Organizational Health Can Be Defined

Organizational health can be defined as the ability of an organization to effectively carry out its functions, sufficiently cope and appropriately adapt to changes, and to develop from within. There are at least ten dimensions that adequately describe organizational health and these include; goal focus, communication adequacy, optimal power equalization, resource utilization, cohesiveness, morale, innovativeness, autonomy, adaptation, and problem solving adequacy (Armstrong, 2001). From these dimensions it is clear that the concept of organizational health is a reflection of two perspectives: organizational performance, which considers the functioning of the organization as an interacting system; and employee well-being with regard to satisfaction and health of the employee. These two perspectives are highly interdependent variables, they affect each other and when both are addressed they gain from each other. This interdependence eventually affects the ability of the organization to achieve its goals (Dive, 2004).

A simple way of recognizing the importance of organizational health is by looking at the features of unhealthy organizations. Reflections of an unhealthy organization may include lack of accountability and direction, misplaced priorities, and poorly coordinated systems. These usually result into ineffectiveness and inefficiencies which are costly to the organization. Some other features of unhealthy organizations may be low commitment of employees and disengagement, conflicts that are disastrous, suppressed opinions, absenteeism unnecessarily, and high employee turnover. These are features which are not desirable in an organization that has goals and objectives to meet. Organizational health is more or less a complement of the goals and objectives of an organization since it affects the culture of the company including behavior of employees, performance, motivation and cooperation. Organizational health aims at optimizing results of manpower and resources, this way it adapts to the requirements and possible changes in the organization's process (Williams, 1994). A healthy organization should have a structure that allows flexibility, encourages employees to be creative, and takes full advantage of the skills and abilities of its workforce.

Since organizational health addresses both performance and well-being thus when exploited well it is able to identify any disconnect between the two in the work environment of the organization. There are interactions within the organization that have consequences which may be healthy or unhealthy to the process of the organization and should be addressed accordingly (Armstrong, 2001). In addition, the assessment of the well-being of the employees can be done through audits which look at the physical, mental, and social wellness of the employees. This is vital because the well-being of the employees directly affects the performance of the organization and this demonstrates how important organizational health is to the organization since without performance the organization is as good as dead.