Posts Tagged “Workforce”

Recently, we worked on a reorganization of a business with several thousand employees. The company was splitting itself into smaller organizational units. Our team didn’t set the business strategy or the change plan. But we were the arms and legs to help the project team get the work done.

At the end of the project, the team documented their learnings and some will be shared over the next couple posts. We share them for a simple reason – it is highly likely that other reorganization teams will face similar challenges. The challenges themselves aren’t “secrets;” what created the challenges, where the challenges occurred and how they were addressed are. In any case, here are some real live challenges to plan for as you work on a reorganization.

#1 – Crystallize the Vision and Case for Change

While there were several important themes supporting the reorganization (like “accountability” and “customer focus”), these themes didn’t effectively crystallize into a clear and compelling picture of the envisioned future. Because the vision wasn’t clear, the team struggled throughout the project with several issues:

• Decision making became more complex since there were no clear “stakes in the ground” on which to base priorities. Everything was an ad hoc decision. Nothing was principle based.
• The team was left in a reactive and responsive mode vs. being proactive with a clearly defined strategic goal.
• The team was unable to effectively communicate an appropriate understanding of management’s vision of the future. (The team wasn’t quite sure themselves). When the team did communicate, there were conflicting messages:
  • “This is not a cost-driven exercise,” and “Design an organization that reflects some level of reduction,” or,
  • “Business process management and execution is critical to our long-term success,” and “We can design our processes after we set the organization;” or,
  • “Do it right,” vs. “Do it fast.”

The team’s #1 lesson: “When considering large-scale change, nothing should be more important than crafting an iron-clad and understandable case for change and an engaging vision for the outcome of the change. This includes creating specific examples of how employees would experience the change as enhancing their work lives. Use focus groups to test the vision for how understandable and engaging it is.”

Our clients are worried about the coming “tsunami” of workforce retirements. Baby Boomers are queuing up for the exits, and with their departures they take invaluable knowledge about how to perform work effectively and efficiently. The people entering the workforce operate under a new behavioral model. Large-scale disruptive change is in the air.

In this post we will write about the projections for the workforce of the future. In upcoming posts we will write about the implications of those changes and how organizations are acting in the near term to address the implications.

In November 2007, The Bureau of Labor Statistics published their Labor Force Projections to 2016 with the sub-headline, “more workers in their golden years.” The phrase is an understatement.

In the ten years between 2006 and 2016,

• The 16-24 year old workforce will shrink 0.7% per year or nearly 7% over the ten-year period.
• The 25-54 year old workforce will expand 0.2% per year – or 2.4% over the ten-year period.
• The 55 and older workforce will expand 3.9% per year – or more than 46% over the ten-year period.

Many U. S. workers compete in the global market for talent.   Jobs can be moved to countries where comparable quality work can be performed for less or where there it is easier to find a skilled workforce.  A 2005 study from The National Academies illustrates the point:

• For the cost of one chemist or one engineer in the United States, a company can hire about five chemists in China or 11 engineers in India.
• In 2004, more than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of higher education in China.  In India, the figure was 350,000.  In America, it was about 70,000.
• Of 120 chemical plants being built around the world with price tags of $1 billion or more, one is in the U.S. and 50 are in China.

If you manage in a company that competes globally, or are employed by an organization whose work can be sourced globally, you know that constant change is necessary to either stay ahead or catch up.  Choosing to change slowly is a choice to lose eventually.  Choosing to change quickly is choosing to compete aggressively.