“Organisational development is all about taking a holistic approach to improve the efficiency of a business,” according to James Anderson-Dixon, organisational development manager at Nationwide Building Society.
“There is a great deal of overlap with other HR roles such as employee relations, recruitment, and learning development, but organisational development looks at the whole business rather than just one aspect of it. You have to understand all the factors affecting a situation, not just dealing with them in isolation.”
Anderson-Dixon has an MSc in neuro-linguistic programming and organisational development, and says that “specific qualifications are not essential, although many organisational development managers are typically CIPD graduates”, and that there is scope to do job specific qualifications such as a masters degree in occupational psychology.
“However, being focused, flexible, expedient and approachable are vital for the role,” he says. “Having an ability to understand the difference between the content of ‘what’ someone thinks versus the structure of ‘how’ they think is the clincher for me.
“Every day brings a rich mix of challenges and opportunities. My role is broad and involves designing methodologies to improve personal wellness management – which contributes to organisational wellness. In layman’s terms, this means designing and implementing interventions to help both the employees and our supply network as a whole raise their game to perform more efficiently and effectively – and, most importantly, to sustain this efficiency.”
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Salary expectations for this role: £ 30,000 to £65,000
Information provided by Hays Human Resources
