An over 45 year old social development organization having a nationwide reach and a mission of eradicating poverty through enhancing self sufficiency of poor farmers and tribal people living below poverty line. This organization with its dedicated focus has served over 4.5 million families living in 60,000 villages spread across 16 states of India with a committed workforce of over 4500.

The organization faced a challenge when the management decided to convert one of their major divisions into revenue based model so as to marginally reduce dependence on external funding and build self-sufficiency for growth and reach targets. Being an NGO it implied change in mindset and internal processes towards highly goal centric and commercially prudent ways of operating.

Business Challenge:

The major challenge was achieving greater self-sufficiency by building fair revenues from established programs, deploying resources optimally with an enhanced commercial acumen while retaining the precious organizational values and cultural ethos of a not for profit organization.

• The social development organizations have a strong humanitarian focus hence focus on building revenues, commercial acumen/cost saving, target orientation tends to take a back seat. However unless we ingrain this focus in strategy, structures, people and processes now, survival and growth of organization will become difficult.
• Unless the changed strategy is owned and whole heartedly accepted by one and all, grass root level implementation in 16 geographies will be a distant dream.
• The new competencies, communication strategies and processes were needed to be established if the change was to be implemented effectively in such a large organization.
• How to build the futuristic competencies necessary to transform the organization into a commercially prudent, action oriented, self-sustained and culturally strong institution?

HR/Organizational Development Initiative:

• Our Experts met cross section of employees covering from top and bottom most levels. This was followed by visits to key work locations to observe work processes, grass root level interactions with the beneficiaries etc.
• A Mission workshop was conducted to build consensus and rally the team around the common cause for this division. An energizing mission was developed after addressing key concerns.
• The Balanced Score Card was implemented to define, articulate and communicate the strategic objectives for this division covering the change objectives, projects, performance expectations on financial, customer, internal process and new competencies perspective.
• The job descriptions of the over 30 senior leaders responsible for these change initiatives were refined to integrate the activities that they would need to perform in their strategic roles.
• A psychometric assessment of their competencies was done to find out the strength of these key managers so that the profiles and change management projects can be structured to build on their strengths and relevant organizational support would be rendered where needed.
• A comprehensive organization wide competency framework was created as a base for all organizational HR processes so that in years to come the client can communicate the strategic behaviours and required competencies across 16 States and facilitates competency based HR decisions. This also was meant to empower managers with the knowledge, skills and guidelines for talent management decisions for their respective work areas.
• Developed a competency based selection process and psychometric assessment tools for HR and state level officials to identify right competency and cultural fit during selection process. Trained the HR and other senior managerial staff on various applications of competency framework and selection processes.
• Submitted an organizational preparedness report comprising of our various findings during the assignment of about 8 to 9 months. The report included information on identified hurdles that may impact strategy execution and recommendations/ideas to resolve those.

Results

• The client has successfully implemented the revenue based operations model without compromising on the core philosophy, values and cultural ethos.
• The competency framework, competency based recruitment and selection tools have made it easier to precisely define, attract and select the best suited talent.
• Organization is recognized to be one of the very few professional NGOs in India deploying advanced strategic management concepts, techniques and tools.
• Achieved desired geographic spread due to savings in resources and self generated revenues. Has now opened up its operations in Orissa and has recently celebrated 45th anniversary.