EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT NOTES
What is Organizational Planning?
Organizational planning is the process of defining a company‘s reason for existing, setting goals aimed at realizing
full potential, and creating increasingly discrete tasks to meet those goals.
Each phase of planning is a subset of the prior, with strategic planning being the foremost
There are four phases of a proper organizational plan: strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency. Each phase of
planning is a subset of the prior, with strategic planning being the foremost.
Types of Organizational Planning
Forms of Planning
Strategic
A strategic plan is the company‘s big picture. It defines the company‘s goals for a set period of time, whether that‘s
one year or ten, and ensures that those goals align with the company‘s mission, vision, and values. Strategic planning
usually involves top managers, although some smaller companies choose to bring all of their employees along when
defining their mission, vision, and values.
Tactical
The tactical strategy describes how a company will implement its strategic plan. A tactical plan is composed of
several short-term goals, typically carried out within one year, that support the strategic plan. Generally, it‘s the
responsibility of middle managers to set and oversee tactical strategies, like planning and executing a marketing
campaign.
Operational
Operational plans encompass what needs to happen continually, on a day-to-day basis, in order to execute tactical
plans. Operational plans could include work schedules, policies, rules, or regulations that set standards for employees,
as well as specific task assignments that relate to goals within the tactical strategy, such as a protocol for
documenting and addressing work absences.
Contingency
Contingency plans wait in the wings in case of a crisis or unforeseen event. Contingency plans cover a range of
possible scenarios and appropriate responses for issues varying from personnel planning to advanced preparation for
outside occurrences that could negatively impact the business. Companies may have contingency plans for things like
how to respond to a natural disaster, malfunctioning software, or the sudden departure of a C-level executive.
The 5 Process Steps of Organizational Planning
The organizational planning process includes five phases that, ideally, form a cycle.
Operational Process
Strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency planning fall within these five stages.
1. Develop the strategic plan
Steps in this initial stage include:
Review your mission, vision, and values
Gather data about your company, like performance-indicating metrics from your sales department
Perform a SWOT analysis; take stock of your company‘s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
Set big picture goals that take your mission, vision, values, data, and SWOT analysis into account
2. Translate the strategic plan into tactical steps
At this point, it‘s time to create tactical plans. Bring in middle managers to help do the following:
Define short-term goals—quarterly goals are common—that support the strategic plan for each department, such as
setting a quota for the sales team so the company can meet its strategic revenue goal
Develop processes for reviewing goal achievement to make sure strategic and tactical goals are being met, like
running a CRM report every quarter and submitting it to the Chief Revenue Officer to check that the sales department
is hitting its quota
Develop contingency plans, like what to do in case the sales team‘s CRM malfunctions or there‘s a data breach
3. Plan daily operations
Employee Performance Management Notes Prepared by Mr Antony Ambia Page 1
,Operational plans, or the processes that determine how individual employees spend their day, are largely the
responsibility of middle managers and the employees that report to them. For example, the process that a sales rep
follows to find, nurture, and convert a lead into a customer is an operational plan. Work schedules, customer service
workflows, or GDPR policies that protect prospective customers‘ information all aid a sales department in reaching
its tactical goal—in this case, a sales quota—so they fall under the umbrella of operational plans.
This stage should include setting goals and targets that individual employees should hit during a set period.
Managers may choose to set some plans, such as work schedules, themselves. On the other hand, individual tasks that
make up a sales plan may require the input of the entire team. This stage should also include setting goals and targets
that individual employees should hit during a set period.
4. Execute the plans
It‘s time to put plans into action. Theoretically, activities carried out on a day-to-day basis (defined by the operational
plan) should help reach tactical goals, which in turn supports the overall strategic plan.
