Introduction
The restructuring of an organization is always more of a challenge in the human resource department than it is in other departments due to the human aspect of human resource. In almost all cases, restructuring involves the need for new talent and the declaration of redundancy for some of the current talent. Unless the transition is carried out with tact, it can affect the functionality of the resultant structure or lead to legal claims of poor labor relations. In the instant marketing department scenario, some senior positions are being declared redundant while several new avenues for promotion are being created. Further, since the new department requires a higher number of managers than the old department, there will be room for hiring. At the Vice-president level, two positions are being declared redundant. It may not be possible to absorb the two vice-presidents into the other available slots as it would amount to a demotion. The erstwhile senior officers may also have a problem working under their former equals who now become their bosses and their former junior who now become their equals. A careful and fair selection system should be used to determine two among the four vice presidents to retain with the others being terminated amicably. The six regional director positions should be filled competitively by the 60 available district managers. Affirmative action in the competitive process should be applied if necessary. The remaining 54 district managers should be retained with 6 new managers being competitively hired to fill the remaining positions. Categorization of which regional director falls under which vice president and which district manager falls under which regional director can be done partially at random and partially to create a demographic balance as and when necessary. The new team will thus essentially comprise mainly of members of the old team, with only two terminations and six new employees hence exponentially reducing the cost of transition.
Effective Execution of the Plan
The primary purpose of any organizational restructuring is to make the organization more profitable and more effective (Bolman & Deal, 2017). From a HR perspective, restructuring is also a change process that is bound to elicit resistance even when done in an ideal way. In most cases, however, there is no ideal way to carry out a restructuring as change has to adversely affect some of the parties involved. Finally, restructuring can be expensive, both in terms of the money used to effect the changes and secondly, the money lost due to the interference that the changes visit upon the normal operations of the organization. Ideally, the restructuring ought to take as little time as possible, be as smooth as possible, cost the company as little money as possible, and then result to the most effective team possible (Bolman & Deal, 2017). The combination of all the above may not be practical yet it is the obligation of a change manager to ensure that it is achieved to the highest extent possible.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
A good communication strategy is integral to the success and effectiveness of the change process. Proper communication does not just inform the parties but also elicits acceptance and support for the change process (Johnson, 2017). In this sense, a good leader should be able to communicate about the change process in a manner that the team feels that it was involved in the decision to bring about change. Charisma also plays an important role in the communication process (Holten & Brenner, 2015). If possible, the team can also be led to believe that many of the ideas about the change process are have come from the team, and not from the top management. The second means of ensuring effectiveness is visible fairness in all decision-making processes. It is not enough for a decision to be fair unless the same is also considered as fair by the team . Fairness includes only promoting the most qualified candidates and also ensuring that anyone who is adversely affected by secondary considerations such as affirmative action is properly compensated. With the combination of proper communication and fair decision-making, the team will embrace the change process making the restructuring a success.
Communication Plan
Communication in this change plan should be made on a top-down strategy, beginning with the vice presidents than district managers. Communication with the vice presidents should be forthright while that with the managers should be circumspect.
Stage One: Communication with Senior Staff
Communication with the four vice-presidents is the most important aspect of the instant restructuring process. Among this group, the change process is all bad news without any good news to smoothen the communication process. Half of the group will lose their positions, the other half will assume more duties.
No primary decisions should be made until this team is on board because its opposition could compromise the entire communication process.
Stage two: Communicating with District Managers
Step One: Informing district managers that the current status of the department is unsustainable and invite ideas about how to resolve it (Johnson, 2017). The communication strategy should be to make the situation look much worse than it is so that the suggested change may seem like a respite.
Step two: Informing the team about the change process. The strategy used should make the managers feel that part of the idea came from them and also focus on the prospect for promotions for a number of the managers into regional directors.
Stage Three: Continuous communication through the pendency of the change process to ensure morale and support for the change process is maintained (Holten & Brenner, 2015).
References
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership . Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons
Holten, A. L., & Brenner, S. O. (2015). Leadership style and the process of organizational change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal , 36 (1), 2-16
Johnson, E. (2017, November 09). How to communicate clearly during organizational change. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/06/how-to-communicate-clearly-during-organizational-change
