We led an organization redesign effort for a large county agency in Santa Clara County (California’s fourth largest county). This agency had 900+ employees at all levels of the child protective services system, assisting families and children interacting with state and federal agencies.

The agency implemented a complete organizational redesign driven by drastic budget cuts, integration of Casey Foundation Family to Family principles, and results of independent management and audit reports.

In addition to external drivers, redesign priorities targeted lower caseloads for fair distribution of work, and changing the organizational culture to focus on continuity of relationship with clients.

Finally, redesign of major processes involved employees at all organizational levels, and created new understanding and agreement to support the agency’s new organizational structure. The agency’s successful redesign met all stated goals and prevented layoffs, while meeting substantial budget reduction targets (including both state and federal matching funds). The redesign demonstrated the agency as a leader in social services nationwide for forward thinking in service delivery, positioned the agency to meet upcoming mandated changes at state and federal levels, and preserved jobs going forward in an era of continued budget cuts.

Note: the agency is unionized, and all changes required negotiation and agreement with four separate union chapters. Relationships with union representatives improved significantly throughout the redesign process.