Comprehensive Review - Organisational Change

The Client

The Chief Executive Officer of a statutory organisation performing a regulatory function within the financial and insurance services industry.

The Brief

To undertake an independent review of the operations and structure of the organisation, addressing future demands and making recommendations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation.

The brief included undertaking internal and external stakeholder interviews with senior stakeholders and comparison of the organisation with similar regulatory organisations within Queensland and New South Wales.

Our Response

HR Advantage undertook a comprehensive process to understand the organisation and how it was working. This included establishing current strengths, concerns, performance levels and issues being experienced, we identified future / emerging needs facing the organisation and determined improvement opportunities.

Our methodology included:

• Meeting with the organisation's Board and with senior Government stakeholders for input and conducting structured interviews with key managers
• Conducting staff focus groups (interest in the Review was strong and a high level of staff engagement was achieved through focus groups and related communication)
• Analysis of key documents including legislation, business plans, performance information
• Communication and consultation with managers and staff on key issues. This included testing and exploring findings and improvement opportunities
• Developing recommendations for comprehensive change in both structure and culture.

We worked closely with the Chief Executive throughout the Review. This led to significant internal recognition and ownership of the issues identified and the options for moving forward.

This top level involvement was critical as significant and far reaching changes were identified as the Review progressed. They were in the nature of organisational transformation, rather than incremental change.

The Results

The Chief Executive Officer endorsed and subsequently implemented our recommendations covering:

• A comprehensive restructuring of the organisation, including new and significantly redesigned management and operational roles
• Strengthening staffing resources, including levels and skills mixes of jobs to support achievement of business and strategic plans
• Introducing new ways of doing things including enhanced business planning and performance measurement
• Changes in leadership team composition and operations; implementation of team and staff development processes; and implementation of new performance management processes for all staff

HR Advantage was subsequently engaged to assist in implementing changes arising.

After the changes were implemented, the Chief Executive gave significant feedback about improvements in the culture and operations of the organisation.

This was supported by observations by key managers, enhanced levels of productivity, and improved employee engagement measured through staff surveys and informal staff feedback.