Organizational Development Interventions at ASP Software: HR Reorganization Case Analysis

Organizational Development Interventions at ASP Software

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The paper herein takes a closer look at the case of ASP Software, a leading software company that manufactures software products for Fortune 500 companies, with over 1500 employees working in it. Susan McNulty, who is the vice-president of human resources at ASP Software has been reorganizing the company’s human resources department from a functional- model to a client-centric model. Susan approaches Nathan Miller, the consultant whom she wants to get the team building activity done with for her organization. Now, Nathan proposes the Organizational Development interventions to make the reorganization process of the human resources department seamless. This paper tries to explore all the Organizational Development Interventions that Nathan would suggest to Susan in order to make the Human Resources Department’s reorganizing process unified.

An Overview of ASP Software’s Old and New Model

Old Model

Figure 1

The old model has five mid-level managers and front-line managers below them. The Figure 1 above shows the mid-line managers and their work areas at ASP Software. The front-line managers work under these Managers. 

Proposed New Model

Figure 2

The proposed new model as shown in Figure 2 entails reduced number of mid-level managers and downsizing of front-line managers. According to Susan McNulty, Recruiting is one of the biggest challenges of the organization and that the internal customers or managers of the organization are not happy with the Human Resource services. In order to make the internal clients satisfied, Susan has suggested to reorganize the previous model to the proposed new model, according to which Steven would be designated to a higher position over his other colleagues. As seen from the above figures, Susan McNulty has proposed to down-size the Human Resources department’s staff from five mid-line managers to four and has proposed to promote one of them (Steven) toward the need of the organization. 

Nathan Miller’s Proposition for Organizational Development Interventions

Organizational development is defined as the long-range efforts to improve the problems solving processes of an organization through collaborative and effective management contained in an organizational culture (Das and Bhatt, 2016). Simply put, Organizational Development (OD) is the process by which organizations are improved through the careful planning and implementation of the interventions for the benefit of the organization, its employees as well as its stakeholders (Das and Bhatt, 2016). Organizational Developmental (OD) Interventions are the activities, and events that help an organization to improve their effectiveness and performance (Das and Bhatt, 2016). The OD Interventions are used to address the issues or concerns ranging from knowledge, skills, career development, will, attire, talent retention, to name a few (Seth, 2017). In this case, the OD Interventions are to be done for new skill-development, and talent retention. Also, the interventions can be done at the three levels, namely, Individual, Group and Organization. Once the kind of intervention required is understood, the managers and the team members of the company are driven to achieve the same to get the desired outcomes. In this case, intervention needs to be done at the Individual as well as Group level. 

OD Intervention Process

Nathan would also suggest the process of OD Intervention. The process of Organizational Development intervention includes, Entering and Contracting, in which requirement of OD intervention is accepted. The next step involves making a Diagnosis to establish the root cause of the issue and finding a right OD intervention for its treatment. The step of Designing Intervention helps in designing the approach to address the issue, to sort it out and bringing value to the business.  The next step is Leading or Managing change in which the designed intervention is implemented and lastly, Evaluating and Institutionalizing Interventions takes place. This step involves evaluation of the implemented action and tracking if the approach of the intervention was right. (Seth, 2017). 

Human Resource Processes and Human Resource Management Interventions

Of the different types of OD interventions, namely, Strategic, Techno-structural, Human Processes and Human Resources Management (Das and Bhatt, 2016), the type of intervention that should be used to bring about changes at ASP should be: Human Resource Processes and Human Resource Management. The Human Resource process entails incorporating human related activities such as Job Analysis and Team building activities (Seth, 2917). The Human Resource Management related activities that Nathan should suggest Susan can be: Reward and Recognition, Appraisal and Career Development (Seth, 2017).  

CEO Endorsement

Nathan should obtain endorsement from the CEO of the ASP Software also. As Susan reports to her CEO, it becomes a major duty of both Susan and Nathan to keep the CEO of ASP Software in the loop. 

Obstacles anticipated in the implementation of the Organizational Interventions

Employee Pushback and Concerns About Steven’s Promotion

Since, Nathan is new to the organization and is proposing Organizational changes in both the structure and functioning of the human resources, a push back from the employees is quite obvious. Especially, when one of the employees (Steven) is going to get promoted and rest of them remain at the same level, the push back from the other people of the same cadre would be there. Secondly, the promotion of one of the mid-line managers (Steven) from the group of managers without any substantial proof of the effectiveness of their work is a biased act that needs to be ruled out. To make things easy and settled, a meeting with the entire group of mid-line managers should be there to seek their opinion on the issue of internal staff dissatisfaction and then they should be counseled about the decision of the management.

Staff Reduction and Downsizing

Another obstacle is the staff reduction or down-sizing which would create a worrisome atmosphere in the company, especially among the first-line managers. Such an obstacle can be overcome by letting the staff know about the future plans of the company and about the competitiveness of the staff in their performances to remain as a part of ASP Software. They must be made aware of their new roles and responsibilities and that they would be given a chance to prove their mettle for further promotion in the new roles.

New Roles, Responsibilities, and Training

The obstacle of fitting into new roles and responsibilities by the members would be another challenge faced by the management. In order to combat such a situation, trainings like team building exercises and quality trainings should be conducted to make things easy and fruitful. An Out-Bound Training can be a good option for the team for them to recuperate as well as understand the objectives of the company and getting them acquainted with their new roles and responsibilities. 

Conclusion

Concludingly, Organizational Development Interventions are the interventions required to make the organizations effective and progressive. The case of ASP Software required OD Interventions at the individual as well as group level. The process of OD Intervention needed to be followed that included accepting the requirement of OD Intervention, diagnosing the problem, designing the intervention, leading and managing change and lastly, evaluating and institutionalizing interventions. At ASP, the type of OD Interventions suggested are Human Process and Human Resource Management interventions. These include various activities for the betterment of the organization, its employees as well as its stakeholders. Lastly, the paper discussed the obstacles of bringing out change in the Organizational Development Interventions that included Susan McNulty’s biased approach toward Steven, allocating human resources with new roles and responsibilities and the expected push back approach of the mid and first-line managers. To remove such obstructions, efforts must be done toward clearing the air of worry among the employees, skill building and conducting trainings like team building and out-bound trainings that would not only be beneficial for the employees but also toward acquiring knowledge and skills for the betterment of the organization.

References

Anderson, D.L. (2020) Organization Development. Sage Publishing. 5th Ed. p 364-369.

Das, S. and Bhatt, D. (2016) Strategic Organizational Development Interventions: A Case of 

Microsoft Corp. Limited. International Journal of Current Research. Available at

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315807471_STRATEGIC_ORGANIZATIONAL_DEVELOPMENT_INTERVENTIONS_A_CASE_OF_MICROSOFT_CORP_LIMITED

Seth, S. (2017) Organizational Development (OD) Interventions. LinkedIn. Available at

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/organizational-development-od-interventions-satyendra-seth/