5.1. Recommendations at the level of the Commission

Reinforcing the forward planning function

More attention should be given to forward-oriented thinking in the Commission. Environmental scanning would help to identify drivers for change and monitor them on a permanent basis thus pre-empting future events before they happen. However, the main focus should be on translating this external change into internally relevant actions, stimulating discussion within the Commission of what this change means for its own services and its staff.³⁰ This could take the form of a strategic unit within the Secretariat General or a Taskforce across different services that can launch studies, analyse future developments and regularly inform the Commission management.

Adapting corporate culture to integrate a stronger focus on its own staff

Corporate culture should explicitly recognize that the individual employee and his motivation are the key for the success of the Commission. This involves setting the strategic direction that staff involvement is wanted and necessary. Reflections on the role of the individual, staff motivation, staff involvement in the upcoming changes, participatory approaches and relations management-staff are necessary.

Encouraging participatory approaches and management styles of moderation/facilitation

This involves encouraging Directors General to adopt participatory management styles, providing guidance and tools, and using when necessary external coaches and facilitators. Mobilizing staff during reorganisations to contribute to strategic reflections can be part of this shift.

There is a risk that involving staff intensively in reorganisations may raise expectations, which cannot be fulfilled by management and open the way to push through individual interests. However, it should be possible to clearly communicate to staff that this is an open-ended process to collect views and information without obligation by management to follow these findings. Staff is aware of the numerous political and legal constraints and should be able to accept such a pragmatic way of dealing with change.

Broaden the existing Commission framework for reorganisations beyond the legal and administrative processes

This implies updating the Communication on Organisation Charts from 2007 to address the “soft” factors which refer to values, culture, behaviour, and processes (organisation development). It would also be of interest to revise the Communication on Internal Communication and Staff Engagement to put staff engagement in a more comprehensive context beyond communication. Both measures could also serve as a way to get a wide debate going on how the Commission can address the motivation of staff in the challenging times ahead.

Preparing guidelines for reorganisations

A guidance tool for those DGs who will have to implement large-scale reorganisations in the coming years, should be prepared. It should capitalise on past experiences and lessons learned and illustrate best practise. The short Action Plan attached in chapter 5.3 could serve as a basis.

Reinforce the strategic role of Human Resources as facilitator of change, and prepare tools at central level

A renewed attention to human resource units which play a pivotal role during change is necessary. Human resource functions will need to change considerably to evolve towards organisational development.³¹

DG Human Resources plays a key role at central level to prepare the wider Human Resource community in the Commission for this. In particular, the Human Resource units in the different DGs need to upgrade their skills towards facilitating change processes. An important role would be to support staff and managers alike during the change process by providing training and learning opportunities and by offering coaching. A good knowledge of staff, their profiles, skills and aspirations is necessary to help them in identifying job opportunities in the new structure. For this, central support tools and information systems need to be in place (workload assessment, staff screening, electronic CVs in the system, network of external trainers and coaches etc).

³⁰ This function is mainly internally-oriented and different from the function of the Bureau of European Policy Advisors (BEPA).
³¹ See Dorlo C.: The Position of the Human Resources Unit in management change: reorganization of the Directorate General for the Information Society and Media (DG INFSO) Working paper, Brussels 2012