Organization design
The context:
Our client is a major player in auto component manufacturing and also has presence in other sectors including manufacturing and distribution of consumer durables. Headquartered in Southern India, the organisation has sales offices across the country and has also entered international markets.
The company was facing concern areas like increasing manpower numbers over the years, resulting in rising employee costs. Based on the context, Cerebrus proposed two modules – White collar productivity study and Job evaluation exercise. Our focus was to address the optimum manpower requirements and to provide an organization structure and hierarchy with appropriate bands/levels for the organization.
Our approach:
Considering the nature of the study, it was critical to ensure that the entire exercise was positioned and communicated to employees with sensitivity. Cerebrus suggested that the company officially communicated the key objectives of the assignment. This was to ensure that there was no miscommunication amongst the employees and also to gain buy-in into the process from the senior management and functional heads. It was of vital importance that the employees understand that the job was being analyzed and no assessment of the job holder would be done. We also conducted an initial pilot study to establish a suitable process for the assignment, as well as to garner feedback and inputs, which were subsequently incorporated in the rest of the assignment.
Our approach to gaining information, data and insights about the functions and jobs were through meetings and discussions - around 300 one-on-one meeting were conducted. We also reviewed available data and information for the functions respectively including review of organisation charts, goal sheets, available Job Descriptions etc. Further, we observed the work flow processes while job holders were actually carrying out the tasks to understand critical activities. Observations through night shift work, shadowing of employees during their work shift/day were also undertaken.
The outcome:
Our recommendations on the organization structure and white collar productivity study were based on the findings from the Process analysis and Job analysis. Considerations included key responsibilities, tasks performed, workflow processes, time allocated, volume of work, output indicators, difficulties faced, critical success factors, support systems required, etc.
The output of the engagement included the manpower plan with numbers for unique jobs across all functions. This covered the manpower structure, integration of functions / jobs and identification of downhill/ redundant jobs. We also recommended the banding structure for the organization and mapped unique jobs to the bands. We provided counsel on the overall reduction of manpower for the organisation and successfully supported the client in the implementation of the White collar productivity findings in the organization.