The tools provided here, including a Strategic Organizational Planning Process (SOPP) model, can be used to foster a dynamic change in how staffs are trained, developed, managed, and led. The results of successfully implementing these changes include productivity gains without additional capital expenditures, a more satisfied workforce, lower turnover costs, and a more effective relationship between management and staff.
In today's organizations, staffs are undervalued, misdirected, misunderstood, disrespected, and undereducated businesspeople. They are often ignorant of what their true role in the organization should be. They are valued for their specialized knowledge, but are rarely seen by senior management as major contributors to the bottom line. For this reason, staffs are ripe targets for reorganization, reengineering, or reduction, with little or no consideration of consequences other than the immediate impact on corporate profits.
Whose fault is this situation? Is it merely a product of poor organizational design, or ineffective strategic planning? There exists a significant gulf in the understanding of staffs' roles in furthering organizational success on the part of all parties: line management, staff management, and the staff members themselves. Yet while the blame can be widely shared, only an effective staff manager can change the situation for the better.
About the Author: JOHN F. WALSH has studied organizational and human behavior for over four decades from a variety of vantage points--he has served as a member of senior management across a broad range of staff functions, including human resources, administrative services, environmental affairs, facilities management, and customer service. In addition to his staff experience, he is also an experienced line manager, having created, developed, and managed the operations of a human resources consulting group for a national consulting firm. His career spans a period of profound changes in the structure of the global economy, and he has witnessed how leadership and management practices have grown in concert with those changes and the resulting formulations of organizational designs to meet the challenges of the competitive market.
