A new operating model for R&S in a changing governance landscape
Client
Flemish Government entity
Role
Organisational developer - centralisation, redesign of the operating model and collaboration with AgO
With the transfer of statutory and contractual selection procedures to AgO, in line with the broader centralisation policy of the Flemish government, the entity's own Recruitment & Selection function reached a turning point. Part of the HR consultants moved along to AgO, while the internal team was redrawn. The question went beyond structure: what is the renewed mission of R&S within this new context?
Historically, the HR consultants were provincially distributed and centrally coordinated. The transfer to AgO required a review of the internal operating model, a clear delineation of what stays in-house, and a workable collaboration framework between the entity and AgO.
On top of that, an identity question was at play. The role of the entity's own R&S function had to be reformulated, while operational service delivery had to keep running throughout the entire transition.
As organisational developer, we structured the reorganisation in three coherent work packages: structural redesign and central team formation, continuity assurance for ongoing recruitment activities, and formalising the collaboration with AgO through SLAs and operational and tactical consultation structures.
The methodology combined a full-time project lead role with co-creation within the team: weekly focus groups, biweekly sprint cycles, sounding-board moments with stakeholders and process-oriented working groups. The 'waterline principle' became the guiding framework to sharpen responsibilities between the entity and AgO.
The turning point came when the team started speaking about its renewed mission instead of about what was 'going away' to AgO. The boundaries were no longer experienced as loss, but as clarity: this stays ours, here we add value, here lies our collaboration.
From that moment, the centralised team took ownership of the new core process, and the operational collaboration with AgO could be set up from shared expectations instead of from ambiguity.
A reorganisation that only touches structure misses its deepest lever. When you tackle structural redesign, continuity care and a new collaboration model at the same time, room emerges for a redrawn identity of the function itself.
The department evolved from a provincially distributed group of consultants into a centralised, clearly bounded and future-oriented HR service. Organisational design then becomes an invitation to name again what you stand for, instead of only an exercise in boxes and lines.
