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Clay Jones, Rockwell Collins chairman, president and CEO, at left, with Bill Richter, senior vice president of human resources Photography by Thomas Lindfors

The HR department at Rockwell Collins was in a state of flux.

On December 8, 2000, Rockwell International had announced a decision to spin off Rockwell Collins as an independent, publicly-traded company.

Bill Richter, senior vice president of human resources for Rockwell Collins, knew the HR organization would need to be restructured to match the needs of this new company. "Our processes and programs needed to go through a major overhaul — and time was critical. We needed to redesign HR prior to our planned spin-off."

The department needed to get ahead of the game and create an HR organization that could meet the corporate demands of a "new" Rockwell Collins. Richter brought the idea of redesigning HR to Clay Jones, Rockwell Collins chairman, president and CEO, who was extremely supportive.

Richter's goals were to develop a cost-neutral plan, provide closer alignment between HR and the businesses, design an organizational model that would be more responsive to employees and help them to be more productive, and create a structure focused on strategic planning.

"I wanted help regarding the redesign process and to understand what other companies were doing," he says. "We had successfully worked with Watson Wyatt in the past on M&A integration, so they were the obvious choice."

The Planning Begins

The first step was a three-day, off-site workshop with HR and non-HR employees. "We wanted to hear from a variety of people, so we took a diagonal slice of the corporation and invited a number of employees to join in," says Richter.

The workshops allowed the HR team to garner broad input and collect data on the current HR environment, and to learn what was broken and what was working well. At the same time, Watson Wyatt conducted a study, which included a series of one-on-one interviews with senior leaders, to assess the business issues and human capital challenges.

"Through these sessions, we attempted to identify the company's key business needs, objectives and drivers," says Watson Wyatt consultant Paul Smithivas. "We also inquired about what changes were anticipated when Rockwell Collins went public and how HR could be more responsive to the businesses."

Seven key business priorities for HR evolved from those interviews: resource acquisition, best place to work/retention, training and development, change management, M&A integration/alliance management, leadership excellence and diversity.

Rockwell Collins At a Glance Leader in electronic communications, avionics, in-flight entertainment systems Annual sales of $2.5 billion Customers: aircraft manufacturers, 400+ airlines, major share of world’s military forces HQ in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Approximately 15,000 employees 60 locations worldwide Holds 600+ patents Recognized for Lean Electronics, a company-wide initiative to enhance customer value through elimination of process waste

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