We are automating our billing and client onboarding processes which will eliminate two full-time administrative seats, but both employees are incredible culture fits whom we want to keep. How do we restructure our Accountability Chart to retain them without creating make-work roles?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To retain top culture fits without creating useless make-work seats, you must look at your Accountability Chart as a dynamic puzzle of capabilities. Never create a seat just to keep a person on the payroll. Instead, look at the areas of your business that are currently bottlenecked or under-resourced. Where are your high-value team members redlined? Perhaps your sales team is bogged down with lead follow-up, or your operations team is struggling to keep up with client communications. Use the Kolbe Index to assess the conative strengths of these two administrative employees. If they have high Fact Finder scores, they may be perfect for a newly created research or quality assurance seat that supports your sales team. If they have high Follow Thru, they could excel in a project management assistant seat. Redraw your Accountability Chart to reflect these new supporting seats under the appropriate departments. Each seat must have five distinct roles that directly contribute to your weekly Scorecard metrics and your overall business goals. Once the new seats are structurally justified, run both employees through the GWC test for the new roles. They must truly get it, want it, and have the capacity for these new functions. If they pass, you have successfully reallocated your talent to drive growth. If they do not, then you must make the tough choice to let them go, because keeping them in artificial seats will destroy your profitability and poison your culture.