Organizational Health: History
View Latest Version
Please note this is an old version of this entry, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Contributor:
Muath Jaafari
,
Abad Alzuman
,
Zaiba Ali
,
Ansarullah Tantry
,
Rahila Ali

Organizations are perceived as having a unique identity by their employees, and this new identity has the potential to influence employee behavior. According to the concept of organizational health, employees are dedicated to their organizations, their roles are defined and valuable, and they experience exceptional performance and a sense of belonging to their work. To build a healthy society, health organizations must be established that are defined by continuity, survival in their environment, adaptation, and upgrading and growing their adaptive potential.

  • organizational health
  • awareness
  • appreciation
  • relations
  • employee engagement
  • organizational culture

1. Meaning of Organizational Health

Organizational health is a term that exists in the literature to describe the aspects of the working environment related to the employee’s health. Miller et al., 1999 [1] used organizational health to describe occupational stress, while (Cotton and Hart, 2003) [2] interpreted it more as the well-being of the employee in a working environment. On the other hand (Lencioni, 2012) [3], defined OH as a state of convergence between management, operation, strategy and culture in an organization. Nowadays, organizations are paying attention to the health of the organization, as in a healthy organization, culture, climate, and continuous improvement contribute to developing an environment that can support both organizational efficacy and the well-being of employees.

2. The History of Organizational Health Measurement

The idea of organizational health initially appeared in the literature more than 40 years ago. Warren Bennis, 1962) [4] was one of the first theorists to establish organizational health as a method of determining organizational performance, presenting the three characteristics of organizational health as flexibility, clarity of identity, and ability to comprehend the world. The concept of organizational health is a mixture of ideas from (Parsons, 1967) [5], Miles (1969) [6], and (Etzioni, 1990) [7]. Miles identified ten characteristics of healthy organizations in 1969. Among these traits are goal focus, communication adequacy, optimal power equalization, resource utilization, cohesion, morale, innovativeness, autonomy, adaptation, and problem-solving adequacy. He categorized these traits as three requirements that organizations must meet: task, maintenance, and growth. According to Parsons, in order for organizations to survive and succeed, they must handle four fundamental problems: adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency. These four functions were narrowed by Etzioni to (adaptation and goal attainment) and (integration and latency). (Teresa, et al., 2005) [8].
To examine and assess the health of an organization, there have to be some recent tools and inventories to evaluate the growth and productivity of the organization and its employees.

3. Organizational Health Index

A main indicator of an organization’s capacity to deliver consistent performance is the Organizational Health Index score. Based on our unique organizational effectiveness results and management practices, it assesses the health of the organization. McKinsey has been tracking the health of over 1500 organizations in 100 countries for 10 years, combining employee and manager perspectives on actions taken to improve organizational health, and has discovered that these activities correlate with improved financial performance [9]. The Organizational Health Index, also known as corporate culture, employee consciousness, and corporate style, is an essential wheel for enhancing performance and achieving inventiveness in a firm, whereas (Keller and Price 2011) [10], examined organizational health in five respects to help organizations achieve their ultimate competitive advantage: aspiring, assessing, architecting, acting, and progressing. They are tied to organizational health imperatives.
According to the OHI theory given in [11], there are three clusters of organizational health: internal alignment, quality of execution, and capacity for renewal. The aforementioned clusters were utilized to partition the OHI dimensions into a total of 9 items and 37 practice indicators. The researchers conducted an evaluation of Telkom’s (company) Customer Facing Unit and its transformation implementation success, utilizing both the Organizational Health Index and the Organizational Agility Maturity Model. Based on their findings, the researchers developed recommendations aimed at enhancing the company’s overall health and agility.
In 2017, Hitachi Construction Machinery developed the Organizational Health Workstream, which is a cross-departmental function focused on the Human Resources Department. Its primary objective is to plan, formulate, and implement measures aimed at enhancing the Organizational Health Index.
To support the above facts, there are some researchers’ verdicts on relationships with organizational health.

4. Relationship between Crucial Dimensions of Organizations with Organizational Health

Many elements, whether healthy or unhealthy, have a direct impact on organizational health. As a result, healthy and unhealthy organizational variables are crucial for determining whether the organization is healthy or not.

4.1. Relationship between Awareness and Organizational Health

The authors of [12] defined organizational health in terms of characteristics and specifications such as communications, perception of organizational strategies and politics, competence of employees, manpower ability, management skills, employees’ morale, the workplace, employees’ awareness of the organization’s mission, cooperation, demographic characteristics of manpower and education, and professional improvement and development, which will influence employees’ behavior. Farahani et al., 2014) [13] on the other hand and [14] defined it as a structure that enables strategic leaders to seek to redefine basic competition and distinctive superiority as a result of discussions, as well as how to identify alternative strategies against competitors’ strategies and trying to understand issues such as how to benefit from and think about them. As a result of the importance of strategic awareness and its effective role in achieving the goals of the organization, it must be measured. In highlighting the significance, [15] stated that employees who are proficient in organizational awareness are able to get things done easily in the organization, recognize most of what is happening in the organization, rarely make mistakes due to misunderstanding the organizational structure, and act appropriately within the organization.

4.2. Relationship between Appreciation and Organizational Health

For a dynamic and energetic workforce, maintaining strong employee morale is a main objective. Employees feel valued and acknowledged for their minor or large accomplishments when they receive praise on an individual level. In [16], it is stated that appreciation is significant in organizations because it strengthens positive relationships, social support, and workers’ well-being, decreases negative emotions at work, and improves organizational health and success. According to [17], there is an increase in personal wellness. When managers express gratitude and appreciation to employees, they establish strong interpersonal relationships, which boost team dynamics and communication.

4.3. Relationship between Relations and Organizational Health

According to [18], survey 82 percent of workers would quit a job because of an unpleasant manager therefore strong manager-employee relationships can also aid in the reduction of staff absenteeism and turnover, and even (Suknunan et al., 2022) [19] concluded in their research that employee work performance and productivity can be viewed as influencing organizational performance. The working connection between employees and their managers is one of the aspects that determine employee job performance and productivity. The key findings revealed that the interaction between managers and employees has an impact on employee performance and productivity. A positive relationship with a manager is associated with higher motivation and performance, whereas a negative relationship is associated with lower performance. One study [20] study reported a multivariate analysis of the relationship between negative workplace interpersonal interactions between workers themselves, and that these experiences have consequences for worker experiences with burnout and dissatisfaction, as well as contribute to intentions to leave the workplace. Negative interpersonal relationships between workers are especially prominent across all occupational outcomes studied.

4.4. Relationship between Internal Communication and Organizational Health

Internal communication humanizes company relations, makes employees more conscious of their job, distinguishes their knowledge of a certain subject, integrates them better into the workplace, and helps them achieve company goals. As concluded by [21], internal communication binds the entire organization together and allows employees of various departments to work cooperatively to meet the organizational agenda. This research shows that employee/internal communication management is linked to employee engagement, which improves supportive employee communication and minimizes turnover intention. On the other hand, the findings of (Kang, et al., 2017) [22] suggested that employee–organization interactions greatly affect the effects of symmetrical internal communication on employee engagement. The survey in [23] also revealed that poor and insufficiently used communication mechanisms and a lack of participation by all employees in decision-making at times hinder employee performance inside the organization, which affects the health of the organization.
Thais Gandica et al. [24] concluded from their study that internal communications, particularly during crises, play a crucial role in employee relations, brand image, and overall organizational effectiveness. This research used primary and secondary research on three distinct organization sizes to investigate the communication techniques and practices that organizations needed to maintain high-functioning operations. The study’s results showed that the three organizations did not stop trying to improve internal communication. Instead, they made big changes to make sure that the organizations worked at their best.

4.5. Relationship between Engagement and Organizational Health

The SET model, which presupposes that an employee and their employer (or leader) engage in a social exchange relationship with one another, can be used to explain the relationship between perceived organizational health climate, leader health mindset, work engagement, and job crafting. Employees are more likely to act in a way that is beneficial to the organization if they feel they have a good relationship with it (Zweber, Z.M et al., 2016) [25]. Employees generally exhibit more positive work attitudes when they believe that their businesses and leaders care about their health and take steps to improve it (i.e., work engagement).
In [26], it is concluded that work engagement is a critical intermediary step in this model that maintains the link between job resources and work behavior. Thus, giving employees useful workplace resources boosts their personal resources and work engagement. When people believe their firm cares about their well-being (e.g., job crafting), employees will behave well at work.
There are other factors that can assist in evaluating the health of the organization and analyzing its performance.

