Success Stories

Newham Council Uses OrgPlus for Change Management Programme

London Borough of Newham uses OrgPlus for Change Management Programme.

Newham Council is the local authority responsible for providing public services and political leadership within the London Borough of Newham to 250,600 residents. Additionally, it will provide services to tourists visiting the Borough for the 2012 Olympic Games. With more than 11,000 employees, the Council must be structured in an effective way in order to deliver planned objectives.

One of the Council's initiatives for 2006 was to implement a major change management programme. The goal was to create a new organisational structure in an effort to increase public accessibility to Council services. The new structure needed to adopt twentyfive revised services which would replace the existing six departments. The increased structural complexity highlighted the need for organisational management tools.

The Council's human resources manager was tasked with the challenge of providing accurate, detailed information to enable senior managers to plan and implement the required changes. To accomplish this, the Council needed to integrate its Midland HR database with its internal IT systems. Only through integration could relevant and timely information be produced and strategic decisions accomplished effectively.

Updated organisation charts with detailed information about employees played an important part in the Council's plan for a change management programme. Historically, creating charts was a labour intensive process for two full-time members of staff. The charts were printed on A3 size paper, and were limited in showing only the top line management team. A reoccurring problem was that charts became obsolete as soon as they were completed.

Communicating with staff about the required changes and getting their support for the new structure presented unique challenges. In order for employees to embrace the changes and implement them in a timely manner, the structure required a simple format which was easy for employees to access.

As soon as the IT and HR systems were integrated, OrgPlus software automatically produced the Council's organisation charts. More than 5,000 employees were initially charted with a batch file running over the weekend to collect the data.

Installing and configuring OrgPlus is extremely intuitive. The Council's human resources manager easily configured OrgPlus to the HR system without previous training. The software manages co-workers and dotted line relationships and it automatically highlights problem areas such as staff with 'unassigned positions'.

The new Council charts were updated to show the whole organisation, including a wealth of data on each member of staff such as their name, location and job title details. Charts were automatically updated with the correct information from HR and payroll system data feeds.

HumanConcepts is the leading provider of workforce modelling and intelligence solutions. With its OrgPlus technology charting millions of employees for organisations worldwide, including 400 of the Fortune 500, HumanConcepts has defined best practices in organisational charting. OrgPlus integrates with HR systems to automatically create, update and distribute organisational charts for team collaboration, workforce planning and critical decision-making. OrgPlus integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Office applications.

HumanConcepts is based in California with offices in the United Kingdom and Germany and offers OrgPlus software and services worldwide. For more information visit www.orgplus.co.uk.