As you conduct an organizational design, you’ll work with a variety of stakeholders to ensure your strategy is executed effectively. Below is a summary of each stakeholder’s roles within the organizational design process. 

Your Role, as the People Partner

• Project manage the OD initiative  
• Maintain documentation (Org charts, OD roadmap and financial HC summaries)
• Co-facilitate design sessions  
• Conduct change management planning 
• Disseminate associate notification details  
• Serve as a SME for input and alignment of work activities

EVP/Sponsor

• Align business leaders to vision & guiding principles to be followed 
• Articulate expected deliverables and timelines 
• Make decisions at org design milestones 
• Provide input on design iterations & approval for final design

COE Org Design Partner

• Define org design process and guidelines  
• Provide consultative support  
• Co-facilitate design sessions to detail work activities and future state options 
• Conduct org design training for HRBPs, including tools/templates 
• Collaborate with external consulting partners

HR Sr. Director

• Communicate updates to EVP and HR leadership 
• Participate in design sessions with HRBPs, business leaders and OD 
• Provide transparency in anticipated org changes to OD point of contact 
• Align business leaders to guiding principles 
• Promote HRBP OD capability development

Business Leader(s)

• Deliver future state proposals for final EVP review 
• Participate in recurring org design sessions with HR & OD 
• Serve as a SME for input and alignment of work activities 
• Lead and integrate changes at all levels in the organization

You play a critical function in understanding the organization’s current goals and processes to develop a design strategy that delivers robust workflows, networks, and structures within the company.

• An organizational design is necessary to:
  • Build a start-up or transform a business
  • Unlock organizational effectiveness to achieve business outcomes, improve disconnected processes, or drive consistent ways of working through alignment of work
  • Optimize resources and associate potential through role clarity to solve productivity problems
  • Accelerate the business and empower real-time decision-making
• An organizational design initiative should answer these questions: 
  • Are the spans of control & organizational layers aligned appropriately?
  • Does the leader have direct line of sight into critical/strategic activities?
  • Is there a clear career path? Does the design avoid problems such as “blockers” or unrealistic jumps in the career ladder?
• However, organizational design is NOT:
  • Strategy, structure, processes, metrics or people practices independent of one another – although it involves all of these.
  • A quick fix for missed goals, high turnover, poor performance, etc.
  • Focused on team building, training, trust falls and ice breakers.
  • A “soft” way to address low annual associate survey scores.
• As you approach an organizational design, ensure you leverage these agile practices:
  • Prioritize: Focus on a few initiatives rather than trying to do everything at once.
  • Create a Backlog: Shift to a proactive mindset by developing a long-term roadmap of OD items to be addressed. 
  • Co-locate: Streamline collaboration via co-location in a designated work room for design sessions or the entirety of the project.
  • Work in Sprints: Divide the work into small incremental steps.
  • Engage a Feedback Loop: Provide progress updates to your customer (EVP/Sponsor) and gather new or changed requirements along the way.
  • Iterate: Adapt and change based on new information vs. adhering to the initial baseline scope and requirements. 
  • Create a New Normal: Implement changes as the business is ready; do not wait for an ‘event.'