posted 12 February 2001 09:29 PM               

Fundamentally the company has approx 100 employees spread through six offices throughout Australia and two in Asia. They didn't have any form of org structure to start with, which makes it interesting trying to define levels of authority and the like.

In attempting to get agreement (unsuccessfully) on slotting people into certain levels and groups, the board didn't like the way the existing structure was looking, and is attempting to re-structure it from a location and skills based methodology to alignment with our 5 main customer business streams of:
Mining,
Defence and aerospace,
Building, construction and infrastructure,
Power and process and
Automotive.

The main problem centres around the recruitment of Business Development Managers (BDM), one for each business group. They get commission on the $ volume of work performed under their industry group, so the more work they muster, the more they get paid. However, they have no relationship with those personnel who control the local office resources, or do the work. The BDM may be one state and the job in another 4000Km away. So how can the BDMs ensure the work prospect is followed through? Basically the BDMs don't want to know, they want to expect that the work will just occur.

Any thoughts?

posted 13 February 2001 08:00 AM               

Why would they not want to know if their
$ were results based? -

posted 13 February 2001 06:26 PM               

2. Yes, a business development manager is like a salesperson, except they don't get involved in the delivery of the product/service as such. Their task is to increase the volume of work $ generated by drumming up more work, more customers, etc.. Seems to involve lots of trips, drinks, lunches, dinners, and ego stroking. Come to think of it, maybe we're paying them too much!

One possibility for the structure is a matrix approach, but I want to make the picture (chart, diagram, etc) clear for people to comprehend at a glance, i.e. see where they fit in to the organisation.

Ideas please?

posted 14 February 2001 07:33 AM               

And often we laughed (and cried too)- at the results.... Some thought they had 3 supervisors - some thought they worked independently and in fact reported to no one.

We took the employee information & mapped it out without regard for who "management" thought they should report to. Then said to ourselves "SELF" does this make business sense?

Not sure this answers your question but it may be a place to start.

Regards
Jim

posted 14 February 2001 08:07 AM               

I might suggest that you take an alternate approach to creating the Organizational Chart. Here is what I propose.

Use Deming's View of a System to explain relaitionships.

In your job descriptions, show the reporting hierarchy of the organization.

The View of the System will need to be modified a bit from the format presented by Deming for the fact it demonstrates a single organizational system. If I understand your posts correctly, the boundaries of your system spread to multiple locations. Include this in you modified view.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Kevin