5. Organizational Culture

According to (Edgar Schein, 2010) [27], organizations do not establish a culture in a single day; rather, it develops through time as personnel undergo numerous changes, adjust to the external environment, and solve challenges. The Competing Values Framework was developed first from research undertaken by University of Michigan faculty members on the primary markers of effective organizational performance in order to understand the culture of the organization. The CVF framework [28] outlines four contrasting organizational cultures and their associated leadership styles that may dominate in specific settings: controlling (hierarchy), competing (market), creative (adhocracy), and collaborative (clan). It has been discovered to be an extremely useful model for organizing and understanding a wide range of organizational and individual phenomena, including theories of organizational effectiveness, leadership competencies, organizational culture, organizational design, life cycle development stages, organizational quality, leadership roles, financial strategy, information processing, and brain functioning.
Observing the importance of the above factors in the overall development and well-being of an organization and its employees, the OHBI is designed to measure the health of an organization to promote sustainable development through healthy organization.

6. Employee Persona

According to (How Understanding Employee Persona Can Help Employers, 2020) [29], a detailed portrayal of a group of employees is called an employee persona. Organizations can develop employee personas by looking at traits, experiences, and behaviors to have a better understanding of the type of employee population or even who they want them to be. When it comes to efforts to retain employees and recruit new ones, employee personas are very effective. Employee personas give the tools any company needs to engage, connect, and interact with the workforce more effectively and create a better working environment.

7. Employee Voice

It is required to pay attention to the voice of employees for the purpose of improving the operation of an organization by incorporating the ideas made by the employees into the system.
Since the 1980s, the concept of employee voice has been in prominence in the domains of employment relations, human resource management, and organizational behavior [30]. Second, employment relations and human resource management literature defined the voice as a broad range of formal mechanisms for individual and collective employee input, such as grievance methods, suggestion mechanisms, services, employee-management meetings, non-management task forces, quality networks, work councils, and participative management [31].

