Organisational restructuring is an integral part of the life cycle of all successful companies.
Businesses restructure for many reasons. It might be a reaction to changes in the marketplace, to accompany a shift in corporate strategy, or to become more competitive. Likewise, there are many tell-tale signs a restructure is due. Perhaps targets aren't being met, things are falling between the cracks, or there is a breakdown in communication.
If this sounds familiar, and you think it’s time to restructure your organisation or department, here are four quick tips to get you started.
1. Design for the Organisation (Not the Individual)
Firstly, take time to clearly define the desired outcomes and the work needed to achieve them. By doing this, you will help define the responsibilities of each role.
Then, once the nature of each role is clearly defined, you can find the right people to fill them. It is important to choose employees to carry out roles, not the other way around.
As the business grows and people develop, the individuals who carry out certain roles will change. You do not want to be creating roles for employees to fill.
2. Define What Organisational Restructuring Success Looks Like
Secondly, be sure to manage your staff through the restructuring process.
People are often resistant change. While some staff members will relish the opportunity to take on new responsibilities, others won't. Staff members who are unwilling to adapt to a changing work environment can jeopardise your restructuring efforts.
With this in mind, it is important to identify and address this threat early in the process. The best way to address a refusal to change is to define what success in the new role will look like and incentivise this.
If employees understand what is expected of them and how they can succeed in their new role they will feel less anxious about the change.
If you want to learn more about motivating your team, check out out our "Three Key Strategies to Improve Labour Productivity" post.
3. Plan for Capacity (and Breathing Room)
Thirdly, successful organisational restructuring requires capacity planning. This involves striking a balance between time spent on day-to-day operations and that devoted to innovation and/or improvements.
If the requirements of a role are onerous and leave little time for anything else, staff may miss potential improvements and problems may go unresolved.
Now that we’ve outlined these three tips for successful business restructuring, we need to define how we can measure success.
4. Check the Effectiveness of Your Organisational Restructure
At OE Partners, we recently helped facilitate the restructuring of a businesses purchasing department. Invoicing delays were slowing production and they needed help.
In addressing this issue, we had a clear metric to measure the success of the restructuring process; namely, the number of invoices sent outside lead-time rules. Sometimes defining the success of organisational restructuring can be more difficult. However, starting out with a clearly defined objective will make it much easier to quantify the success of your efforts.
Looking to accelerate your business transformation journey?
Then get in touch to book a 20 min Discovery Chat and we'll outline how to deliver results faster when restructuring your organisation.