5. Monitor progress and adjust plans
No plan is complete without periods of reflection and adjustment. At the end of each quarter or the short-term goal
period, middle managers should review whether or not they hit the benchmarks established in step two, then submit
data-backed reports to C-level executives. For example, this is when the manager of the sales department would run a
report analyzing whether or not a new process for managing the sales pipeline helped the team reach its quota. A
marketing team, on the other hand, might analyze whether or not their efforts to optimize advertising and landing
pages succeeded in generating a certain number of leads for the sales department.
Depending on the outcome of those reviews, your org may wish to adjust parts of its strategic, tactical, or operational
plans. For example, if the sales team didn‘t meet their quota their manager may decide to make changes to their sales
pipeline operational plan.
Organizational Planning Examples
These templates and examples can help you start thinking about how to format your organizational plan.
Strategic
Strategic Organizational Plans
This is a single page two-year strategic plan for a fictional corporation. Notice that the goals listed in the ―Strategic
Objectives and Organization Goals‖ section follow the SMART goals model: They‘re specific, measurable,
actionable, relevant, and time-based.
Workforce Planning
Companies need to use workforce planning to analyze, forecast, and plan for the future of their personnel. Workforce
planning helps identify skill gaps, inefficiencies, opportunities for employee growth, and to prepare for future staffing
needs.
What is organizational development?
Organizational development (OD), also referred to as organization development, is a strategic approach to improving
an organization‘s effectiveness, adaptability, and overall health. It‘s a critical and science-based process that builds
organizations‘ capacity to change and achieve greater success by developing, improving, and reinforcing strategies,
structures, and processes.
OD involves planned interventions and initiatives designed to support growth, innovation, and cultural
transformation, often through employee engagement, leadership development, and process improvement.
Here‘s a closer look at the main elements of this definition (adapted from Cummings & Worley, 2009 research):
Critical and science-based process: OD is an evidence-based and structured process. It‘s not a quick fix or
an experiment of trying something out to see what happens. OD uses scientific findings as input and creates
a structured and controlled process in which assumptions are tested. Then it examines whether the outcomes
reflect the intention of the intervention.
Building capacity to change and achieve greater effectiveness: Organizational development is aimed
at organizational effectiveness. Therefore, it has a number of (business) outcomes. These can differ between
organizations, but they usually include financial performance, customer satisfaction, organizational member
Employee Performance Management Notes Prepared by Mr Antony Ambia Page 2
, engagement, and an increased capacity to adapt and renew the organization. These are not always clear-cut,
yet, however they are defined, they are about building a competitive advantage. We will explore these
outcomes later in this article.
Developing, improving, and reinforcing strategies, structures, and processes: Organizational
development involves changes in strategy, structure, and/or processes focusing on an entire organizational
system. It can be applied to the whole organization, one or more locations, or a single department.
In organizational development, the company‘s main stakeholders are both internal and external. Management and
employees are internal stakeholders. External stakeholders include customers, investors, suppliers, communities, and
governments.
Organizational design has become a trusted and needed practice in today‘s business climate that is characterized by
Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA). This plays out in many ways, including the following:
Globalization is leading to a much greater interconnectedness and opening up organizations to worldwide
opportunities and threats.
IT is redefining traditional business models, creating innovative companies with the ability to scale their
services to a worldwide audience in only a few years. For instance, Facebook reached one million users
within a year of its launch, and Snapchat garnered 10 million active users in its first year. TikTok‘s growth
has been even more remarkable, reaching over 340 million users in the year after launching.
Business systems are becoming better at measuring relevant data, changing the way success is measured.
Advanced people analytics are helping to further drive organizational outcomes.
This VUCA world requires new agility from organizations. Organizational development strategies are the means to
that end.
With change being a constant factor, OD is an integral approach to ensuring stability that differs from the incidental
change process. OD focuses on building the organization‘s ability to assess its current functioning and tweak it to
achieve its goals. It is, therefore, a continuous process, whereas change processes are often temporary.
