Organisational
Health Reviews
Consultation
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It is sometimes useful to discuss work place difficulties
with an impartial outsider who can support reflection and problem solving.
JHT Associates offers consultation to individuals or small groups, either on a
stand-alone basis, or we can arrange for regular consultation sessions if that
suits a client’s needs better. Sessions normally last between one and
one and a half hours
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Group Facilitation
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Being able to respond flexibly to changing needs is the key to success of
organisations in a fast moving world. Achieving this requires shared problem
solving and team work, and whilst working in teams can be productive and
creative, it can also cause us difficulties. Sometimes it proves hard to
communicate with colleagues and difficult to resolve sensitive problems.
A good facilitator can move groups and work based teams through these
difficult patches. Our facilitators have particular strengths in managing group
dynamics and will take time to negotiate with you achievable outcomes of
facilitation. We are able to offer one-off facilitation, or on-going work with
teams if this is required.
Organisational
Health Reviews
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Symptoms of organisational ill health can include poor outcomes,
high levels of sickness
absence, high turnover, difficulties in recruitment and poor morale. It is
unusual for there to be one cause for such difficulties, in fact typically
understanding how these difficulties arise involves considering a range of
possibilities throughout the workplace system.
An organisational health review will explore all possibilities so that any
interventions are appropriately targeted. This might involve reviewing
communication processes, tasks, workload, overall culture and interface with
other systems. It could also cover staff perceptions and coping strategies.
Every workplace is different and the nature of an organisational health
review would be carefully negotiated to ensure a sound collaborative partnership
and ownership of outcomes.
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Organisational Health
Monitoring
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The signs and symptoms of an unhealthy organisation are all too easy to
recognise. Poor outcomes, high levels of sickness absence, difficulties in recruiting and
retaining staff, customer complaints – all of this gives us evidence of poor
performance. However, once this position has been reached it can be difficult to
turn things around.
In order to take a preventative and proactive approach, JHT Associates
supports organisations to monitor how they are doing. This may be through
analysis of data that is already collected by the organisation, looking for
themes and trends that might signify change. In addition we are able to
instigate regular data gathering of staff perceptions of the workplace, which is
like taking the organisational ‘temperature’. This approach gives senior
managers concrete evidence for how they are doing, and why, and can guide the
design of change strategies.
These data will also tell you when things are improving, creating a positive
feedback loop for all concerned.
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Stress Audits
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JHT Associates have particular expertise in relation to the causes of
workplace stress and strategies for change in this area. Understanding the
dynamics of workplace stress involves identifying the key factors that make life
difficult for staff at work and intervening organisationally to change them
wherever possible.
Clearly this is not always achievable and interventions that support staff to
cope may be an important supplementary route to change.
Assumptions are sometimes made about the causes and nature of workplace
stress based on rumour, gossip or gut feeling. A stress audit will give
organisations a comprehensive picture of how staff are feeling, and will
identify differences between staff groupings. A stress audit will also allow for
staff to identify key stressors which can often be at variance with those
identified by senior managers. This information provides a better foundation on
which to build change strategies.
Staff Training
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JHT Associates specialises in collaborative work with organisations who want
to address process issues within the workplace. Usually this involves whole
systems interventions at an organisational level. However, it is sometimes
necessary and important to equip staff with a better understanding of verbal
communication, body language, coping strategies in stressful situations and
dealing with conflict.
We can support you in two ways with this. Firstly we can advise you about
good quality training materials that you might like to implement within your
organisation, using your own personnel. Secondly, we can develop bespoke
training sessions to address particular issues, if this is what you require.
Individual Staff
Support
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Long term improvements of the workplace well being of staff is best achieved
by working on the organisational variables that make life difficult for staff.
Sometimes, however, individual staff members need a bit of extra help in the
form of counselling or therapy. JHT Associates is able to advise you on
appropriate accredited professionals with whom you can discuss your needs. Send
us an e-mail describing the nature of your staff support difficulty and we will
do our best to put you in touch with the appropriate people.
There is no charge for this service at present.
