Gillian Hibberd, Corporate Director for People, Policy and Communications, talks through how their change process was planned and supported, and how staff were engaged.
- OD is aligning structure to objectives – form following function. Many orgs struggle to easily define their purpose.
- Structure alone does not guarantee success
- Org design is not a perfect science
- What are the issues?
- business operating model – more outsourcing and commissioning. Councils become smaller with other partners delivering service
- Reducing layers and numbers of managers
- Spans of control
- Synergies from merging teams and reducing m’ment team
- Approaches to budget pressure – slash and burn, be reactive, or plan for change
- Key requirement is a vision for the organisation
- Bucks’ vision is ‘rising to the challenge’. 4 elements of lean organisation: elected members, knowing our customer, support services, different service delivery models.
- Model based on locality areas – 19 geographic communities with community plans.
- The core of the council is a very small, learn organisation
- Design principles clarify the vision and translates into organisational changes
- Bucks have 6 key principles in total
- Redesign model – flexible, sustainable, cost savings, management and admin targets, blueprint driven
- Director team and heads of service team reduced with a 25% cost reduction
- Phases: design, high level org design, design phase, consultation, transition
- Outcomes – £4.2m cashable savings so far. 183 posts cut. Few employee relations issues. Next phase of transformation about to start. Blueprint coming to life and a fit for purpose organisation.