined ‘organization development as an effort (1) planned, (2) organisation
wide, (3) managed from the top, (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5)
planned interventions in the organisation’s ‘processes,’ using behavioural science knowledge’.

Bennis (1969), ‘OD is a response to change, a complex education strategy intended to change the
beliefs, attitudes, values, and structure of organisations so that they can better adapt to new
technologies, markets and challenges, and the dizzying rate of change itself’.

Beer (1980), ‘the aim of OD are (1) enhancing congruence between organisational structure,
processes, strategy, people, and culture; (2) developing new and creative organisational
solutions; and (3) developing the organization’s self-renewing capacity’.

‘Organisational development is a set of behavioural science based theories, values, strategies and
techniques aimed at the planned change of the organisational work setting for the purpose of
enhancing individual development and improving, organisational performance, through the
alteration of organisational members’ on the job behaviours’ (Porras and Robertson, 1992).

‘OD is a system wide application of behavioural science knowledge to the planned development
and re-enforcement of organisational strategies, structures, and processes for improving an
organization’s effectiveness (Cummings and Worley, 1993)’.

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‘OD is a planned process of change in an organization’s culture through the utilization of

behavioural science technologies, research and theory’ (Burke, 1994).

Does the consistency in performance of the resources affect the organisational development?

The main concerns to an organisation are productivity, profitability, morale and quality of work.
These factors influence the achievement of the organisational goals. Organisation has to follow
new strategies and has to set new goals to be ahead of the competitors and make sure that the
goals are achieved. For an organisation to develop, the organisation must have a clear vision on
the organisational goals to achieve. These goals will be supported by a range of short-term or
long term supporting strategies. In today’s competitive world, there is change in customers
demand. An effective organization must be able to meet today and tomorrow's challenges. Ability
to change and responsiveness are essential to endure and prosper.

Performance of an individual or teams contributes to the success of the organisation. The

performance of the team or an individual directly affects the development of the organisation.
For example, The Royal Mail was once considered as one of the worst public sector wrongdoers
when it came to absenteeism. It was at the peak in the year 2004, affecting the productivity,
profits and service, and it was clear that revolutionary change was needed. Using their strategies
to stop absenteeism they reduced absenteeism from 7% to 5%, saving the business over £227m.

What causes inconsistency in the performance of an Individual?

Some of the main causes for inconsistency in performance are:

1. Unspecific Job description: It is the duty of the managers to ensure that proper job
description is provided, which helps the employee to know what is expected from him so
that he can put his full effort on the accomplishment of the given tasks.

2. Lack of skills: Some companies do not invest much on the training. If proper training is
provided, the employee will be comfortable working and will be familiar with the job. This
will increase the productivity of the employee and the organisation.

3. Behavioural consequences: Some of the employees may not have a professional

approach, the employees who show negative behaviour should be warned and its
manager’s duty to see that he does not continue such behaviour. The employees with
positive behaviour should not be ignored but should be given a sincere appreciation.

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4. Malfunctioning of the production equipments (in manufacturing firms)/ production

process: The process should not be an obstacle to an employee to do his job in the most
effective and efficient manner.

5. De-motivation or not motivated to perform his job: If the employees are not motivated,
they may lose interest in the job and hence will affect the performance of the
organisation.

6. Personal Problems: Family problems, illness, death etc., may lead the employee into a
depression resulting in loss of interest to work.

7. Work Environment: The working environment plays a important role in the performance
of the employee. If the work environment is not good then it is difficult to an employee to
perform under bad conditions, similarly if the work environment is very comfortable, it
may also make employee sleepy or lazy to perform his tasks.

8. Interest: The type of job may also add in non performance of the employee. If the job is
repetitive or not interesting then employee may lose interest in the job.

How can organisation overcome the performance issues?

Every organisation has its own core values on which they operate. Similarly, every organisation
will have human resource practices that differ from other organisation. The companies plan,
develop and implement strategies to overcome the performance issues, which will not only
increase the performance of the individual but also the performance of the organisation as a
whole. It can tackle the performance issues by using suitable performance management system.

Features of an eminent performance management system:

Eminent performance management system has the following prominent features.

1. Performance management is associated with to organisational objectives and other systems of

human resource management, like planning and training and development.

2. Performance management is a continuous process. It involves monitoring and giving feedback

about the performance of the employees by using effective technology.

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3. Performance management should not only emphasize on the employee training but also
should provide training to managers for their own development but also the organisation as a
whole.

4. Performance management is a system that is suitable for altering workplace realities, such as
team work and optional work arrangements like on call - support, work from home etc.

Managers need to know the performances of their employees are efficient and effective
or measures need to be taken for improvement. Assessing performance of the employee is a
process of setting performance standards and evaluating the employee performance whether he
meets the standards or not.

Performance management process:

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Organization Dynamics and Human Resource Management

Fig 1: Performance management process

Case Studies:

As a support to the study, consider two MNC’s Accenture, Microsoft, and its human resource
practices.

Accenture

Core Values

‘Since its inception, Accenture has been governed by its core values. They shape the culture and

define the character of our company. They guide how we behave and make decisions’.

Some of the best practices in Accenture:

Career guidance: As all the employees in Accenture employees have career counsellors, who
guide them in their future undertakings and self development. The employees will know what is
expected from them and what their job description is.