Goals of organizational development
The goals of organizational development vary between organizations. In corporate companies, increasing profits is
likely to be a chief concern. Within non-profits, cultural values are of high importance. And in health services,
adaptability is key to maintaining good functioning.
If there were one central goal for OD, it would be to increase the organization‘s competitiveness. Competitiveness is
the idea that every organization has unique resources and competencies that help it win in the marketplace.
These resources include:
People: Visionary leaders like Steve Jobs or collaborative teams like those at Google.
Innovative products: Groundbreaking offerings like the iPhone.
Superior service: Companies like Four Seasons Hotels provide exceptional customer experiences.
Robust culture: Employee-focused environments exemplified by Zappos.
Employee Performance Management Notes Prepared by Mr Antony Ambia Page 3
, Agility in market response: The capacity to swiftly adapt to changing market demands, seizing
opportunities to secure revenue growth in the coming years.
OD develops aspects that help a business outperform its competition. The following sub-goals contribute to fulfilling
this ultimate goal of boosted competitiveness:
Improving efficiency and productivity: OD interventions engage employees and help them become more
efficient and productive by addressing inefficiencies and equipping them with the required skills to meet
changing needs.
Enhance organizational adaptability: OD emphasizes the impact that behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and
attitudes have on the organization and how individuals, systems, and processes can encourage a more
adaptable and resilient culture that can better navigate change.
Develop leadership capacity: A key component of OD focuses on talent development. Equipping current
and future leaders with new and necessary capabilities ensures a reliable leadership pipeline.
Improve decision-making processes: Because OD is data-backed, teams can make decisions based on
evidence and not assumptions. It also identifies and addresses communication breakdowns so information
can flow freely to decision-makers.
Organizational development vs. Human Resources
Many OD interventions relate to Human Resource Management functions. Policies such as performance
management, goal setting, appraisal, and talent management practices are all important in achieving effective
organizational development.
However, whereas HRM focuses specifically on people practices, OD takes a more holistic approach. Using tools
like organizational design, work design, and more traditional people interventions, OD can operate at all levels of the
organization. These levels are trans-organizational, organizational, group, and individual. However, the focus is
always on strategic themes, whereas HR is often more operational.
Sometimes, OD functions are located in the HR function, but not always. It may be part of a services department,
corporate strategy, or internal consulting. External strategy consultants also frequently utilize OD techniques in
change management projects.
Both HRM and OD have their roots in the business strategy – the mission, values, and vision of the organization.
Both outline the actions needed to implement that strategy in their respective fields. In addition, many early people
analytics initiatives originate from the OD department.
OD techniques are very powerful. For an HR professional, there are huge benefits to mastering them. The term
―organizational development‖ actually emerged in the 1960s as a way to describe managing the behavioral aspects of
people within organizations.
Understanding OD means you can identify which elements of core HR functions need focus in order to support the
organization as a whole in becoming more efficient. OD provides an integrated way of approaching these challenges.
Check out our Learning Bite to learn everything you need to know about Organizational Development for HR!
Examples of OD interventions
Organizational development is a complex, in-depth process with different types of interventions. Using the work of
Cummings and Worley (2009) as a basis, this section covers 15 organizational development interventions across four
categories:
Human process interventions
Technostructural interventions
HRM interventions
Strategic change interventions.
Although this is not an exhaustive list, it aims to help you grasp this vast topic better and understand how OD relates
to core HR functions.
Human process interventions
Human process interventions are change programs that relate to interpersonal relations, group, and organizational
dynamics. These are some of the earliest and best-known OD interventions.
1. Individual interventions: These interventions are targeted at the individual, often aimed at improving
communication with others. With these, an employee is coached on counterproductive interpersonal behaviors.
2. Group interventions: These interventions are aimed at the content, structure, or process of the group:
The content is what the group is focused on
The structure is how a group is designed to act on the content
The process is how the group carries out its core tasks.
Employee Performance Management Notes Prepared by Mr Antony Ambia Page 4
What is Organizational Planning?
