Preparing for rising demands and limited resources through work analysis and planning

Context and business problem​

• The organisation faced rising demands and funding constraints.​
• A matrix structure obscured understanding of critical data on roles, work and workloads, hindering plans to focus the workforce on strategy delivery and to optimise use of funds.

Business goal​

• Provide the levers to control how work could be scaled up or down across the organisation to meet business priorities within spending limits.​
• Gain control over workforce data for better analysis.​
• Clarify roles, responsibilities, and work distribution to prioritise resources.​
• Prepare for detailed design and modelling to optimise operation.​
• Foster transparency and alignment to support collaborative change.

Solution​

• Integrated HR and finance data to create a single source of truth and visualise the organisation​
• Conducted activity analysis and revealed inefficiencies, including:​
  • Overwork: 50% of employees were overworked, with some departments reaching 70%.​
  • Span of control: the average span of control was just 3, falling short of their ideal of 6 for optimal effectiveness​
  • Organisational layers: There were 11 layers in the organisation, exceeding their target of 7​
  • Misaligned work distribution: Senior employees were doing as much strategic work as their junior counterparts​
  • Fragmented activities: 33% of tasks were fragmented and identified as distractions​
• ​Using these insights, the organisation began finding synergies and opportunities to redistribute the work to achieve a more balanced and effective workforce.

33%

Activities identified as fragmented and distractors

70%

Overwork identified in some departments

13%

Only 13% of most senior people were spending time on strategic activities