Author: naomiorgdesign

I'm a week behind on my reading of the Economist so I've just caught up with the piece in the July 14th – 20th issue on the way BMW builds flexibility into its shift patterns 'for example extending shifts by 30 minutes, adding extra ones …' and making 'liberal use' of temporary workers. (See: Back above the bar again.

http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9469031).

Both points suggest organization design questions. For example: What impact does adding in extra shifts have on HR systems (like payroll and productivity). How do managers make the decision to put in an extra shift and what are the processes for doing so?

Managing temporary (and contract) workers is another thorny design issue. The answers to such questions on whether they should be included in training events, subsidised meals or other things that payroll staff get all affect motivation, productivity, and performance (of both the temporary workers and the permanent workers).

My brother pointed out an improvement possibility in my email signature block. He noticed that the url pointing to my new book was very long (in fact broken over two lines) and that made it difficult to activate the link.

He suggested using a tiny url (see: http://tinyurl.com/) instead and then acted for me. So in tiny url my book, Guide to Organisation Design, is available

at Amazon UK: http://tinyurl.com/2r9m8m

at Amazon USA: http://tinyurl.com/3cw236

What I enjoyed about the suggestion was a) that my brother saw a process improvement idea and acted on it and b) that the orginator of the idea did similarly.

It's often difficult in organizations to successfully act on an idea.