Leadership Program: Accenture has a Cross Entity Leadership Program which allows people to
switch between departments; Most of the open positions are filled with the internal resources.
This helps the employee to choose the area of his interest and work on it. This helps the
employee to attain job satisfaction.

Power to make a decision: Employees at comparatively junior levels are authorised to take
decisions.

Training and development: Accenture provides 80 percent more training hours than their
competitors to develop their skills and keep them growing along with the employees. Accenture
invested $985 million in 2008 for training and professional development in an average of 78
hours per person. They also have about 16,000 online courses for employees across all levels

Growth in career: Employees are allowed to make their own career choices; they are free to
choose their path of growth, either vertical or lateral.

Events and recreations: Accenture has recreation centres and internal communities who
conduct events like sports tournaments, cultural fests, competitions etc.

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Corporate Social Responsibility: Accenture has independent charitable organisation under the
name Accenture Foundations. They have also under taken carbon reduction initiatives, reducing
the per employee carbon foot print by 25 percent in 2009 and by a total of 40 percent by 2012,
year 2007 as a baseline.

Mission

‘At Microsoft, our mission and values are to help people and businesses throughout the world
realize their full potential’.

Some of the best practices in Microsoft India

Selection and Recruitment: Microsoft India recruits from the campus and also recruits
experienced professionals from the IT- industries. The selection process includes written tests
and several rounds of personal interviews.

Training Program: To contribute to the technical and personal skills of the employees, required
to carry out the Job, Microsoft India conducts a training program named Leap Engineer
Acceleration Program. In order to raise IT industry's female-male workforce ratio, Microsoft India
conducted recruitment exclusively for women.

Growth in career: Microsoft India employees are allowed to make their own career choices; they
are free to choose their path of growth, either vertical or lateral for its employees in all the six
business units present in India...

Flexi-time policy: Employees of Microsoft India are allowed to work in a flexible time. This policy
released them from fixed work timings.

Retention of the employees: Various programs were initiated by Microsoft India where work
carried out round the clock in order to provide technical support services to its customers in
different time zones and nations.

Benefits: Microsoft India provided standardised the employee benefits but offered salary
packages higher than industry standards keeping the technical skills and experience as a ground.

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Aim of HR policies: Microsoft India aimed at maximising the human capital value for achieving
business growth by concentrating on development of management, leadership qualities and
talent acquisition.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Microsoft focuses on conserving energy; Windows 7 is designed

to optimize energy efficiency, cutting users’ carbon foot prints and energy costs. Carbon footprint
per employee to be reduced to 30 percent by year 2012, year 2007 as a baseline, Microsoft also
works with European environment agency to help citizens to analyse the significances of climate
change.

Comparison of Accenture and Microsoft India

Training and development: Compared to Microsoft India, Accenture emphasises more on

supporting and developing the skills of their employees which helps the employee to obtain
knowledge and grow within the organization thus leading to the growth of the organization as
well.

Career Guidance: In Accenture, each employee has career counsellors who help them to build
their career by providing proper support and guidance, but not in Microsoft India.

Flexibility of making career choice: In both the companies as the employees have flexibility in
making career choices, they can choose the path which they are interested in or specialised in,
which in turn increases the productivity of the employees.

Right to make decisions: Employees comparatively at junior levels in Accenture have a power to
make decisions, so they can work in the best way they can and will not have barriers in process,
but not in Microsoft India

Flexi-Time policy: In Microsoft India employees can work in their convenient time as they have
flexi-time policy, but not in Accenture.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Accenture is ahead of Microsoft India in terms of reducing the
carbon foot print per unit by 10 percent.

Retention of employees: Microsoft India is implementing various programs to retain their

employees, but no such programs implemented in Accenture.

CONCLUSION

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Organization Dynamics and Human Resource Management

As per the comparison between Accenture and Microsoft India, both have different practices.
Both the companies have one or the other disadvantages when compared. But in the context of
‘Performance Management’, Accenture has best practice over Microsoft India.

Accenture has better HR practices compared to Microsoft India in Training and Development,
Career guidance and Corporate Social responsibility (the estimated carbon foot print reduction
for the year 2012 is 40 percent and Microsoft is 30 percent).

However the below points may seem to be in favour of Microsoft India, but they will not under
below circumstances:

Flexi-time policy: There may not be flexi time policy in Accenture, but it will not help the
organisation in the productivity as there might be a delay in delivering the promises because of
no fixed work time. All the employees might take advantage of this policy and may not be
available when the organisation needs of them.

Retention of employees: Accenture does not stress on retaining the employees as they believe
in ‘If You Want Your Best Executives to Stay, Equip Them to Leave’. If the employee is retained
from quitting his job, he may not be interested to work as he was before, his productivity may
decrease.

Right to make decisions: Accenture allows their employees in comparatively junior level to take
decisions. This makes the managerial skills of the employees and helps to get better solutions to
problems and organisation may get innovative ideas which can contribute in the development of
the organization.

The 'Best Employer Survey 2008' released by Dataquest said that in Microsoft India the overall
employee satisfaction was below the industry average in India.

It is the duty of the human resource manager to see that the employees meet the
performance standards; If not human resource managers have to take necessary steps to
improve the performance of the employee.

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