Organization Development Research

Interview I
Interviewed by (Student Name):Nupur
Title/Position: Manager-Human Resources
Level: Middle
Age: 36 years
Gender: Male
Highest Education: MBA, Human Resources Development
Tenure (No. of years in the position): 2
Total Work Experience: 7
Organization Size (no of employees): 48,844
Industry (of the organization): Technology

Q1. What is the difference between HR and OD, according to you?

A1. HR focuses on the interface between business and people while OD focusses more on
devising sustainable talent development & management interventions aimed at overall
organizational development. 

Q2. In the last 2 years, organizations have had to implement several changes due to
COVID-19. What are some of the changes your organization implemented?
A2. Change in team leadership. A new partner taking over the team.

a. What was your role as an HR professional? 

A. My role as an HR professional included correct mapping of employees, managers, and
clients, as per their skill set and capabilities. This was to ensure better client handling and
satisfactory performance to work in different styles on different projects. 

b. Among these changes, think of a change that was successfully implemented. What are
some key reasons that contributed to the success?
A. New change came with new learnings and new insights under changed leadership.
Bottlenecks were faced on the front of incorporating the new working style at a fast pace.

c. Now, think of a change you struggled most with. What are some factors that led to
such an experience? 
A. Skill up-gradation and continuous learning are very crucial in an organization. For the
very same purpose, our organization introduced several online self-paced modules that were
made compulsory to complete every month. However, a lot of employees just forwarded the
modules without learning anything and submitted them. The very purpose of the learning was
defeated. The failure can be attributed to the lack of self-motivation

Q3. What are some major changes HRM as a profession is faced with? What skills will
help us (future HR professionals) to prepare for such changes?
A3. The most important skill would be clear communication to the team about the objectives
of the change so that they believe in the purpose and drive the change themselves. Another
really important attribute was to incentivize and constantly motivate employees to take up the
change, as sticking to new ways often gets difficult and people do initiate the change but
leave it mid-way.

4. In the last two years, organizations have become more sensitive and concerned about
employee well-being and mental health. What steps, if any, have your organization
taken in this direction? 
A4. Our office has hired an external counselor who can be contacted via messages and video
calls. Also, we try to conduct several online employee engagement activities to make sure
that employees are doing well and are not stressed with work. 

5. How is your company dealing with the difficulties of promoting diversity and
inclusion? What policy adjustments have been made?
A5. We have a positive diversity and inclusion program, and as of now, we haven’t faced any
major issues with that.

6. Measuring employee involvement is both difficult and crucial. So, as an HR

professional, how can you assess such an intervention in the real world?
A6. It is very crucial to measure the impact of change on the goals. Certain anticipated goals
create the need for a change process in the very first place, if they don’t get fulfilled or show
digression instead of progress, the change design and implementation process need to be
assessed. Making parameters out of each goal and assessing them with the help of the team as
well data and numbers related to the parameter. The inclusion of the team and their feedback
is very important.

7. How do you notify your staff about the change method before heading to the trial or
initiation phase? Could you provide any examples?
A7. We conducted feedback from the subordinates at various stages of the change process.
As an HR manager, all the suggestions received couldn’t be implemented, so, there was
assessment and weightage from me and my subordinates’ eyes as to which suggestions
precede the other in importance and should be incorporated.

8. What methods do you use to ensure that your development efforts are cost-effective?
A8. Understanding the objectives thoroughly is very important at my level to be able to
impart a clear communication of their importance and need to implement, to the team.
Without a clear-minded leader, the team also goes astray with the change. My organization
organized team-level events to communicate the changes.

Thank you so much for your time!

Interview II
Interviewed by (Student Name): Nupur
Title/Position: Deputy VP - HR
Level: Senior
Age: 45 years
Gender: Male
Highest Education: B.Com (Hons)
Tenure (No. of years in the position): 3
Total Work Experience: 12
Organization Size (no of employees): 110000+
Industry (of the organization): Pharmaceutical Industry

Q1. What is the difference between HR and OD, according to you?