Organizational planning is the process of defining a company‘s reason for existing, setting goals aimed at realizing
full potential, and creating increasingly discrete tasks to meet those goals.
Each phase of planning is a subset of the prior, with strategic planning being the foremost
There are four phases of a proper organizational plan: strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency. Each phase of
planning is a subset of the prior, with strategic planning being the foremost.
Types of Organizational Planning
Forms of Planning
Strategic
A strategic plan is the company‘s big picture. It defines the company‘s goals for a set period of time, whether that‘s
one year or ten, and ensures that those goals align with the company‘s mission, vision, and values. Strategic planning
usually involves top managers, although some smaller companies choose to bring all of their employees along when
defining their mission, vision, and values.
Tactical
The tactical strategy describes how a company will implement its strategic plan. A tactical plan is composed of
several short-term goals, typically carried out within one year, that support the strategic plan. Generally, it‘s the
responsibility of middle managers to set and oversee tactical strategies, like planning and executing a marketing
campaign.
Operational
Operational plans encompass what needs to happen continually, on a day-to-day basis, in order to execute tactical
plans. Operational plans could include work schedules, policies, rules, or regulations that set standards for employees,
as well as specific task assignments that relate to goals within the tactical strategy, such as a protocol for
documenting and addressing work absences.
Contingency
Contingency plans wait in the wings in case of a crisis or unforeseen event. Contingency plans cover a range of
possible scenarios and appropriate responses for issues varying from personnel planning to advanced preparation for
outside occurrences that could negatively impact the business. Companies may have contingency plans for things like
how to respond to a natural disaster, malfunctioning software, or the sudden departure of a C-level executive.
The 5 Process Steps of Organizational Planning
The organizational planning process includes five phases that, ideally, form a cycle.
Operational Process
Strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency planning fall within these five stages.
1. Develop the strategic plan
Steps in this initial stage include:
Review your mission, vision, and values
Gather data about your company, like performance-indicating metrics from your sales department
Perform a SWOT analysis; take stock of your company‘s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
Set big picture goals that take your mission, vision, values, data, and SWOT analysis into account
2. Translate the strategic plan into tactical steps
At this point, it‘s time to create tactical plans. Bring in middle managers to help do the following:
Define short-term goals—quarterly goals are common—that support the strategic plan for each department, such as
setting a quota for the sales team so the company can meet its strategic revenue goal
Develop processes for reviewing goal achievement to make sure strategic and tactical goals are being met, like
running a CRM report every quarter and submitting it to the Chief Revenue Officer to check that the sales department
is hitting its quota
Develop contingency plans, like what to do in case the sales team‘s CRM malfunctions or there‘s a data breach
3. Plan daily operations
Employee Performance Management Notes Prepared by Mr Antony Ambia Page 1
,Operational plans, or the processes that determine how individual employees spend their day, are largely the
responsibility of middle managers and the employees that report to them. For example, the process that a sales rep
follows to find, nurture, and convert a lead into a customer is an operational plan. Work schedules, customer service
workflows, or GDPR policies that protect prospective customers‘ information all aid a sales department in reaching
its tactical goal—in this case, a sales quota—so they fall under the umbrella of operational plans.
This stage should include setting goals and targets that individual employees should hit during a set period.
Managers may choose to set some plans, such as work schedules, themselves. On the other hand, individual tasks that
make up a sales plan may require the input of the entire team. This stage should also include setting goals and targets
that individual employees should hit during a set period.
4. Execute the plans
It‘s time to put plans into action. Theoretically, activities carried out on a day-to-day basis (defined by the operational
plan) should help reach tactical goals, which in turn supports the overall strategic plan.
