Our Organizational Development division has assisted many businesses with a variety of needs. Our personal assessment of your business enables us to identify solutions and assist your business with the implementation of programs that can transform your business from ordinary to extraordinary.

Our organizational development and human resource professionals will listen to your ideas and adapt our services to meet your specific needs. We will evaluate your processes to ensure consistency, efficiency and results.

Together our staff has over 50 years of human resource experience. Each of our Branch Managers specializes in staffing as well as general human resource functions.

Our organizational development leader, Laura Pedersen, is an effective human resource and organizational development professional skilled in creating and leading teams to keep pace with accelerated growth. Laura is experienced in human resources, coaching, training and development, talent mangement, culture development and customer and quality service.

Laura has over 20 years of Human Resource experience. Her experience is in various industries including healthcare, social services, utility and processing plants.

Talent Management: Getting the right person in the right job, at the right time!
Talent management is identified as one of the most critical HR challenges over the next five years, including finding and keeping high performers. To be successful, organizations need to make talent management a priority.

It is important for business leaders to be engaged in the talent management process and be accountable for developing talent.

• Aligning talent management with business priorities
• On-boarding Process
• Talent Reviews
• Succession Planning
• Employee/Leadership Development

Talent management requires a consistent commitment to developing great talent. And over time, this commitment will translate into a strong base of talent and a pipeline of leaders with a demonstrable impact on business results.

A talent management program will assist in creating a mindset that will prepare your organization to face the challenges ahead.

Leadership Development: The Edge Leadership Development Series
A comprehensive leadership development program starts with individual assessments to provide a detailed picture of each leader's strengths and needs. Based on the results of this individual assessment, an individual action plan and goals will be developed. Individual coaching, classroom instruction and online developmental curriculum will work together to develop each leader's knowledge and skills. This program encourages accountability, following up with a 360 degree assessment to make sure each leader is carrying the skills they have learned into the work environment.

Customized training can be developed to meet your unique needs.

Workshops included in the Edge Leadership Series

Assessments and Competencies

KnowlEDGE for Teams

KnowlEDGE for Leaders

KnowlEDGE for Sales

The Leadership Development Cycle

Human Resource Consulting and Assessment:
Changes in employment law occur not only when new laws are passed, but also as the courts interpret existing laws. To keep up with the changes, a company should periodically review employment law compliance and human resource policies and procedures to ensure they are up to date.

Following are some examples of what Aventure's Human Resource Services can assist you with:

• Recruiting and Hiring
• Training and Supervising
• Coaching and Counseling to disciplining and termination
• FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act)
• Benefits
• Compensation

Process Improvement Facilitation:
Competitive pressures force businesses to satisfy more demanding customers while using less of everything...time, energy, space, materials, money.

What is process improvement?

"Process improvement" means making things better, not just fighting fires or managing crises. It means setting aside the customary practice of blaming people for problems or failures. It is a way of looking at how we can do our work better. When we take a problem-solving approach or simply try to fix what's broken, we may never discover or understand the root cause of the difficulty. Murphy's Law comes into play and our efforts to "fix" things may actually make things worse.

However, when we engage in true process improvement, we seek to learn what causes things to happen in a process and to use this knowledge to reduce variation, remove activities that contribute no value to the product or service produced, and improve customer satisfaction. A team examines all of the factors affecting the process: the materials used in the process, the methods and machines used to transform the materials into a product or service, and the people who perform the work.

How does process improvement benefit the organization?

A standardized process improvement methodology allows us to look at how we perform work. When all of the major players are involved in process improvement, they can collectively focus on eliminating waste-of money, people, materials, time, and opportunities. The ideal outcome is that jobs can be done cheaper, quicker, easier, and-most importantly-safer.

Culture Change/Development:
An organization's culture is comprised of the set of values, beliefs, assumptions, principles, myths, legends, and norms that define how people actually think, decide, and perform. Leaders who hope to implement a change from the "norm" in an organization will need to influence and change the culture before leading a successful organizational change effort.

Four components of every organization:

1. Physical - visible aspects of the organization
2. Infrastructure - systems and processes for directing and managing work
3. Behavioral - daily action and reactions of employees
4. Cultural - Underlying assumptions, values, beliefs and norms that shape daily behavior

Implementing change for components 1-3 is possible, but the change will be short lived without changing the underlying cultural level.

Assessing the current culture as well as assessing employee expectations and aspirations of the desired culture will give you the answer to the perceived need for change.

Performance Management:
In today's competitive business environment, your employees represent one of your organization's most valuable assets. Which means your company's productivity and ultimately, its profitability depend on making sure every person in your organization is working up to his/her full potential.

According to the Gallup Organization, one of the basic keys to employee engagement is for employees to know what is expected of them at work. If clear expectations are not communicated, your employees may not be working toward the goals that contribute to the long-term success of your business.

A well planned performance management process can help your company:

1. Motivate employees
2. Recognize and compensate top performers
3. Reduce Employee turnover and attrition
4. Protect yourself legally

Team Building:
People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than yourself. It has a lot to do with your understanding of the mission or objectives of your organization.

In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success of the organization. You work with fellow members of the organization to produce these results. Even though you have a specific job function and you belong to a specific department, you are unified with other organization members to accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger picture drives your actions; your function exists to serve the bigger picture.

Team building comes in many forms and the word alone has many implications depending on your perspective. Some folks see it as daring ropes courses pushing you to accomplish something fearful like bungee jumping off a bridge or flying through the air on a zip-line. Others view it as dialoguing on problems facing the team and devising creative strategies to break through the conflict to innovations.

So what is it really?

The generic term team building is used in a lot of different ways. Here are some of the most common ways of looking at it. Team building is:

• improving the overall performance of the team
• developing and improving the working relationships
• challenging outdoor events that push you individually to accomplish something you're anxious about or makes you fearful
• improving communications, facing conflict and building trust
• getting members engaged in decisions; prepared to solve problems and take ownership for actions

So think about what the term means to you. What do you want to accomplish in your team building experience? What are the challenges holding back your team from success?

At Aventure, we look at team building as an opportunity to build trust and rapport so communications will be open and honest; facing conflict with dialogue and not debate. Team building is the venue for improving work relationships, decoding the office politics, mastering conflict and enhancing communications so collaborations trust and accountability will become the team culture.

Aventure will custom design a team building program that works for you and your goals.

Strategic Planning Facilitation:
Strategic planning determines where an organization is going over the next year or more, how it's going to get there and how it will know if it got there or not. The focus of a strategic plan is usually on the entire organization, while the focus of a business plan is usually on a particular product, service or program.

Benefits of Strategic Planning:

1. Clearly defines the purpose of the organization and establishes goals and objectives consistent with the mission.
2. Provides a clearer focus of organization, producing more efficiency and effectiveness.
3. Bridges the staff and board of directors
4. Builds strong teams
5. Provides a base from which progress can be measured.

Aventure becomes your human resource ALLIES by building a partnership to ensure top quality service and results.

A    ADAPT

L    LISTEN

L    LOCATE SOLUTIONS

I    IDENTIFY & IMPLEMENT

E    EVALUATE

S    SERVICE