Is this the end of job titles and formal company structures?

A recent survey by Investors in People states that three quarters of the working population are bored and frustrated at work and a similar survey by consultancy DDI has found half of employees feel they could do their job ‘standing on their head'. This trend has also been recently reflected by the award winning BBC comedy The Office, where the character of Tim is crushingly aware of the pointlessness of his work.

So what has created this issue in recent years? HR has gone through a change of heart in terms of what is most effective, a previous focus on cost saving resulted in a centralising of functions where people are responsible for just one task and perform it day in and day out. Although saving costs, companies are now paying for this move in a lack of productivity due to bored, stressed, unmotivated and underutilised workers. Interestingly psychologists have proven that those most prone to boredom are those with high abilities who are in jobs that they find to easy.

Large companies and SME's who have identified this issue have looked at how they can re-motivate their workforce to get the best productivity from them as well as satisfying their personal aspirations to prevent the negativity of boredom. World wide leaders such as Gortex and Axa among many others are instigating significant change programmes that focus on individual skills and capabilities and the SME sector is also looking to benefit.

The new look of success

It is proving to be effective to remove formal structure and the restraints of job

titles and to think of the individuals skills and how they can add value to projects. At Goretex Number one best company to work for in the UK, according to the Sunday times 2004 annual review, there are no directors or managers all staff members are call associates and 85% of employees love working for the company.

Employees are assessed on primary and secondary skills and put into ‘Resource Pools' which group people by skills which can be used by the company.

For example – ‘Employee A' can have a primary skill in Project Management but have a secondary skill in IT. They are added to the Project Management resource pool at a high level and the IT resource pool at lower level. When a business project comes up requiring their skills they are allocated to a project's ‘Job Family' requiring their primary skill and they can volunteer if they have free work time to be a part of another project's ‘Job Family' using their secondary skill in order to improve their knowledge and experience. A Job Family being a group of people with the required skills between them to complete the project.

So ‘Employee A' can perform their main skill, develop their secondary skill or be utilised to do both at once see the project examples below:

Jean Bertrand de Lartigue, lecturer at Cardiff Business School and Chairman of HR specialists HR2all explains; “By recognising that a person is more than their job title company's can ensure value is added, skills are developed and money is actually saved. This fluid model is especially useful in a SME environment ensuring an employee is working productively for every hour they are at work, if they are not performing their main skill they can be developing their secondary skill and further assisting a business needing that resource. By being able to move around an organisation morale and recognition is increased, as well as offering a challenge and allowing the employee to understand more of the business as a whole. If an employee does not know the company as a whole they cannot be expected to proactively contribute to its success. ”

Implementing the change

Change of this nature will inherently produce some resistance from employees. Many saying; “I could do that if only I have the chance” may seem less than eager if actually given the chance, but this is more down to fear of the unknown and of failure. If the change is communicated to employees as an opportunity to excel in their primary skills and that they will receive help and mentorship if developing new secondary skills, many employees should react positively to the change.

Remuneration will also be seen as an issue; people will be paid by skill (a common practice already in call centres) and can potentially earn more by developing new skills that can assist the company. Equally employees who do not wish to have a secondary skill but want to just concentrate on improving their primary skill should also be rewarded. Those employees who are happy in their repetitive roles should also not be forced into work they don't want to do. The key to success is the buy in by the higher management in the company, if they are willing to allow line employees to develop and to sometimes take a back seat themselves the change should implement successfully.

The reward scheme is very important and should be seen by all as “fair”. The most successful schemes are those that include team members input to decide the remuneration of each individual according to their contribution to the team success.

“The move away from centralisation gives employees freedom and the opportunity to manage their development and keep their own motivation going, job rotation will alleviate the boredom factor and the added skills make them a more valuable asset to the company.” continues Jean Bertrand de Lartigue.

HR2all advise the following when considering a change to a fluid structure:

With companies in Europe adopting a more fluid structure and with many companies in the UK already in the change process now would be the time to consider a change. In markets where the difference in a competitive edge is only slight, the early adopters of modern HR techniques will take the lead, and those who follow will have an uphill struggle to keep up and to retain employees who may actively seek out other companies with a more motivating structure.

Jean Bertrand de Lartigue concludes; “The next time you see a member of staff yawn, think about whether they are really adding as much as they can to your companies productivity and also ask yourself whether you know what all their skills are. If the answer is no then take the time to know your employees and you could be amazed at what skills you have hidden within your organisation.”

If you would like to learn more HR2all are offering a series of free seminars to business owners and leaders covering today's modern HR issues and techniques. For more details go to Beprostaff.