5. Monitor progress and adjust plans
No plan is complete without periods of reflection and adjustment. At the end of each quarter or the short-term goal
period, middle managers should review whether or not they hit the benchmarks established in step two, then submit
data-backed reports to C-level executives. For example, this is when the manager of the sales department would run a
report analyzing whether or not a new process for managing the sales pipeline helped the team reach its quota. A
marketing team, on the other hand, might analyze whether or not their efforts to optimize advertising and landing
pages succeeded in generating a certain number of leads for the sales department.
Depending on the outcome of those reviews, your org may wish to adjust parts of its strategic, tactical, or operational
plans. For example, if the sales team didn‘t meet their quota their manager may decide to make changes to their sales
pipeline operational plan.
Organizational Planning Examples
These templates and examples can help you start thinking about how to format your organizational plan.
Strategic
Strategic Organizational Plans
This is a single page two-year strategic plan for a fictional corporation. Notice that the goals listed in the ―Strategic
Objectives and Organization Goals‖ section follow the SMART goals model: They‘re specific, measurable,
actionable, relevant, and time-based.
Workforce Planning
Companies need to use workforce planning to analyze, forecast, and plan for the future of their personnel. Workforce
planning helps identify skill gaps, inefficiencies, opportunities for employee growth, and to prepare for future staffing
needs.
What is organizational development?
Organizational development (OD), also referred to as organization development, is a strategic approach to improving
an organization‘s effectiveness, adaptability, and overall health. It‘s a critical and science-based process that builds
organizations‘ capacity to change and achieve greater success by developing, improving, and reinforcing strategies,
structures, and processes.
OD involves planned interventions and initiatives designed to support growth, innovation, and cultural
transformation, often through employee engagement, leadership development, and process improvement.
Here‘s a closer look at the main elements of this definition (adapted from Cummings & Worley, 2009 research):
Critical and science-based process: OD is an evidence-based and structured process. It‘s not a quick fix or
an experiment of trying something out to see what happens. OD uses scientific findings as input and creates
a structured and controlled process in which assumptions are tested. Then it examines whether the outcomes
reflect the intention of the intervention.
Building capacity to change and achieve greater effectiveness: Organizational development is aimed
at organizational effectiveness. Therefore, it has a number of (business) outcomes. These can differ between
organizations, but they usually include financial performance, customer satisfaction, organizational member
Employee Performance Management Notes Prepared by Mr Antony Ambia Page 2
, engagement, and an increased capacity to adapt and renew the organization. These are not always clear-cut,
yet, however they are defined, they are about building a competitive advantage. We will explore these
outcomes later in this article.
Developing, improving, and reinforcing strategies, structures, and processes: Organizational
development involves changes in strategy, structure, and/or processes focusing on an entire organizational
system. It can be applied to the whole organization, one or more locations, or a single department.
In organizational development, the company‘s main stakeholders are both internal and external. Management and
employees are internal stakeholders. External stakeholders include customers, investors, suppliers, communities, and
governments.
Organizational design has become a trusted and needed practice in today‘s business climate that is characterized by
Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA). This plays out in many ways, including the following:
Globalization is leading to a much greater interconnectedness and opening up organizations to worldwide
opportunities and threats.
IT is redefining traditional business models, creating innovative companies with the ability to scale their
services to a worldwide audience in only a few years. For instance, Facebook reached one million users
within a year of its launch, and Snapchat garnered 10 million active users in its first year. TikTok‘s growth
has been even more remarkable, reaching over 340 million users in the year after launching.
Business systems are becoming better at measuring relevant data, changing the way success is measured.
Advanced people analytics are helping to further drive organizational outcomes.
This VUCA world requires new agility from organizations. Organizational development strategies are the means to
that end.
With change being a constant factor, OD is an integral approach to ensuring stability that differs from the incidental
change process. OD focuses on building the organization‘s ability to assess its current functioning and tweak it to
achieve its goals. It is, therefore, a continuous process, whereas change processes are often temporary.
Goals of organizational development
The goals of organizational development vary between organizations. In corporate companies, increasing profits is
likely to be a chief concern. Within non-profits, cultural values are of high importance. And in health services,
adaptability is key to maintaining good functioning.
If there were one central goal for OD, it would be to increase the organization‘s competitiveness. Competitiveness is
the idea that every organization has unique resources and competencies that help it win in the marketplace.
These resources include:
People: Visionary leaders like Steve Jobs or collaborative teams like those at Google.
Innovative products: Groundbreaking offerings like the iPhone.
Superior service: Companies like Four Seasons Hotels provide exceptional customer experiences.
Robust culture: Employee-focused environments exemplified by Zappos.
Employee Performance Management Notes Prepared by Mr Antony Ambia Page 3
, Agility in market response: The capacity to swiftly adapt to changing market demands, seizing
opportunities to secure revenue growth in the coming years.
OD develops aspects that help a business outperform its competition. The following sub-goals contribute to fulfilling
this ultimate goal of boosted competitiveness:
Improving efficiency and productivity: OD interventions engage employees and help them become more
efficient and productive by addressing inefficiencies and equipping them with the required skills to meet
changing needs.
Enhance organizational adaptability: OD emphasizes the impact that behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and
attitudes have on the organization and how individuals, systems, and processes can encourage a more
adaptable and resilient culture that can better navigate change.
Develop leadership capacity: A key component of OD focuses on talent development. Equipping current
and future leaders with new and necessary capabilities ensures a reliable leadership pipeline.
Improve decision-making processes: Because OD is data-backed, teams can make decisions based on
evidence and not assumptions. It also identifies and addresses communication breakdowns so information
can flow freely to decision-makers.
Organizational development vs. Human Resources
Many OD interventions relate to Human Resource Management functions. Policies such as performance
management, goal setting, appraisal, and talent management practices are all important in achieving effective
organizational development.
However, whereas HRM focuses specifically on people practices, OD takes a more holistic approach. Using tools
like organizational design, work design, and more traditional people interventions, OD can operate at all levels of the
organization. These levels are trans-organizational, organizational, group, and individual. However, the focus is
always on strategic themes, whereas HR is often more operational.
Sometimes, OD functions are located in the HR function, but not always. It may be part of a services department,
corporate strategy, or internal consulting. External strategy consultants also frequently utilize OD techniques in
change management projects.
Both HRM and OD have their roots in the business strategy – the mission, values, and vision of the organization.
Both outline the actions needed to implement that strategy in their respective fields. In addition, many early people
analytics initiatives originate from the OD department.
OD techniques are very powerful. For an HR professional, there are huge benefits to mastering them. The term
―organizational development‖ actually emerged in the 1960s as a way to describe managing the behavioral aspects of
people within organizations.
Understanding OD means you can identify which elements of core HR functions need focus in order to support the
organization as a whole in becoming more efficient. OD provides an integrated way of approaching these challenges.
Check out our Learning Bite to learn everything you need to know about Organizational Development for HR!
Examples of OD interventions
Organizational development is a complex, in-depth process with different types of interventions. Using the work of
Cummings and Worley (2009) as a basis, this section covers 15 organizational development interventions across four
categories:
Human process interventions
Technostructural interventions
HRM interventions
Strategic change interventions.
Although this is not an exhaustive list, it aims to help you grasp this vast topic better and understand how OD relates
to core HR functions.
Human process interventions
Human process interventions are change programs that relate to interpersonal relations, group, and organizational
dynamics. These are some of the earliest and best-known OD interventions.
1. Individual interventions: These interventions are targeted at the individual, often aimed at improving
communication with others. With these, an employee is coached on counterproductive interpersonal behaviors.
2. Group interventions: These interventions are aimed at the content, structure, or process of the group:
The content is what the group is focused on
The structure is how a group is designed to act on the content
The process is how the group carries out its core tasks.
Employee Performance Management Notes Prepared by Mr Antony Ambia Page 4
