What Is Organisational Development? A Guide for Managers

Organisational development (OD) is a planned way of improving how a whole organisation works by involving the people in it. The CIPD defines it as "a planned and systematic approach to enabling sustained organisational performance through the involvement of its people". In practice, OD looks at culture, structure, processes and behaviour together, rather than fixing one problem at a time.

What organisational development means

The CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, sets out OD in its organisation development factsheet. In plain words, OD work:

• Makes the most of what you have: getting the best value from the organisation's people, time and resources.
• Lines up with your purpose: every change connects to the organisation's strategy and what it is there to do.
• Uses what we know about people: it applies behavioural science, such as findings on leadership, group dynamics and how work is designed.
• Keeps improving: it builds ongoing, systematic improvement into the organisation, closely linked to change management.

The word "organisational" is the point. OD treats the organisation as a system. Turnover, low morale, poor handovers and repeated complaints often share a root cause in how the place is led, structured or run. OD tries to find that cause and change it with the people affected, not to them.

How OD differs from HR and L&D

OD draws on HR and learning and development processes, and the people doing it work closely with both. The CIPD's view is that the activities can look similar but are done for a different reason.

• HR runs the people processes: recruitment, contracts, pay, policies, absence and employee relations.
• L&D builds the knowledge and skills of individuals and teams, through induction, mandatory training and development programmes.
• OD asks why the organisation behaves as it does, and changes several things at once (leadership, roles, communication, systems and culture) to improve how it performs.

A training course on its own is L&D. A course chosen because diagnosis showed new team leaders lacked supervision skills, alongside rota changes so supervision actually happens, is OD.

The CIPD also separates organisation development from organisation design. Design is about structure: reporting lines, roles and how teams are arranged. The two are complementary: a new structure still depends on how people work within it.

Common OD interventions

The CIPD groups OD interventions into four types. In a care or health organisation they might look like this:

• Human process: coaching, mentoring, training, team development, facilitation and action learning. For example, facilitated sessions to rebuild trust between day and night staff.
• Techno-structural: process improvement methods such as Lean, redesigning workflows, or changing who does what. For example, redesigning the morning medication round so it no longer clashes with personal care.
• Human resource: performance management, reward and recognition, and staff surveys. For example, introducing regular, meaningful supervision and appraisal rather than a once-a-year form.
• Strategic: business planning, culture change and transformation programmes. For example, bringing two services together after a merger with a shared set of values that staff helped write.

A simple way to diagnose your organisation

Most OD work starts with diagnosis: working out how the organisation really works, not how the organisation chart says it works. A simple approach:

1. Describe the problem, not the solution. "Half our new starters leave within six months" is a problem. "We need a new induction" is a solution, and may be the wrong one.
2. Gather evidence from several angles. Look at the numbers you already hold: turnover, sickness absence, agency use, incidents, complaints and audit results. Then listen: exit interviews, staff surveys, team meetings and conversations on every shift, including nights and weekends.
3. Use a framework to make sense of it. The CIPD names several tools, including SWOT, the McKinsey 7S model and the Burke-Litwin model. A simple one to start with is force field analysis, developed by the psychologist Kurt Lewin: list the forces pushing towards the change you want and the forces holding it back.
4. Test your conclusions with staff. Share what you've found with the people involved. If it doesn't ring true to them, you've probably missed something.
5. Agree a small number of priorities. Choose two or three changes, decide who owns them, and decide now how you'll know if they've worked.

Examples from health and care

• High turnover of new carers. A care group assumes pay is the problem. Exit interviews and conversations show new starters feel unsupported on their first shifts and are given the hardest rotas. The response combines a buddy system, protected induction shifts and training for the seniors who supervise them.
• A new digital care planning system. Staff on one unit use it well, another barely at all. The difference turns out to be the unit lead's confidence and whether staff have time at the end of a shift. The fix is part training, part rota change, part leadership.
• Two services, two cultures. After an acquisition, staff in one home feel the new owner's way of working is being imposed. Joint workshops, led by staff from both, agree shared values and practices. Our change management training covers leading people through this kind of transition.

In each case the first explanation wasn't the whole story, and the answer involved more than one lever.

Measuring the impact of OD

OD is easier to measure if you decide what success looks like before you start.

• Set a baseline. Record where you are now on the measures that matter to the problem.
• Mix hard and soft measures. Pair numbers such as turnover, sickness absence, agency hours, incidents and complaints with staff survey results, supervision themes and feedback from the people you support and their families.
• Review at set points, such as three, six and twelve months, rather than waiting for a feeling that things are better.
• Be honest about cause and effect. Note anything else that changed, such as a new manager.

Where OD fits with regulation

There's no legal requirement to do OD. In England, though, Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 requires providers to have systems to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of their services, and to seek and act on feedback. CQC also asks whether every service is well-led. CQC is currently piloting new sector-specific assessment frameworks and has said it will keep its five key questions, including well-led. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own regulators: the Care Inspectorate, Care Inspectorate Wales and RQIA.

How Kasorb can help

Our organisational development training is a full day for up to 12 staff, on-site anywhere in the UK or live online. It's designed for senior managers, HR and quality leads, and registered managers and directors in growing care groups. It covers what OD is, diagnosing how the organisation really works, culture and values, engagement and involving staff, planning and evaluating interventions, and action planning.

Your trainer has used these skills for real and runs the day as a discussion, not a lecture. Each person applies the tools to a real situation from their own work and agrees an action plan with the trainer. It's one price for the group, and staff receive a Kasorb certificate of completion, with no expiry date, emailed the next day.

FAQs

What is organisational development in simple terms?

Organisational development is a planned way of improving how an organisation works by involving its people. The CIPD defines it as a planned and systematic approach to enabling sustained organisational performance through the involvement of its people. It looks at culture, structure, processes and behaviour together, rather than fixing one problem at a time.

What is the difference between organisational development and HR?

HR runs the people processes, such as recruitment, pay, policies and employee relations. OD uses many of the same tools but for a different purpose: understanding why the organisation works as it does and improving it as a whole. The two work closely together.

What is the difference between organisational development and organisational design?

Organisational design is about structure: roles, reporting lines and how teams are arranged. Organisational development is about how the organisation works in practice, including culture, behaviour and leadership. The CIPD treats them as complementary, so many changes need both.

What are examples of organisational development interventions?

The CIPD groups them into four types: human process (coaching, team development, action learning), techno-structural (process improvement, workflow redesign), human resource (performance management, recognition, staff surveys) and strategic (business planning, culture change). In a care setting, that might mean redesigning a medication round or rebuilding supervision.

How do you measure organisational development?

Decide what success looks like before you start and record a baseline. Combine hard measures, such as turnover, sickness absence, agency use, incidents and complaints, with staff survey results and feedback from the people you support. Review at set points and note anything else that changed at the same time.