People & Organisation
A new organisation chart changes very little until the approval matrix, the reporting pack and the bonus plan describe the same organisation. We redesign all of them together.
Our perspective
People and organisation work at THEFOCUS covers how a business is structured, governed and run: organisation design, operating models and decision rights, change adoption, capability building, performance management and incentives, and workforce planning. We design the structure and then rebuild the systems that carry it, including approval workflows, reporting lines in the ERP and CRM, management reports and scorecards, so the new organisation is the one people work in.
Most reorganisations are announced on a chart and carried out in a slide deck, while the systems that run the business keep the old shape. Purchase approvals still route to the manager who moved. The CRM still assigns accounts by the former regions, the monthly pack still reports the old divisions, and the bonus plan still pays on targets written for roles that no longer exist. Staff read these signals every day and work to them, so a few quarters later the business operates much as it did before, under new job titles.
We treat the structure and the systems that describe it as one design. When a new decision right is agreed, the approval limit in the ERP changes in the same release. When a role changes, its scorecard, its reports and its incentive measures change with it, and the old versions are switched off. The small team that designs the organisation also configures those systems, and specialist partners join for areas such as reward design or learning content when the engagement calls for them.
We start from the records. Approval logs, ticket queues, rota and timesheet data, and the reports managers actually open show where decisions get made and where work waits. Those records often contradict the official chart, and the gap between the two tells us where the design work should begin. We work this way with hotels, marinas, car rental operators, retailers, construction businesses and wholesale suppliers, where the same pattern shows up in different systems.
How we help clients
Organisation Design & Structure
Structures, spans and reporting lines designed from how work and decisions flow, then written into the systems that route that work.
ExploreOperating Model & Governance
Decision rights, approval limits, governance forums and management routines, defined on paper and enforced in the systems where decisions are recorded.
ExploreChange Management & Adoption
Change plans measured by what people do in the new systems and processes, with the old routes retired once the new ones work.
ExploreCapability Building & Academies
Practical skills programs built on the client's own systems, data and decisions, so teams can run and extend what has been built after we leave.
ExplorePerformance Management & Incentives
Scorecards, targets and incentive measures aligned with the strategy and calculated from system data that managers and staff can check for themselves.
ExploreStrategic Workforce Planning
Headcount and skills plans built from bookings, orders and project pipelines, so staffing follows expected demand by role, site and season.
Explore
Business challenges
01
The chart and the systems disagree
The announced structure says one thing while the ERP approval hierarchy, CRM territories and system permissions still say another. Staff follow the systems, because the systems decide where their work arrives.
02
Decisions that wait for one person
Approvals pile up with a founder or a regional head because nobody wrote down which decisions sit where. The approval log shows the queue long before anyone complains about it.
03
Incentives that pay for the old strategy
Bonus and commission schemes pay on revenue while the strategy asks for margin, cash collection or retention, so the new priorities lose every daily trade-off on the sales floor or at the front desk.
04
Change that stops at the training session
A new tool or process launches with a training session, then usage drifts back because the old spreadsheet is still available and still trusted by the managers who built it.
05
Headcount copied forward from last year
Workforce plans roll last year's numbers forward instead of starting from bookings, orders or project pipelines, so peak seasons run short and quiet months carry cost.
How we approach it
Map the organisation as it runs
We read approval logs, system permissions, reporting lines, queue data and the reports managers use, and compare them with the official structure and role descriptions.
Design roles and decision rights before the chart
Each role gets its accountabilities, decision limits and measures written down and tested against recent real decisions before any chart is published.
Change the systems in the same release
Approval workflows, access rights, report packs, scorecards and incentive measures change alongside the announcement, and the old versions are retired on a set date.
Measure adoption from usage data
System logs show whether people use the new routes, reports and tools. Where a team works around the design, we find out why and fix the cause.
Relevant industries
How outcomes are evaluated
- Share of approvals routed through the designed decision rights, against those escalated or bypassed
- Time decisions wait in approval queues, before and after the change
- Usage of new reports, workflows and tools, measured from system logs
- Share of roles whose scorecard and incentive measures match the agreed strategy
- Gap between planned and actual staffing against measured demand
Scope boundaries
- We do not give employment law advice. Contract changes, consultation, redundancy and terms of employment stay with the client's employment lawyers and HR advisers.
- We do not run executive search or recruitment, and we do not place candidates.
- We do not run payroll or process pay. We design incentive measures and the calculations behind them, and the client's payroll function or provider calculates and pays.
How an engagement with THEFOCUS starts
A first conversation is about your situation. If there is a fit, we propose a scoped diagnostic with a fixed deliverable before any larger commitment.
Discuss this with us01
A working conversation
Forty-five minutes with the person who would lead the work. We ask about the decision, the systems behind it and the deadline.
02
A scoped diagnostic
Read-only access, a fixed timeframe and a written finding: what the records show, what it costs and what to change first.
03
A plan you can act on
Changes, owners, measures and exclusions in writing. The same team then builds and measures, or hands over cleanly.
- One accountable team
- The people who diagnose also build the systems and measure the result.
- Partners chosen per problem
- Independent specialists join for the parts that need them, under one contract.
- Records before dashboards
- Orders, ledgers and logs are reconciled before any recommendation depends on them.
Questions executives ask
Do you design organisation charts or implement them as well?
Both. We design the structure, roles and decision rights, then change the systems that carry them: approval workflows, permissions, report packs, scorecards and incentive measures. The engagement ends when the business runs on the new design.
Do you advise on redundancies or employment contracts?
No. Where a design affects contracts, consultation or headcount, your employment lawyers and HR advisers own those decisions and processes. We give them the design and the data behind it.
Which systems do you usually change?
Whichever ones carry the organisation: ERP approval hierarchies, CRM ownership and territories, helpdesk queues, BI report packs, scorecards, and the spreadsheets that calculate commissions and bonuses before they reach payroll.
How do you know whether a change has been adopted?
Mainly from system usage. We check whether approvals follow the new routes, whether the new reports are opened and whether the old workarounds are still edited, and we report those figures to the sponsor each month.
Who does the work?
A small accountable core team, joined by independent specialist partners chosen for the engagement, for example in reward design, learning content or a particular platform. The same team designs the change and builds the systems it depends on.
Which sectors and regions do you work in?
We have worked with organisations in the United Kingdom, Türkiye, Australia, the United States and the Gulf, in sectors including hotels, marinas, car rental, retail, construction and wholesale supply.
Discuss this with us
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