Mark Worrall, CEO of business improvement specialists BBI Services, discusses why organisational development is key to delivering a business’ strategic vision.

Construction is one of the biggest sectors contributing to the UK economy. With 2.2 million people working within the sector¹ and a predicted total revenue of £93.4 billion this year alone², it is vital for driving economic growth and employment nationwide.

Over the last two years, the industry has been put under unprecedented strain, and it looks like there’s no sign of this easing. As companies start to overcome the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are now faced with a raft of other issues, not least tackling the government’s net zero targets and dealing with continuing supply chain disruption.

Organisational development is key to aligning a company’s strategy, goals and core purpose to ensure everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet – and then enhancing the way they operate.

At BBI Services, we have worked with a number of key players over the years in the built environment to harness the power of people, processes and performance, and align their organisations while making their operations as efficient as possible.

Here’s how.

Clearly communicating your strategy and engaging everyone

It can be difficult to understand the best way to implement organisational development within your business, particularly when it relies on disseminating information to hundreds of employees.

Translating the business strategy into a set of clear principles and actionable plans, which explain how this impacts each individual, is an incredibly effective way to drive change throughout the organisation.

The ultimate goal is making sure everyone, at any level, understands the company’s objectives, future ambitions and how their role adds value and feeds into the wider strategy.

Creating the conditions for success is just as important as giving direction. Therefore, it is key to make sure the team feel they have made a significant contribution to defining what the organisation’s goals are, linking this to their area of responsibility and how they can achieve this. It’s also vital to outline what help they require to successfully deliver and exceed expectations.

Remember, initiating change to achieve business success doesn’t happen overnight. It needs an orchestrated and systematic approach over a sustained period.

As I said above, people are key to ensuring things run more smoothly and efficiently so the organisation can successfully achieve its ambitions.

To drive excellence within an organisation, every part of the workforce must be engaged and shown how doing things differently will benefit them. Leaders must play the fundamental role of making this happen.

Putting performance in the spotlight

Streamlining every aspect of an organisation is imperative for delivering the business’ strategic vision – and this is where organisational development comes in, alongside a good dose of process optimisation. A key element is establishing a performance-led business operating system across the whole company to deliver and drive value to customers.

People are at the heart of any organisational change. Creating a safe environment where every team member feels comfortable with the uncomfortable and is able to challenge the norm and existing status quo is essential.

Key performance indicators across the organisation must feed into the wider business strategy, and regular performance reviews should take place to ensure projects and people stay on track. This means establishing routines each day, week and month.

All reviews must be aligned with the appropriate performance dialogue and team dynamics to challenge, improve and celebrate performance.

Improvement plans also need to have clear milestones and targets, where responsibilities are aligned and defined to achieve right first time, every time.

The role of leadership

One of the most difficult parts of being a leader is driving change in a way that ensures core values successfully filter down through each level of the business.

Leadership development programmes are an essential way to equip senior leaders and executives with the skills to deliver a transformational shift in this new era of high-level change.

At BBI Services, we have developed a new innovative leadership series designed to embed sustainable behaviour change across an organisation.

By using a unique cohesive approach, we will work with leaders and senior executives to capitalise on their strengths and enhance their development areas, as well as inspire and share a strategic vision to create the conditions for success.

Through supported and coached enhancement plans, we can help to tease out the best of any organisation’s existing talent pools to get real and lasting results.