Chapter 13: Organization, Work, and Human Resources Process Redesign at Smith & Nephew Orthopaedic Division: A Case Study

A review of Smith & Nephew Orthopaedic Division’s organization, work and rewards intervention offers and opportunity to observe how and organization can totally restructure its work process and overhaul human resource system components in a relatively short period of time in order to achieve a significant impact on operational performance.¹ This intervention was a centerpiece of the “Workforce 2000” initiative at Smith & Nephew, which was designed to transform how the company developed and delivered its products.

A Workforce 2000 Design Team was responsible for the transformation, which resulted in:

• The overall redesign of the organization into a team-based structure;

• The design of individual work roles and responsibilities to support the new organization;

• Career paths for individuals/work roles;

• Staffing requirements for the new organization;

• Skill-based pay to support the work roles on teams;

• Performance criteria for skill-based pay;

• A performance management program; and,

• Variable pay (Goalsharing).

The Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics case study is an example of the implementation of a “Cyberlink” Virtual Workplace. The cyberlink model is the most advanced virtual workplace model, utilizing cross-functional teams that traverse an organization and its external partners.

This article provides a virtual workplace context for the case study, outlines a brief history of Smith & Nephew’s Orthopaedic Division, an overview of how the Design Team performed its work, details on the program components, and lessons learned from the experience.