Organisational Health Assessment
How "healthy" is your organisation as a place to work?
- Are any measures used to check the organisational health, such as staff turnover, absenteeism?
- Have the management considered a specific stress survey or stress audit to check?
- What benefits could there be to identify where there might be some potential trouble spots in terms of Organisational Health?
- An effective stress survey can allow management to identify specific area to address to improve the Organisational Health, which will improve the overall workplace, morale and output.
The Organisational Health Profile™
This is a useful starting point for exploring ways of enabling the organisation to be a "healthy" place to work and can help to deliver results to the bottom line. Carrying out some form of stress survey or stress audit does provide a clear picture of where you are. There are an increasing range of these stress assessment tools available, many linking to the HSE guidelines.We have developed a new tool called The Organisational Health Profile™. It is an on-line instrument which can be used right across the organisation or with specific departments or groups as a comprehensive stress survey. The participants complete 60 questions, anonymously, assessing the organisation in 4 main aspects. (See here for a sample from a report.)
Work itself:
This covers what it is like to work within the organisation. What is the day to day workplace like? Is the physical work environment helpful to people doing their jobs well? Are their job roles clearly defined? Are they given the scope to actually get on and do their jobs? Are the systems and processes within the organisation helpful?
External environment:
The elements here are quite varied, and all have an impact on how people might feel about their work and the organisation. Realities of the immediate environment of the workplace, getting to and from work, and how it might impact on people’s lives have a bearing on how they feel. What are the pressures being brought by customers and competitors, and how the organisation is reacting to them? On a similar theme, what pressures come from other stakeholders?
Culture:
Here you are getting information about the underpinning “rules” and processes which are in place. Are the organisation’s values clearly stated and followed in day to day behaviours? How clear, and effective, is the communication within the organisation? Are people’s ideas sought, are they listened to? How is change managed and implemented?
Management style:
What is the overall management style? What are the behaviours which are used on a regular basis and what impact do they have? Do managers pay attention to developing others and consider people as a resource to grow? What is the leadership style which appears to be used?
The report provides you with a wealth of information about how people really think about your organisation and what it is like to work there. It will show you where they are happy with things, and where there is room for improvement. As a stress survey or stress audit, the main report shows you the consolidated data across all those who took part. It also breaks down to show responses right down to individual questions. If you want to have feedback for different levels or functions you can also have specific reports for each of these. See a sample from a full report.