County Police Force
Problem: The client was a county police force, with a recently appointed Assistant Chief Constable. One of his major concerns was an apparent confusion within the management teams of operational divisions about the role and contribution of HQ functional departments. Seeing an opportunity both to clear up the confusion and rationalise the HQ structures, (with a possibility of cost saving), he commissioned a Networker application.
Result: The workshops that routinely accompany Networker projects revealed all the sources of confusion between operational units and HQ, as well as clarifying the exact nature of the problems. A number of revised supplier / customer relationships were worked out during the sessions, based on two-way processes as, in every case, both members of pairs of transacting parties were both supplier and customer.
A side effect, that was not expected, was that a complete layer of management was removed from the organisational structure, as the only identifiable role for that group was that of 'internal banker'. As was noted, this job could be done by a relatively junior employee from the Finance department. The cost savings were substantial, as the people concerned were used to staff functions that otherwise would have meant additional recruiting.
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