At the current time many companies are restructuring their teams to make savings but in the hope of increasing productivity.

The problem is that too many teams fail to achieve their anticipated outcome. In fact our research shows that only 60% of restructured teams increase productivity. The benefits have more to do with saving wages and staff costs.

A few months ago a business restructured its sales team. Territories have become larger, management reduced and incentives cut. All necessary business strategies.

However, the new team’s assimilation was poorly undertaken. Rationale for the need for the changes was poorly described to those affected, management went absent after the restructure to work on other projects, as a result morale dropped and a very popular sales manager left to work for competitors.

I was called in to help and after a series of individual and team meetings, changes to old fashioned reporting to remove some team frustrations and changing the office layout the team’s productivity has begun to rise and meet expectations.

The message here is that post assimilation of a team is as as important to the planning part of team assimilation after restructuring.