Revitalising Your Organisation: A Guide to Successful Restructuring

Written by Harshini Elliott, Senior HR Partner

In today’s world, designing and sustaining a viable organisational structure can be challenging. Not only do you need to consider the roles required in your business and reporting relationships, you also need to consider the economic, social, political, technological, and environmental factors. As CEO’s or Business Owners, it can be challenging and time-consuming keeping on top of these factors.

When it comes to your organisational structure the success of your business depends on it. Often the wrong structure can result in a dysfunctional business and can hinder progress rather than promoting it. Here are some key signs that your organisational structure may be dysfunctional:

1. Poor Communication: If communication is poor or ineffective between departments, teams, or individuals, it's a clear sign that your organizational structure is not working. This can lead to misunderstandings, duplication of effort, and missed deadlines.

2. Lack of Accountability: If there is a lack of accountability or responsibility for tasks, it can indicate that your organizational structure is unclear or incomplete. This can lead to finger-pointing, missed opportunities, and poor performance.

3. Slow Decision-Making: If decision-making is slow or ineffective, it's a sign that your organisational structure may be too bureaucratic or hierarchical. This can lead to missed opportunities and lost revenue.

4. Low Employee Morale: If employee morale is low, it can be a sign that your organisational structure is not supportive or empowering. This can lead to high turnover rates, low productivity, and poor customer service.

5. Inefficient Processes: If processes are inefficient or cumbersome, it can indicate that your organizational structure is not well-designed. This can lead to wasted time and resources, and can hinder innovation and growth.

6. Silos and Lack of Collaboration: If departments or teams work in silos and don't collaborate effectively, it's a sign that your organisational structure is not promoting communication or teamwork. This can lead to missed opportunities and poor decision-making.

7. Lack of Flexibility: If your organizational structure is rigid and inflexible, it can indicate that your business is not able to adapt to changing market conditions or customer needs. This can lead to missed opportunities and lost revenue.

It may be a good time to undertake an organisational review.

An organisational structure review is a process to collect, review, analyse and interpret relevant information about the organisation to strengthen its position.

The purpose of the review is to enhance organisational success, improve efficiencies and enable leadership to focus on growth and strategy of the organisation.

There are 3 main purposes for conducting an organisational structure review:

1. Foundation for strategy development and implementation by providing critical insights needed to develop and launch new directions, goals, objectives, and priorities.

2. Is key to the success of project and change management efforts by analysing information about the goals, stakeholders, expected benefits, impacts and other related information.

3. Improve organisational performance and results. Results often lead to improvement in processes, structure, skill development, revenue generation and cost reduction initiatives.

Essential HR is qualified and experienced in conducting a rigorous organisational structure review to support your business to achieve organisational success. Our 5-step process below will guide you through the ins and outs of your business that you may not be aware of. We will support you throughout the review with recommendations, communication strategies and advice:

1. Development of a comprehensive workforce plan (if one does not exist already) to analyse the workforce to determine the steps your organisation will need to take to meet current and future staffing needs. This process also involves determining the most efficient and cost-effective methods to recruiting and retaining talent.

2. Review and audit the existing organisational structure within your business, identifying the strengths, weaknesses and challenges of the current structure and areas for change, including any potential redundancies.

3. Develop a comprehensive succession plan by reviewing all position descriptions, employee skills and qualifications and employee capacity to take on more work.

4. Development of one or more new organisational structures that would set the business up for success, based on the information obtained from the above steps.

5. Development of a communication and consultation strategy to ensure employees are kept in the loop at all times and stress and anxiety on employees is minimised throughout this process.

"Essential HR and the team have been amazing in their efforts to help the CEO and board of directors during a time of change for the Organisation and we are extremely grateful for the level of engagement, professionalism and quality of the support we have received from the team in particular Harshini and Justine. Having undertaken an organisational structure review with the assistance of Essential HR has been a valuable experience and highly recommended. "

How can we help?

As specialists in human resource management and industrial relations, Essential HR assists Australian businesses navigate their way through the complexities around employing people.

We deliver a range of HR Services including outsourced HR, HR Projects & Recruitment.

To learn more how we can assist your business visit our website at: www.esshr.com.au.

This information is of general guidance only and is not legal advice. Readers are encouraged to consider this information in their own context and with independent advice.