1. Layers and Spans – getting it right
Suzanne Hudson - LGA
John Bruce Jones – Stanton Marris
Date
22nd July 2011

2. This session:
Considers the changing expectations of our workforce of the future and the evolving nature of the ‘employment deal’
Reflects on different management levels and how they add value
Explores what this means for future public service organisations
What I do hope to share with you are some insights on the huge changes in the world of work over the past 40 years by considering the employment experiences of staff employed in 1975, those employed in 1985 and now 2015 and the expectations for 2025 – which will mean what it means to employ generation Y or the millennials as they are called - who will make up 75% of the world’s working population by 2025!
I want to also reflect on research done by Birmingham University on the 21st Century worker and share with you my thoughts on how this may shape the evolving nature of the “employment deal” in the future and what actions we may need to consider….

3. So to some research to help us think of the future public servant…..
We will require a municipal entrepreneur, working co-productively, who will be rewarded for their ‘soft skills’ – there will be a strong ethos of publicness that understands commerciality.
Public Servant will have the resilience to survive in an era of perma-austerity - where organizations will have less permeant boundaries, more flexible, flatter structures and be led by collaborative and distributed ‘local’ based leadership rooted in the identity of the place.
This will require authentic citizen interactions. Careers will be self-managed, portfolio based not professional where taking risks won’t mean there’s a high chance of losing your job…”

4. Future of work….Millennials?
Millennials (or Generation Y) born 1990s to the early 2000s.
Transparent Leadership
“Meaningful” Work
Work in teams to accomplish goals
Remote working norm
Results over “degrees”
Change the meaning of “face-time”
End of annual appraisals
Work as a game
Reflections on slide…..

5. Future Challenges today
Knowing the ‘value’ of engaging your talent
A culture for Generation Y and Z’s – review/scrap policies and procedures
Aging Workforce – utilizing their talent as well
Portfolio jobs and multiple careers
More virtual working = agile + flexible workforce
Less need for managers
New skills and scarce skills
More personal empowerment, calculated risk taking and innovative approaches
Pay and Rewards much more tailored to individual preferences and contribution
So what do we do now to be future ready?
Understand where you talent is how it is engaged and the value it brings,
consider whether your practices and policies are they counter intuitive to the needs of the younger generation,
have you really tapped the power of experience and knowledge in the older workforce? Do you retain and attract the right experience by offering roles that are bespoke and person designed?
How do you share the talent and skills between employers and allow for multiple simultaneous employees to work across organisational cultures, careers and job roles?
What steps are you taking to create virtual teams that lead to more empowered, agile and flexible working and workers?
Does this naturally lead to less managers?
What new skills will you need? What scare skills can you predict and act to resolve?
Have you got the right investment in your workforce to maximise the right return on your spend? Do you know the tipping points? Will the market always deliver talent?

6. What is the DMA approach?
A proven way of creating an effective organisation and an efficient management structure.
A way of establishing the number of layers of management that an organisation needs
Demonstrates how management layers add value to the front line and to each other.
It can be used to look at a particular service area, a whole organisation, shared service, partnership or creating a new commercial structure.
healthy hierarchy

7. DMA organisation design framework Level 5 example
Accountability
Level
Example Job (and Layer
in a Healthy Hierarchy)
Nature of
Leadership
Council CEO (Layer 1)
Level 5
Managers
(based on
accountability,
not job title)
Director (Layer 2)
Level 4
‘Senior Manager’ (Layer 3)
Level 3
‘ Middle Manager’(Layer 4)
Level 2
Team Leader (Layer 5)
= Supervisors
Level 1
Supervised first line employee (Layer 6)

8. How many layers? 23-74% of jobs in layers too far below the CEO
Croydon ~ 4000
Worcs ~ 6000
Wolverhampton ~6000
Kent ~14,000
Maximum allowed layers = 6 or 7
Layers found 9-11
23-74% of jobs in layers too far below the CEO

9. Why apply DMA?
It’s flexible and can be applied before, during or after restructuring.
It can sit at the heart of performance management and reward
It gives you a new and lasting capability to develop your organisation
It creates management effectiveness
It’s a bottom-up approach which works to ensure that front-line managers are supported to deliver the best services to the customer
It stops treacle!

10. Key Learnings
Radical – you are challenging the assumptions of Senior Managers who have ‘always done things this way’
You learn and save just by conducting the analysis!
You need to invest in the ‘to-be’ because you are changing expectations.
DMA is an Organisational Development tool not simply an Organisational Design methodology.

11. Working an example: Level 2
Brief descriptions of the accountability space in 4 of the 7 elements
Draft behavioural competencies
How do these apply to the Level 2 managers you work with?
Where are the gaps and development needs?