A1. HR, I would say, is an umbrella term for all the functions performed by human resource
managers to bring out sustainable growth in an organization. However, OD interventions
focus on getting the best from their employees across the employment cycle.

Q2. In the last 2 years, organizations have had to implement several changes due to
COVID-19. What are some of the changes your organization implemented?
A2. The most recent organizational change that happened was the economic crunch due to
covid. The crunch created a domino effect and it led to implementing a lot of changes to keep
the company afloat such as integrating work from the home approach. In the bank industry,
concepts such as working from home and working in an online mode are very rare as the
clients require physical endowment. Handling business as usual was the most challenging
thing, I tried my best by revamping the entire HR policy of the organization along with my
most trustworthy team. Being able to implement such huge changes in such a short period is
what excites me as it shows the potential of our will. Working from home sure has its cons
like not having that physical presence to motivate or be motivated by the social gathering.

a. What was your role as an HR professional? 

A. My role was majorly focussed on smoothening the changes across the organization
including 
● designing an effective plan as change is essential for businesses to grow, expand
● setting the goal after the change
● defining the change to the organization
● Finding key influencers
● Adjusting or setting new performance objectives
b. Among these changes, think of a change that was successfully implemented. What are
some key reasons that contributed to the success?
A. An example would be when we had to implement a new appraisal system. Changing from
the previous method to the new required showing the subordinates the merits of it. After
understanding their grievances and getting them cleared, it was easy to implement the
change.

c. Now, think of a change you struggled most with. What are some factors that led to
such an experience? 
A. Well, in my opinion, challenges are subjective. What doesn’t kill us makes us feel alive,
therefore a change that couldn’t be implemented appropriately would be the introduction of
new training programs for the employees to increase engagement. The training programs
were conducted without taking into consideration the skill requirement needed to overtake the
challenges.

Q3. What are some major changes HRM as a profession is faced with? What skills will
help us (future HR professionals) to prepare for such changes?
A3. I believe the power to include and influence people, and then, convince them is
extremely important. You need to change your outlook and understand their dilemma to see
the bigger picture. The last example is a good manifestation of that. 

4. In the last two years, organizations have become more sensitive and concerned about
employee well-being and mental health. What steps, if any, have your organization
taken in this direction? 
A4. While shifting from offline to online, there was a time when we were asked to lay off a
few employees as there was an economic crunch, this news somehow got out. This led to
disturbance in employees’ mental health. We started conducting one-to-one sessions wherein
employees could discuss their issues and our team could work on resolving them.

5. How is your company dealing with the difficulties of promoting diversity and
inclusion? What policy adjustments have been made?
A5. At the moment, diversity and inclusion are not the prime focus of the company.

6. Measuring employee involvement is both difficult and crucial. So, as an HR

professional, how can you assess such an intervention in the real world?
A6. While implementing change during the initial lockdown, the changes had to be
implemented at a faster rate thus several situations did not go as planned. Implementing work
from home policy initially did not fare as well as the IT industry thus certain changes had to
be made to the policies to cater to the real estate industry.         

7. How do you notify your staff about the change method before heading to the trial or
initiation phase? Could you provide any examples?
A7. When we had to implement change in the feedback and appraisal system, we first
initiated a session wherein structured out all the pros and cons of the system already in place
as well as the one we had in mind that had to be implemented. We took the votes of the key
stakeholders to find out which system was better. After getting a majority, we precisely listed
out all the facts and figures and the repercussions of the change. We also made a transparent
system wherein the employees could get their questions regarding the change answered. I do
consider the feedback of the employees valuable as they are the main assets of any
organization. 

8. What methods do you use to ensure that your development efforts are cost-effective?
A8. The changes take time to implement and show any difference in the organization. After
the change process is complete, the difference occurs in the way of approaching the targets. It
is extremely essential to measure the impact change has on the goals as it quantifies the
success or failure of the change performed.
Thank you so much for your time!