There’s more to organizational health than just fluffy descriptions and aspirational sayings plastered in a company email. In our previous blog, we talked about the importance of employees understanding what the concept means, buying into it, and leaving a positive impact. What’s more, assessing your organization’s health can help identify pain points and encourage improvement in processes, team structure and business operations.
An article from the University of Phoenix, says the most effective way to measure organizational health is through leadership, accountability, direction, coordination, motivation and values.
Leaders have the responsibility of being role models to not only their teams but all company employees. They’re in a strategic position to see how everyone is feeding into company goals and mission. As the article notes, “this can create a coherent company culture that motivates every employee to succeed.”
Accountability, direction, and coordination tie into one another
To start, accountability asks for transparency from leadership as well as employees. This helps establish expectations, clarity of goals and efficiency of communication. While employees may understand what the company goals are, if they don’t have clear direction on how to achieve them, it can lead to confusion, low morale, and negatively impact productivity. “Good direction sets up employees to work independently toward their objectives,” states the article – this comes from setting up clear processes, policies, and organizational structure. While accountability and direction are placed in the hands of leaders, coordination defines how teams interact and collaborate with one another. Staying in unison helps employees better understand how their roles, responsibilities, and work distribution feed into the entire team.
Motivation also plays a big role in how employees approach their work. If leaders understand and discuss what motivates their teams, they will be able to create more opportunities for efficiency, collaboration, and career development. Finding a link between professional values and personal ones further encourages motivation. It offers a sense of purpose. Employees look to leaders first and foremost to model company values and seeing them in action prompts others to follow suit.
Building a Culture of Trust
In a 2018 LinkedIn article, Shoham Adizes, president of consulting firm Adizes Institute, firmly states that culture is the ultimate marker of organizational health. And that sentiment rings true even in 2023. Adizes found that “good culture” is defined by the speed in which problems are identified and solved. “To measure the health of your organization you can start by taking an inventory of your organizations problems,” he says, suggesting companies get input from employees at all levels. After making a tally of all problems, companies then need to identify how many years the issues have been around, and if it continues operating without solving these problems, what are the potential risks. The answer to these questions Adizes says will give businesses a baseline for how their business is doing. Too often, as Adizes suggests, organizations use financial measures as indicators of organizational health. Unfortunately, finances are lagging indicators and report on the past. It can be too late before an organization realizes what’s really happening with employees.
At Glass of Learning, we too believe that organizational health comes down to a culture of trust. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer – a survey of 33,000 people in 28 countries – one in three people don’t trust their employers. Our multi session program helps companies develop this quality, function effectively and successfully adapt to change. It also supports improved and empowered team performance that will help drive the company forward.
In our next blog, we explore ways to improve your organization’s health, and offer tips for best practices.
