CBA Recruitment 7200 The Quorum Oxford Business Park Oxford OX4 2JZ

Organisational Review and Recruitment

Just Good Friends or Intimate Bedfellows?

Our Technical Director had taken a call from a client, an HR Director who had been appointed just over three years before to a company with a UK manufacturing base supplying high tech process control equipment to a global customer base.  He called to give us the "heads up" that he would shortly be contacting us formally to ask us to find a new Service Manager for their service business in the UK. 

We had been working with this HR Director since shortly after his appointment.  He had responded to a speculative email saying he usually hit the "delete" button as soon as he recognised such emails for what they were but was intrigued by our no nonsense, straight forward approach and would give us half an hour to convince him that he should trust us with his recruitment activities.  Since that meeting we had handled all his managerial and director level appointments and felt that we were developing a true partnership relationship with him and his colleagues.

It was this partnership which ensured our response was trusted for what it was - an informed, professional assessment which otherwise might have received a cooler welcoming.

The HR Director told us that he was due to attend a board meeting later that week at which the quarterly customer satisfaction report prepared by an independent consultancy, commissioned directly by the Chief Executive as part of his quality policy, would be discussed.

The company provides an after sales maintenance and repair service. This report had highlighted serious concerns amongst a high proportion of UK based customers about the quality of support being provided by the company following installation. Many of these processes were operating on a 24 hour continuous shift pattern and breaks in production caused by equipment failure were about as serious as it could get.

The Sales Director had also been relating stories from his sales team about orders being lost as a result of a growing reputation for poor after-sales service.  Despite the HR Director's usual suspicion that this was just another opportunity for the sales force to blame somebody else for their underperformance, on this occasion they appeared to have a point!

The HR Director said it was certain that at the Board meeting blame for the whole sorry mess would be heaped upon the Service Manager who could expect little support from the Manufacturing Director, to whom he officially reported, as he had little time for the service function.  He saw it as a constant drag on his manufacturing resources that only succeeded in distracting him from his real job of keeping the production lines running.

The Service Manager was therefore living on borrowed time and the HR Director expected to be either moving or sacking him after the Board meeting.  Consequently he was calling to ask us to be ready to move quickly.

In a previous existence, our Technical Director worked as both an HR Director and Manufacturing Director in manufacturing and continuous process industries.  In view of the relationship we had built up with this particular company he felt able to tell their HR Director that it appeared to him that they had much more serious problems than a duff Service Manager - if indeed he was duff at all!  He suggested that the pair of them meet before the board meeting, away from site for the sake of confidentiality, so he could share his thoughts.

This was really pushing the limits of the partnership relationship in which we were operating, effectively questioning the managerial judgement of some individuals but, in view of the relationship, the HR Director recognised the value of the offered meeting.

They met over breakfast the following day at the local Holiday Inn.  Our Technical Director put it bluntly. "From what you have told me I think your company has more of a problem with the service function than the Service Manager and I think you could usefully raise the question of where the function fits into the company strategy before getting a new face in to run it as it exists now."

The HR Director was rather taken aback and wanted to know how our man had come to such a potentially radical conclusion on the basis of the previous day's conversation.

"I haven't" he replied. "We've been working with lots of people in your company and it's part of our job to be sensitive to messages, spoken and unspoken, to make sure we have a proper feel not only for what your Company does but also how it does it.

"That history helped put what you said in context. Your customers deal with Sales for new kit but with Manufacturing for repairs and service. That must be quite confusing for them. What's more, service was hardly mentioned in the Candidate Brief we put together when we found your Manufacturing Director for you eighteen months ago.  It certainly didn't figure in the performance measures for his bonus scheme!"

The HR Director got very interested in the conversation at this point. "There does appear to be a lack of joined up thinking here, doesn't there?  Either after sales service forms an important part of our business or it doesn't.  We can't have the Sales Director claiming lost sales as a result of poor service performance but not recognising shortcomings in how we organise and reward the service function.  Neither should we have a situation where multiple points of contact in our company confuse and undermine customer relationships."

Having agreed with our Technical Director's analysis that the organisational problem needed sorting before we took on any recruitment assignment, the HR Director then went for the jugular. "How should we handle this, then?"

"Well, knowing your fellow directors as I do I would suggest three stages.
1. Circulate a short note outlining your thoughts before the meeting. 
2. At the meeting, reach agreement on the level of importance the company attaches to the service package offered to your customers.
3. Obtain agreement to a subsequent "wet towels round the head" session involving the Chief Exec, the Sales Director and the Manufacturing Director facilitated by yourself to map out how the service process works at the moment and formulate improvements."

The HR Director smiled at this point "You realise you may just have talked yourselves out of an assignment?" "That's OK," said our TD.  "Others will come along and we'd rather be associated with a roaring success than an appointment that is doomed to stagger along, at best!"

Postscript:

The suggested review did take place; the Sales Director was given responsibility for the newly established "between sales" function that was set up as a fully-fledged profit centre; the old Service Manager moved to the new service centre as Technical Manager and was judged by the Sales Director to have blossomed in this role and become a firm favourite with major customers; and we were asked to recruit a Commercial Manager for this new business that also now offers service contracts guaranteeing 24 hour a day cover. 

The Customer Satisfaction Report continues to be produced.  "Price" has regained its position as the number one dissatisfier! Service is a jewel in the crown!!