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su151813650

References

  1. Miller, R.L.; Griffin, M.A.; Hart, P.M. Personality and organizational health: The role of conscientiousness. Work Stress 1999, 13, 7–19.
  2. Cotton, P.; Hart, P.M. Occupational wellbeing and performance: A review of organisational health research. Aust. Psychol. 2003, 38, 118–127.
  3. Lencioni, P.M. The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business; John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2012.
  4. Bennis, W.G. Towards a “Truly” scientific management: The Concept of organization Health. Ind. Manag. Rev. 1962, 4, 1.
  5. Talcott, P. Some ingredients of a general theory of formal organization. In Administrative Theory in Education; The Macmillan Company: New York, NY, USA, 1967; pp. 40–72.
  6. Miles, M.B. Planned Change and Organizational Health: Figure and Ground. In Organizations and Human Behavior: Focus on Schools; Carver, F.D., Sergiovanni, T.J., Eds.; McGraw-Hill: New York, NY, USA, 1969; pp. 375–391.
  7. Etzioni, A. Modern Organizations; Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1990.
  8. Teresa, R.; Robinson, A.; Vincent, A.; Anfara, J.R.; Christopher, L.; Henderson, A.E.; Buehler, W.L.; Stein, J.; Victoria, D. Principal Leadership for Equity and Excellence: A Case Study of an Inclusive Exemplary School. 2000. Available online: https://www.proquest.com/openview/cff32cb82797a7350a0431f69f541017/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y (accessed on 14 April 2023).
  9. Gagnon, C.; John, E.; Theunissen, R. Organizational health: A fast track to performance improvement. In McKinsey Quarterly; McKinsey & Company: Singapore, 2017; Volume 7.
  10. Keller, S.; Price, C. Organizational Health: The Ultimate Competitive Advantage. In McKinsey Quarterly; McKinsey & Company: Singapore, 2011; Volume 2, pp. 94–107.
  11. Harjanti, S.S.; Gustomo, A. Organizational health index and organizational agility maturity criteria as measurement tools of organizational transformation effectiveness. J. Manaj. Teknol. 2017, 16, 2017.
  12. GH, D.; M, E. The perception of teachers about organizational health in boy public schools of educational districts 3 and 12 in Tehran. J. New Approaches Educ. Adm. 2015, 6, 111–126.
  13. Farmahini, F.M.; Mirzamohamadi, M.H.; Afsouran, N.R.; Mohammadi, S.S. The study of the relationship of organizational health of the schools and that of the student’s’ academic achievement (A Case Study of High schools of Kohkilouie and Boierahmad Province, Iran 2011). Procedia-Soc. Behav. Sci. 2014, 109, 628–633.
  14. Alabdaly, D.; Almayali, E. The Impact of Strategic Awareness on Organizational Readiness: An Analytic Research of the Opinions of the Sample of Top Leaderships in Private Colleges in the Provinces of the Al-Furat Al-Awsat in Iraq. Webology 2021, 18, 487–508.
  15. Usman, U.M.Z.; Musa, M.A. The influence of organizational knowledge sharing on employee motivation. In 2012 International Conference on Information Retrieval & Knowledge Management, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 13–15 March 2012; IEEE: Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2012; pp. 87–90.
  16. Annamaria, D.F.; Palazzeschi, L.; Bucci, O. Gratitude in organizations: A contribution for healthy organizational contexts. Front. Psychol. 2017, 8, 2025.
  17. Rushing, K. Workplace Appreciation and Its Link to Organizational Health-Blue Hen. Blue Hen, 5 May 2021. Available online: https://bluehenagency.com/workplace-appreciation-and-its-link-to-organizational-health/ (accessed on 23 March 2023).
  18. GoodHire. Horrible Bosses: A Survey of the American Workforce|GoodHire. n.d. Available online: https://www.goodhire.com/resources/articles/horrible-bosses-survey/ (accessed on 23 March 2023).
  19. Suknunan, S.; Bhana, A. Influence of employee-manager relationship on employee performance and productivity. Probl. Perspect. Manag. 2022, 20, 28–42.
  20. Shier, M.L.; John, R.; Graham, D.N. Interpersonal interactions, workplace violence, occupational health outcomes among social workers. J. Soc. Work. 2018, 18, 525–547.
  21. Faquir, I.; Habib, L. Impact of internal communication in organizational development. Int. J. Trend Res. Dev. 2016, 3, 2394–9333.
  22. Kang, M.; Sung, M. How symmetrical employee communication leads to employee engagement and positive employee communication behaviors: The mediation of employee-organization relationships. J. Commun. Manag. 2017, 21, 82–102.
  23. Franklin, T. The impact of internal communication on employee performance in an organization. SSRN Electron. J. 2013, 81.
  24. Gandica, T.; Talwar, M.; Thungon, S.W.; Pyrtuh, E.K.; Kumah, E. Internal Communications in The Time of A Global Pandemic. Master’s Thesis, School of Professional Studies, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA, 2021.
  25. Zweber, Z.M.; Henning, R.A.; Magley, V.J. A practical scale for Multi-Faceted Organizational Health Climate Assessment. J. Occup. Health Psychol. 2016, 21, 250.
  26. Shin, Y.; Hur, M. Do Organizational Health Climates and Leader Health Mindsets Enhance Employees’ Work Engagement and Job Crafting Amid the Pandemic? Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 12123.
  27. Schein, E.H. Organizational Culture and Leadership; John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2010; Volume 2.
  28. Cameron, K.S.; Quinn, R.E. Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework; Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA, USA, 2011.
  29. Nurture an Engaged and Satisfied Workforce|Vantage Circle HR Blog. How Understanding Employee Persona Can Help Employers. 26 June 2020. Available online: https://blog.vantagecircle.com/employee-persona/ (accessed on 4 April 2023).
  30. Wilkinson, A.; Gollan, P.J.; Kalfa, S.; Xu, Y. Voices unheard: Employee voice in the new century. Int. J. Hum. Resour. Manag. 2018, 29, 711–724.
  31. Morrison, E.W. Employee voice behavior: Integration and directions for future research. Acad. Manag. Ann. 2011, 5, 373–412.
More
© Text is available under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
This entry is offline, you can click here to edit this entry!
Video Production Service
Feedback