The role of a companys human resources department is to cultivate a healthy and productive workplace. HR can use the insights from an OB study to do this by making improvements in the following areas.

The Big Five is a widely recognized framework that categorizes personality traits into five dimensions: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (OCEAN). The idea is that every person has a little or a lot of each trait. Once you know where your employees personalities fall along the OCEAN spectrum, you can determine how they work and how they interact with coworkers.

Leadership requires specific skills that managers learn and hone throughout their careers. For instance, they need emotional intelligence, teamwork, adaptability, communication, collaboration and other soft skills. After conducting an OB study, you can see how managers interact with their employees, which tells you what skills they still need to work on.

Effective teams go through four stages of development: forming, storming, norming and performing. During forming, the focus is on building relationships. Storming involves dealing with conflicts and power struggles that arise. Norming is about establishing norms and best practices within the team. Performing is when the team reaches its peak performance level. OB can tell you if youre spending too much time or not enough time on forming, storming and norming, preventing you from reaching performing.

OB can help you determine if you have a tall or flat organizational structure and if that structure is right for how your company operates.

A tall structure has multiple hierarchical levels with narrow spans of control, meaning there are several managers that each oversee only a few employees. This type of structure has a clear line of authority, but it can lead to slower decision-making because the decision has to get passed up the chain through several levels.

By contrast, flat structures have fewer levels of hierarchy and wider spans of control, allowing for quicker decision-making and more direct communication. However, flat structures may need help maintaining clear lines of authority and control.

There are several human motivation theories out there, but one popular one is Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. It begins with basic physiological needs, such as food, shelter and water. Once those needs are met, a person can concentrate on their psychological needs, such as self-esteem and self-actualization.

In practice, employees at the top and bottom of the pyramid both want to be successful at work. However, the why behind this want for success differs. An employee whose motivation is survival wants to perform well so that they have steady income coming in to pay for food and shelter. In contrast, an employee whose basic needs are met wants to find meaning in their life, so they may search for a career that they love and invest in growing in that field.

At the end of the day, both types of employees are hard workers and worth having on your team. However, you want to do whatever you can, such as adjusting pay based on cost of living, to help more of your employees reach the latter stage. That way, they get a better quality of life because they dont have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck, and you get a workforce that is invested in growing with you.

There are several dimensions to communication. Here are some definitions to keep in mind as you study how your employees communication with one another:

Once you know what communication methods your employees use, you can decide if that aligns with how you want your company to operate. For example, maybe you picked up on a lot of crossed arms and frowns during your research, which would indicate unhappiness. You would want to reinforce a work culture of open communication so that employees feel comfortable telling their managers about challenges that are making them unhappy.

There are two approaches to decision-making: rational and intuitive. Rational decision-making is when you thoroughly analyze the situation, including all of the potential solutions, before choosing a path forward. With intuitive decision-making, you make a spontaneous decision based on what your gut tells you.

Employees within your team likely use different decision-making methods. You want to use OB to determine what works best for each person so that the team can meet in the middle to avoid conflict.

Change is unavoidable as a business. It can happen for internal or external reasons. External pressures are beyond the companys control (e.g., economic downturn or market competition). By contrast, internal factors, such as releasing a new product or losing key clients, can necessitate change from within.

Kurt Lewins Model of Change Theory provides a framework for handling both types of change. Its a three-step process that starts with unfreeze. Unfreeze is when you prepare your employees for change by communicating what necessitated the change and what the change will be. Change is the actual implementation of the changes, and refreeze is about solidifying the changes and making them a permanent part of the organization.

By studying your workplace, you can determine if your employees are comfortable with change. If you see them struggling, you can put them at ease and prepare them for the next change by educating them on Lewins theory.

There are two types of conflict: constructive and destructive. Constructive conflict, characterized by using open communication and diverse perspectives to find a solution, can stimulate creativity, foster innovation and improve decision-making. On the other hand, destructive conflict is marked by hostile exchanges and personal attacks, which can disrupt teamwork, damage morale and impede progress.

If you notice characteristics of deconstructive conflict appearing within your team, you may want to implement a mediation system. You act as the mediator as each party explains their side. You can then come to a compromise that addresses both parties concerns.

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What Is Organizational Behavior? Everything You Need To Know - MarketWatch