Beyond the Org Chart: How CHROs Need to Approach Organization Design

The first step in a successful organization design is understanding stakeholder priorities and workflows.

For CHROs, organization design is not just a structural concern

It’s a strategic imperative — one that directly impacts a company’s ability to achieve its goals. In an era when agility and resilience are paramount, CHROs face the complex challenge of aligning organizational design with strategic priorities. This alignment not only enhances employee engagement and drives innovation but also optimizes operational efficiency. Through intentional organization design decisions, CHROs have the opportunity to transform their organizations, ensuring sustained success in a rapidly changing business landscape.

Build Readiness for Transformational Change

Combat change fatigue and boost employee engagement during transformational shifts.

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    Limit disruption through strategic organization design

    Over half of CHROs are concerned that they do not know the optimal future-state design for their organization. Intentional design focuses on protecting successful elements while implementing necessary changes, to ensure alignment with new goals and minimize disruption.

    Foster resilient organizations that can adapt and thrive

    Traditional, top-down approaches often rely on intuitive design — leader-led decisions based on gut feelings or past experiences — which can lead to misalignment with workflows and strategic goals. Intentional design focuses on how work happens or should happen in any future state. It creates well-aligned structures that support strategic objectives, enhance workflow efficiency and foster a culture of innovation and adaptability. Here’s how to approach organizational design with intention.

    Understand workflows before redesigning the organization

    Effective organization design requires more than just aligning with business strategy; it demands a deep understanding of how work happens within the organization. CHROs must avoid the pitfalls of intuitive design, which can overlook the complexities of workflows and team dynamics by focusing on formal structures and box-filling exercises. To achieve intentional organization design, CHROs should first set the strategy, then redesign workflows before resetting the structure. This intentional approach reduces role confusion, resistance to change and gaps between formal structures and informal networks.

    Define the vision for a new organization design

    Collaborate with stakeholders to define the purpose, vision and expectations of a redesign. Key questions include: 

    • What are the business unit’s primary sources of revenue and its major cost categories?

    • What is the business unit’s competitive advantage (or disadvantage) compared with its competitors?

    • What are the biggest challenges facing leaders of the business today?

    • What are leaders’ key business goals for the next two to five years?

    • What are the business’s primary strategies? How does leadership plan to execute on these strategies?

    • How will we know if the business unit is successful? What will we measure?

    Prioritize and shortlist organization design goals

    Once the vision and purpose are clear, assist business leaders in ranking the most significant goals of the redesign. For example, operational goals might include innovation or efficiency, while context-specific goals could focus on digital transformation and inclusion. Prioritizing these goals helps align redesign efforts and manage focus effectively, moving away from the intuitive approach of addressing too many goals at once.

    Address conflicting priorities in organization design

    After identifying the top goals, address potential conflicts and points of tension. One stakeholder’s priority might inadvertently undermine another’s. Intuitive design often overlooks these conflicts, leading to misaligned efforts — which often become apparent too late in the day. Mapping these priorities enables CHROs to guide leaders through navigating conflicting and compatible goals, ensuring a cohesive and intentional redesign strategy.

    Organization design FAQs

    What is the role of the CHRO in organization design?

    The CHRO aligns organization design with strategic goals by supporting business leaders in their understanding of workflows, ensuring employee perspective is integrated into new designs and collaborating with leaders to implement intentional changes.

    How can CHROs manage resistance to organization design changes?

    Engaging stakeholders early, clearly communicating the vision and benefits, and involving employees in the design process reduce resistance and foster acceptance. Co-designing change processes with employees significantly reduces resistance and drag as employees feel a part of, and ownership for, new ways of working and the organization’s design.

    What are common challenges in organization design, and how can they be addressed?

    Challenges include resistance to change and balancing short-term disruptions with long-term benefits. Solutions involve clear communication, stakeholder engagement and focusing on protecting successful existing elements.

    Drive stronger performance on your mission-critical priorities.