Project reference · HR consulting · Food production
Asked to cut a fifth of the jobs, we first found out where the hours went.
An international industrial bakery wanted its plant to cost less. The brief from the owners was blunt: twenty per cent fewer people. After two weeks on the shop floor we told them that most of the lost hours came from how the work was organised, not from too many people. So we changed the order of things. We mapped the work and the skills first, protected production, slimmed the management and support layers, and settled every management exit by mutual agreement.
Audit before any reduction
Method
Production left untouched
Priority
Every exit by mutual agreement
Labour law
Weekly report and time sheet
Transparency
Nine months, one plan
Measure, restructure, then reduce
The work-time study showed where the hours went: cleaning and maintenance teams concentrated on the day shift while production needed them at night, orders entered at several points instead of one, and three management layers between the technicians and the line. We drafted a leaner structure, tested it with the managers in the plant, and only then agreed the first exits. The skills matrix came before any names went on the new organisation chart, so that nobody indispensable was let go by mistake.
The brief
What the owners asked for, and what the plant needed
The plant ran on long shifts, with a large management team and support departments that had grown around production rather than for it. A smaller reduction a few months earlier had already caused unrest. The owners wanted a fifth fewer people, quickly, and without putting a single delivery to their main customer at risk.
We proposed a short HR audit first, priced in modules, and a plan only after that. The client's head of operations agreed in one line. In the first weeks we read every HR document, interviewed the department heads, observed working time in maintenance, sanitation and internal transport, and compared each department's headcount with a comparable plant.
The hard parts
Where it gets difficult
A target set before the facts
Twenty per cent was a board number. Our first report showed that cutting heads alone would only move the problem. The answer was to fix the processes first and let the reduction follow from them.
A plant that cannot stop
The main customer's quality and volume requirements came first. Every change in our plan was placed in management and support functions, and production was left alone until those functions were strong enough to carry it.
Exits that hold up
Every management departure was negotiated and signed as a mutual agreement, with the documents checked by the client's own lawyers. The contested route was prepared in case it was needed. It never was.
People who had seen cuts before
An earlier, smaller reduction had nearly ended in open conflict. We drafted the rules and the election process for an employee council and for health-and-safety representatives, so that changes could be discussed with staff before they were announced.
Knowledge that walks out of the door
Before anyone left, every department filled in a qualification matrix: who can do which job, at which level, and who could stand in. It became the plant's training plan and its insurance against losing the one person who knew a machine.
Billing a client can audit
We charged by the hour against a capped budget per step, and sent a time sheet and a short report every week. When the scope changed, the next step was quoted before it started.
What we did
Audit, concept, implementation, measures
- Weeks 1–2 · Audit. HR documents and systems, interviews with every department head, working-time sampling and a benchmark against a comparable plant, with an update report after each week.
- Month 2 · Concept. A new structure with a single order entry point, overlapping eight-hour shifts for support teams, fewer management layers and outsourcing options for non-core services, each with a headcount and cost effect.
- Months 3–6 · Implementation. Management exits by mutual agreement, rules for an employee council, the skills matrix across 19 departments, and plant-wide presentations to managers and staff.
- Months 6–9 · Measures. Departmental KPIs, 5S workplace audits, failure-mode analysis for the laboratories and a maintenance programme, each with an owner inside the plant and a final report to the owners.
A headcount target is easy to write down. The work is making sure the plant still runs, and runs better, the day after the people have gone.
In the client's words
“As we discussed, we plan first your audit and then we will do the final plan.”
The client's head of operations, approving our first offer, 2013.
How we work
We do not show you another company's name
The client, its owners and its people are not named here, and they will not be named in a meeting either. We are glad to talk this project through in detail. What we will not do is discuss the last client that way with you, or you with the next one.
Next step
Under pressure to cut costs in a plant you cannot stop?
Give us two weeks on site. You will get a costed picture of where the hours go, and a plan that does not start with a list of names.