Holacracy

Netcentric is a company in Information Technology and Services which includes marketing automation, personalisation, business consulting, technical consulting, business operations and application operations & support

WHAT IS THIS HR INNOVATION ABOUT?

The company implemented the Holacracy approach which replaces traditional management hierarchy with a “peer-to-peer” system:

employees have multiple roles, in different teams
traditional hierarchy is replaced by “interconnected but autonomous teams”, so-called “circles”
“governance meetings”: frequent updating of roles and processes in order to deal with the rapid changing environment
Holacracy constitution: complete transparency in the company (even for CEO)

WHY WAS THIS INNOVATION IMPLEMENTED?

Netcentric wants to preserve its “start-up spirit, the transparency, and quick, intelligent decision making that is its organisational DNA”. The company wants to prevent internal issues from jeaopardizing the purpose of the company and their commitment to engage their employees in a collective purpose. The Holacracy has thus been implemented in order to make sure that the company can still follow its main purpose regardless if there are 50 or 500 employees.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN BENEFITS?

more creativity and continuous learning as employees have different roles (thus different competencies)
no “leaderless” groups or autocratic micromanagement that slows the organisation down
transparency: makes distributing authority easier because everyone knows who is doing what, makes sure everyone is following the rules, etc...

COUNTRY: Companywide

YEAR: 2014

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