3-Step Approach on Organisation Restructuring

By Sanjivani Patil (A consultant with IndusGuru)

The Covid-19 crisis is encouraging Businesses to relook at their systems and processes for effectively catering to the needs of their stakeholders, in the most efficient manner. This has increased the need for reviewing Organization Structure. However, unfortunately this exercise is often looked at myopically, and is considered as one of the means for removing the “flab”.

It is crucial to take a holistic approach in Organization Restructuring. This includes reviewing the job boundaries, formal and informal structures, communication channels, competencies of key personnel, employee sentiments, performance framework, along with talent availability in the market. We propose the following approach for reviewing organization design –

STEP 1: Understand your organization
You may be leading the organization, but you may not necessarily be aware of how exactly your organization operates and achieves results. Formal systems, structures and processes are essential, but basic aspects of the organization. You will have to delve deeper to see the informal systems that run your organization – the powerplays, relationships and interactions, within and outside the organization, beyond formal structures.

STEP 2: Redefine processes, roles and performance parameters
Today, most of the organizations are busy classifying their team members as “under-performer” – “performer” – “super-performer” OR “not critical” – “critical” – “very critical”; without really differentiating the performance parameters for organization v/s people. Poor results may not necessarily be due to the poor performance of people but may also be due to poor performance of processes and systems. You need to have separate parameters to determine organizational performance, departmental performance and people performance. Else, you may end up making a blunder of tagging wrong people as “under-performer” or “not critical”.

We urge you to view organization restructuring as a crucial exercise which demands your involvement to –

1. Redefine your organization priorities and accordingly set new goals,
2. Review the processes and systems for achieving the set goals, in the context of new business scenario,
3. Redefine the organization structure and job boundaries, without ignoring the informal systems, relationships and powerplays
4. Redefine performance parameters for each role and define capabilities required to achieve the same.
   You would then be better equipped to classify your people as per criticality.

STEP 3: Impeccable Communication with your people and key stakeholders
The success of any plan lies in its implementation, and the success of any implementation lies in effective communication. Working remotely has further increased the need to take more efforts to stay connected, not only virtually but even emotionally. It is important to align your people and key stakeholders with your thought-process and to handle difficult conversations sensitively.

You may expect the following outcomes by taking this approach –

 Better alignment of efforts of each employee towards meeting business objectives
 Clearly defined accountabilities, responsibilities, and authorities for each employee
 Clear and measurable performance parameters and better review mechanism
 Adequate staffing with right capabilities required for effectively executing new plans
 Higher buy-in from your people that would help you sail through more comfortably

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author and do not reflect the position or official policy of IndusGuru Network Partners

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