When you have 14,000+ free talent at your disposal, it’s not hard to go crazy with redesigning your organisation. That’s exactly what I did yesterday. In the past, we had a very simple structure. This time I departed from simplicity to complexity adopting a matrix organisational structure. At the outset, this seems not an effective design, but I brought forward what we are trying to do to the forefront and designed the organisation to be as effective as possible. Time will tell how effective the new organisational design is.
Let’s take a look at the core structure, which now includes:
- Volunteers Team
- Customers Team
- Operational Team
- Product Team
- Agile Country Teams
The Operational Team’s role is to support the Volunteers and Customers Teams. It includes:
- Support Team
- HR Team
- Marketing Team
Support, HR and Marketing team members will be allocated to Volunteers and Customers Teams. Up to now, Volunteers Team has been the most dominant one due to serving the first target, i.e. acquisition of Volunteers.
Whilst we have a target of adding 100,000 Volunteers in our 3rd year, we further need a stronger team for customer acquisition, i.e. 1000 customers by the end of year 3. The new design gives both teams the autonomy they deserve to bring the talent they need to grow SkilledUp Life.
For completion, here is the structure for the Product Team
Finally, let me introduce the new Agile Country Teams, which are made up of the same team members. This structure gives an extra dimension to take a country-led strategy while continuing to serve the globe.
If you are an organisational design specialist (which I am not), what pitfalls do you see in this design?
Have you undertaken an organisational design course? Or are you an HR professional with a growing interest in organisational design? Would you like a soft ground to practice what you have learned?
