Business Reengineering at a Large Government Agency

Abstract

A team of consultants undertook reengineering the delivery of compensation and benefits at a large quasi-governmental agency. Benefits included six programs which accounted for several time intensive processes such as “cafeteria plan” options for individual and family health coverage, a health benefits open enrollment period where information is dispersed to assist employees in plan selection; thrift spending account; and retirement accounts. In addition to the benefits portion, a myriad of compensation programs existed. Many of these hadn’t been used in years, although available to all employment levels in the agency. In all, thirteen programs were to be reengineered in a twelve week period. A complicating factor was the structure of the organization. The organization included five senior vice presidencies, ten area vice presidents, eighty-five district managers, and many more levels of functional managers. The many levels and sheer number of vice presidents created overlapping spans of control stretching across the agency’s domain with regard to people management, resulting in a negative effect on operations. Notwithstanding some of these factors that were outside the dominion of the reengineering team, the team created its own set of obstacles. Personalities, management styles, skill levels, expectations, waffling team membership and leadership were shared concerns among the team members. However, these concerns remained largely unspoken and certainly were not resolved. Despite what could have become a disastrous experience, the core team survived to build a telephone call center that will one day grow into a national center, handling all the compensation and benefit needs of this organization.