Attention: Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) & SVP HR: 5 Ways Organizational Development Can Help To Achieve Your Goals

The chief human resources officer (CHRO), also commonly referred to as the SVP HR, is a coveted role for many HR professionals and whose primary work involves strategic management and departmental decision-making that affects the organization’s people and viability as a profitable enterprise. If you’re serving in this function – congratulations on all your hard work!

The role of the CHRO has shifted over the years from responding to employee needs, compliance and setting policies - to the more strategic objectives of helping organizations build capabilities and capacity, via a focus on people. In this capacity, you may be responsible for a strategic human capital plan; professional development, talent management and recruitment, retention and engagement, and culture – not to mention making sure all initiatives are aligned with the company's strategic objectives and goals.  Not easy tasks – and not tasks that can always be tackled alone. Good news Organization Development (OD) can help.

5 tips on how working collaboratively with OD colleagues can help you achieve your goals…

1) Strategic Planning: Sometimes strategic planning can be a daunting task and can make one feel quite overwhelmed. What goes into a human capital strategic plan? How does the human capital strategic plan sync up to the overarching company strategic plan? What HR and people focused goals, objectives and targets should be included? Who is accountable for achieving these and how is accountability determined? What is the structured process for strategic planning? How should the plan be communicated and implemented? By training and practice most OD professionals have a holistic or whole systems view.

• An OD professional experienced with strategic planning can help you with the process; they can assist with the design, development, integration, and deployment of a human capital strategy and associated processes and procedures – with a keen focus on any impacts to the people.

2) Recruitment: Recruiting today seems to be a rush job or a one size fits all approach. This HR function is often one of the first to be outsourced. Recruiters get a position description and scour the internet for a match. Recruiters find a CV that matches the position description and send an often canned, cold and generic email. Recruiting has become less and less personalized. Many companies do not embrace a diverse recruiting strategy that mirrors the current diverse pool of applicants. Not always the best approach.

• An OD professional can assist you in defining your organizational employee value proposition. What is it you can offer to employees, what’s in it for them to work for your organization?  Being on the same page up front will help to reduce retention issues later. Yes, this is a two way street. Once your employee value proposition is defined you need to determine what types of candidates have, not just the skills needed to fill a role, but also have the values and beliefs that align with your organizational culture and value proposition. OD professionals can assist you with candidate prescreening, assessment and selection. Many OD professionals also practice in the areas of diversity and inclusion, and thus can assist you with designing and developing targeted diversity recruitment strategies.

3)  Professional Development: Professional development is a key component of successful talent management. For employees to remain engaged and committed, they need to feel that they have opportunities to learn and grow and know that new challenges and opportunities are available to them within the organization. Professional development and training needs to focus on various areas. The most successful professional development programs are those that consist of a combination of technical, functional and people skills training. Organizations also tend to have lower turnover when they have coaching and mentoring programs in place. How do you know what your employees want in professional development? How do you determine your skill gaps and areas of improvement? What are the best methods and technologies for implementing professional development in your organization? How do you deliver coaching and mentoring? How do you measure success?

• An OD professional can assist you in up-front data collection and analysis. OD professionals can help you determine your skill gaps, further define the challenges your employees face and define and deliver learning opportunities to help meet those challenges – inclusive or measures of success. Many OD professionals are also skilled coaches and can help coach your employees (and leadership) to improve in specific areas to which other training may not address.

4) Retention and Engagement: Consistent employee engagement is an imperative human resources goal. Creating a work environment where employees are enthusiastic and engaged is a top priority.  Many human resources leaders describe their greatest challenge, as “keeping employees happy and retaining top talent.” HR can measure this quantitatively with respect to turnover and retention. Human resources goals concerning turnover and retention are marked, respectively, by the words “reduce” and “increase.” Attracting qualified applicants, motivating and engaging the existing workforce and inspiring long-term commitment are often goals regarding turnover and retention.

• An OD professional can assist with retention and engagement. Beyond data collection and analysis, as trained behavioral scientists, OD professionals have an understanding of fundamental human needs. Having an understanding of what makes employees feel valued, heard, appreciated, and significant is imperative to designing and developing retention and engagement strategies. OD professionals also have experience in understanding motivational factors, and many are certified in tools and technologies to help further identify areas of improvement.  OD professionals understand and practice in the areas of diversity and inclusion which is also of great benefit in designing and developing targeted diversity retention and engagement strategies.

5) Culture: HR is becoming more and more responsible for employer branding – defining the image and culture. Creating an employer of choice is a goal that often falls within HR. An employer of choice is the company employees are happy to be a part of, a company for which others want to work, and a company customers want to do business with. These things are all part of culture - the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization, or group. Simply put, “the way work gets done around here.” A company’s culture says a lot about an organization and the direction they are headed.

• One thing OD professionals know a lot about – creating a high performing culture. OD professionals can help you define the type of culture you want, often beginning with spelling it out in your mission statement – which should be created as part of the strategy. OD professionals can then assist you in creating and maintaining a culture of high performance. Culture is the identity of a company, and because of that, in some ways it becomes an identity of those who work there. The people end up affecting the culture as much as the culture is affecting them. OD professionals can help HR maintain a positive and high performing culture via assisting with recruitment strategies, retention and engagement, and professional development.

Strategic planning…recruitment…culture…professional development…retention and engagement – that’s a lot responsibilities; which are your priorities? Which areas do you find to be the most challenging? Could you and your organization benefit from consulting external OD support?  If so feel free to contact us with specific questions - we’re happy to discuss how we can help you and your organization to achieve your goal.

About Scott Span, MSOD: is President of Tolero Solutions Organizational Development & Change Management firm.  He helps clients to facilitate sustainable growth by developing people and organizations to be more responsive, focused, productive and profitable.

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