Making a global telecoms company agile

How does simplifying organisation design increase a company’s performance?

A multinational telecoms company had grown over time through acquisitions. As a result, it had a complex organisational structure that employees were having difficulty understanding. Customer interactions with the company were in turn complicated, as it wasn’t clear which roles covered which responsibilities. The company wanted to be agile and fit for the future, but that wasn’t possible with the legacy baggage they were carrying. Their IT infrastructure was creating silos, as it hadn’t been streamlined during growth, creating many discrepancies across the company, including employee roles, rights and contracts.

Their organisation needed simplifying, clarifying and standardising. And they asked us to develop the new organisation structure and help them transition to it. Working with the HR leadership team and people across the business, we looked to reduce the number of levels and simplify job titles, making a clearer hierarchy where people understood their individual roles. Doing this gave us insight into people’s capabilities and allowed us to set up standard contracts, policies and procedures. It also gave people bigger, broader roles allowing them to have better career progression.

Tracking progress towards a new shape of company

We managed the project overall, with one of our industry experts leading in the role of programme director. The Baringa team designed the implementation programme and then tracked the client’s transition progress towards the new organisation structure. Each team was responsible for their own design, supported by our organisation design experts who helped them weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of different options. Then we developed the closure checklists for the whole programme and for each unit.

Better inside, better outside

The company went from 26 layers to six. Creating a flatter, simpler organisation means tasks are completed more efficiently, decisions are made more quickly, and the company is more attractive to the best talent and more intuitive to customers. The success of the project has also led to Baringa being entrusted with more of our client’s complex challenges such as embedding D&I in their organisation and improving employee engagement.

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"Baringa have been at the heart of a number of the key HR programmes – including our strategic organisation design programme - over the last couple of years. I have been impressed with the way they have delivered these programmes working collaboratively with my team and feeling and acting like one of our team - there is no them and us. They roll up their sleeves and get things done in an understated way leading brilliantly, and calmly. The calibre of the people is incredibly strong; their flexibility, pragmatism and outcome focus has been appreciated and above all their understanding of our ways of working and the stakeholder landscape helps them navigate our business and get things done."

CHRO, Global Telco