Digital technology, changing workforce demographics and speed of innovation are causing companies to redesign organisational structure, evolve leadership models, and drive an employee-centric culture and experience.
Sweeping global forces are reshaping the workplace, the workforce and work itself, with Deloitte research findings claiming that 92 percent of business and human resources (HR) leaders having identified the critical need to redesign their organisation to meet global business demands.
In surveying over 7,000 HR and business leaders from 130 countries, including New Zealand, Deloitte claims only 14 percent of executives believe their company is ready to effectively redesign their organisation.
In the first three years of the study, respondents placed a high priority on increasing employee engagement and retention, improving leadership, and building a meaningful culture.
The 2016 study found, for the first time, nearly half of respondent companies (45 percent) are either in the middle of a restructuring (39 percent) or planning one (six percent).
Deloitte New Zealand’s human capital consulting leader Hamish Wilson says organisations need to keep pace and meet the demands of this rapidly-evolving business ecosystem.
“By empowering teams, creating a new management model, and developing a younger and increasingly inclusive leadership structure, organisations are reinventing themselves to innovate, compete and thrive,” Wilson says.
“This year’s research clearly indicates that companies are overhauling their organisational structure and shifting toward cross-functional networks of teams in an effort to become more agile, collaborative and customer-focused.”
Wilson says there are a number of other factors driving these organisational changes:
- Generational diversity - The workforce is simultaneously getting younger and older as millennials with high expectations for personal growth work side-by-side with baby boomers, many of whom are delaying their retirement.
- The new digital world of work - Almost three-quarters of executives (74 percent) have identified digital HR, the complete redesign of HR tools and services around digital technology, as a top priority.
- Design thinking - This is a developing new discipline focused on employee-centric strategies, that is transforming companies' approach to managing, supporting and training their workforce.