Workforce Scenarios: “Putting It Back Together Before You Take It Apart”
by Lois MelbourneHow successful has your last reorganization been? How much thought was focused on “putting it back together” during your “taking it apart” process?
Yesterday my 8-year old son came to the office with me for a little while. One of our IT guys, Carlos, saw him and gave him an ancient PC and a screw driver and told him to take it apart. My son was so excited! And he dove right into his appointed task.
Taking it very seriously, he removed every screw; every board, drive, and cable was disconnected. He then went to Carlos and told him of his success. Carlos said, “Great, little man. Now put it back together.” Hmmm. He did, mostly.
Unlike the computer, where the power was turned off during the dismantle process, a lay off or a reorganization must be be done while the corporate machine is still running and still producing good stuff (hopefully). But how much of the “go forward” plan was used during the selection of terminations? Were scenarios run to see more than financial numbers for the new emergent organization? Companies spend a lot of money on their on-boarding, performance reviews, succession planning, and then, when it comes time to lay people off – they too often look only at the numbers and getting the cuts done quickly.
The “P” in ERP is supposed to stand for planning. I believe companies forgot that part of the design when it came to the HCM portion of ERP development. Too often companies don’t plan when they execute mass changes.
- You have to do the workforce planning, create workforce scenarios.
- You have to model what the organization is going to look like then step back and make sure the chemistry can still work.
- Do you have a plan for various workforce scenarios in your redesign?
- Are you using your talent tools to guide you in the termination decisions as well as the restructuring of the workforce?
Or, will you end up like the 8-year old who put any screw that fit into the early holes in the reconstruction of the PC, only to find out that the left over screws at the end were too big for the final critical pieces? The wrong pegs were in the wrong holes. He didn’t assess all of his resources close enough before he took action. Then it was time to go home. Good news for him, Carlos will keep the box for him to take apart and put back together “at least 8 more times” until he gets the hang of it.
I don’t think your organization can afford that many iterations to get it right.
Cheers,
Lois
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