Advanced HR Organisation Design and Transformation Training Course

Course overview

HR functions are under pressure to reduce duplication, clarify ownership, improve service delivery and respond to workforce changes without losing critical capability. Senior HR practitioners must make defensible organisation design decisions that connect strategy, operating model, spans and layers, roles, governance and workforce cost. This requires more than drawing organisation charts: it requires evidence-based analysis, structured stakeholder engagement and a practical route from current-state diagnosis to implementation.

This five-day course develops the capability to lead HR organisation design and transformation initiatives. Participants work with operating-model principles, work and activity analysis, capability mapping, role architecture, decision-rights design and workforce segmentation. They learn to assess spans and layers, model structural options, build transition states, quantify people implications and identify risks affecting employee relations, reward, talent and service continuity. Change methods including stakeholder mapping, ADKAR change planning and transformation governance are applied throughout.

Teaching combines expert-led design sessions with a running HR transformation case, hands-on analysis and peer design reviews. Participants use Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visio and OrgVue concepts to create a current-state diagnostic, target operating model, design principles, role and governance map, implementation roadmap and change plan. They leave with an organisation design transformation pack that can be adapted for a live business unit or HR-function redesign.

The course is suited to experienced HR professionals, HR transformation specialists and business leaders who contribute to structural change. It is particularly valuable where an organisation is centralising services, establishing a shared-services model, redesigning HR business partnering, integrating after an acquisition or responding to cost and capability requirements.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Diagnose an HR organisation using spans-and-layers analysis, activity data and workforce cost baselines
• Define design principles that translate business strategy into measurable organisation design criteria
• Map HR operating-model accountabilities across centres of expertise, HR business partners and shared services
• Build role architectures using capability profiles, job families and critical-role segmentation
• Model structural options and compare their cost, capacity, service and implementation implications
• Design decision rights and governance using RACI matrices and escalation paths
• Create a phased transformation roadmap with transition states, dependencies, risks and ownership
• Produce an evidence-based organisation design business case and stakeholder change plan

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• HR Directors and Heads of HR — who must sponsor or approve structural and operating-model changes
• HR Transformation Leaders — who lead redesign programmes across HR services, processes and technology
• HR Business Partner Leaders — who need to reshape partnering capacity, accountabilities and service interfaces
• Organisation Design and Development Specialists — who analyse structures and facilitate future-state design decisions
• People Analytics Leaders — who provide workforce, cost, span and capability evidence for design choices
• Shared Services and People Operations Managers — who need to define scalable service delivery and hand-offs

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in an HR, organisation development, transformation, workforce planning or business-partnering role. They should understand core HR operating-model components, including centres of expertise, HR business partners, shared services and employee lifecycle processes, and be comfortable interpreting headcount, cost and workforce data in spreadsheets. Familiarity with RACI, stakeholder analysis and basic project planning is helpful. Participants should bring a laptop with Microsoft Excel; prior use of OrgVue or Microsoft Visio is not required. No statistical programming, finance qualification or specialist organisation-design certification is required.

Training methodology

The programme is delivered through instructor-led design briefings, worked HR transformation examples and a five-day case based on a multi-country HR-function redesign. Participants analyse workforce data in Microsoft Excel, sketch structures and governance in Microsoft Visio, and use OrgVue-style scenario logic to test design options. Small groups act as an HR transformation design team, presenting recommendations to a simulated executive steering group. Daily exercises build sequentially into an end-of-course transformation pack and a 90-day application plan for each participant’s workplace.

Course outline

Day 1: Diagnosing the current HR organisation

• Business strategy drivers and HR transformation triggers
• Current-state organisation diagnostic framework
• HR operating-model archetypes and service-delivery patterns
• Work activity analysis and demand-volume baselining
• Spans and layers metrics for HR structures
• Workforce cost, capacity and productivity baselines
• Stakeholder interviews and evidence-triangulation methods

Workshop: Participants complete a current-state diagnostic for a case-study HR function and produce a prioritised problem statement supported by workforce and service evidence.

Day 2: Designing the target operating model

• Organisation design principles and design criteria
• Centres of expertise, HR business partner and shared-services accountabilities
• Customer segmentation and HR service catalogue design
• Capability mapping for strategic and transactional HR work
• Role architecture, job families and role charters
• Decision rights using RACI and RAPID frameworks
• Governance forums, escalation routes and performance ownership

Workshop: Participants draft target operating-model principles, a service-delivery model and a RACI matrix for the case-study organisation.

Day 3: Testing structural and workforce options

• Structural option generation and design hypotheses
• Centralisation, decentralisation and hybrid model trade-offs
• Organisation chart modelling in Microsoft Visio
• Scenario comparison using OrgVue-style workforce modelling
• Headcount, cost and capacity impact assessment
• Critical-role identification and talent retention risks
• Control spans, management layers and decision-speed analysis

Workshop: Participants model three target-structure options and produce an option appraisal showing cost, service, capability and risk trade-offs.

Day 4: Leading transformation and implementation

• Transformation governance and programme decision gates
• Transition-state design and implementation sequencing
• Change impact assessment by stakeholder group
• Prosci ADKAR Model application for HR transformation
• Employee relations, consultation and people-risk planning
• Communications architecture and leader messaging
• Benefits tracking, leading indicators and adoption measures

Workshop: Participants build a phased implementation roadmap, change-impact assessment and risk register for their selected target-state option.

Day 5: Building the case and mobilising action

• Organisation design business-case structure
• Financial narrative and non-financial benefit quantification
• Executive decision papers and recommendation framing
• Stakeholder mapping and influence strategies
• Design-review facilitation and challenge techniques
• Transformation dashboard and governance reporting
• Ninety-day mobilisation planning and action ownership

Workshop: Participants present their complete HR organisation design transformation pack to a simulated executive steering group and receive structured peer and instructor feedback.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visio, OrgVue, Prosci ADKAR Model

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions