When Anthony Rice, Chief Growth Officer of PeoplePartners, took the stage at Meshed Innovation Day 2025, his message was clear, direct, and long overdue. He emphasized the importance of strategic org design because too many businesses try to grow by simply hiring more people or bolting on offshore staff without fixing the deeper issue: their team structures are broken.
In his presentation, Rice outlined how rethinking roles and responsibilities can radically change a business’s performance, cost base, and leadership bandwidth. This wasn’t theory. It was a wake-up call for RTO leaders, CEOs, and operations heads who feel stuck in the weeds.
The Problem Most Leaders Ignore: You’re Not Designed to Scale
Rice began with a bold statement: labour is your biggest expense, and it’s probably bloated. Not because your people aren’t working hard, but because the structure of work itself is inefficient.
Leaders and high performers are often buried in tasks that should never land on their desks. Team members are juggling overlapping responsibilities with no clear KPIs. Support staff are running on reactive energy, constantly shifting priorities without a long-term workflow.
Rice asked the audience to imagine how much more margin and momentum they could unlock if they simply rebuilt their org chart from scratch. Not to add more roles, but to design smarter, more focused ones.
In this section, his message echoed the insights in our blog How to Scale a Business Efficiently with Workforce Re-Engineering. Clarity, not complexity, is the goal.
The “Before and After” That Changed Minds in the Room
One of Rice’s most memorable moments was when he compared two different business setups:
- A business spending $500,000 in labour to generate $700,000 in revenue
- After re-engineering, labour drops to $250,000 for the same output
- Then, with global staffing applied, labour drops again to just $75,000
The difference? No change in revenue. Just better structure.
This example hit home. It wasn’t about growth through sales. It was about growth through design. Businesses don’t need to chase 20 percent more revenue when they could be operating at 80 percent less cost.
You can read more about this approach in our article Mastering Workforce Re-Engineering Made Easy. It builds on the same logic Rice shared and gives practical steps to redesign teams.
The Real Blocker: Your Org Chart
Rice’s visuals made it painfully obvious. Most businesses are running with outdated, ad-hoc team designs.
In one example, a single business owner was carrying the weight of HR, operations, marketing, and compliance. The team below them had little clarity, no defined KPIs, and overlapping job descriptions.
Rice then flipped to the re-engineered version. Suddenly, the same team had:
- Clear lines of accountability
- Roles mapped to actual business outcomes
- A mix of onshore and offshore support in the right places
- Time freed up for the CEO to focus on growth, not admin
This isn’t about cost cutting. It’s about setting up your business to work.
As Rice said, “You don’t need more people. You need a better structure.”
What is Workforce Re-Engineering, Really?
In practical terms, Rice described Workforce Re-Engineering as a three-step process:
- Clarify what roles actually need to exist
- Redesign those roles to be focused, not bloated
- Decide which roles should be onshore and which offshore
This is the foundation of how PeoplePartners supports clients. But Rice’s talk showed that the mindset must shift before the model does.
In his words, “We’re not just rearranging chairs on the deck. We’re rebuilding the ship to go faster.”
If you want a deeper dive on how this works in action, check out Workforce Re-Engineering Insights. It walks through a real client transformation.
Why Offshore Hiring Fails and How to Fix It
A key theme in Rice’s talk was the difference between offshoring and strategic global staffing.
Too often, businesses add offshore staff just to patch gaps. They hire virtual assistants with no clear structure, no training, and no integration plan. The result? Frustration.
Rice flipped this thinking. Offshore hiring should be the final step, not the first. Once roles are redesigned and outcomes clarified, offshore talent can add incredible leverage, but only when deployed with intent.
That’s why PeoplePartners has invested in training and preparing offshore talent who are already equipped for the unique demands of education and training organisations.
These aren’t general admin assistants. They are domain-trained professionals who understand compliance, student support, enrolments, assessments, and the operational systems used by RTOs and higher education providers. From day one, they’re ready to integrate and add value where it matters most.
For more on how to make global hiring truly effective, see our blog Full Workforce Partner: A Smarter Offshoring Approach. It unpacks how to align structure, outcomes, and offshore talent so your team works as one.
What Attendees Took Away
Feedback from the room was immediate and telling:
- “That one chart collapsing labour cost from 71% to 11%? Game-changer.”
- “I finally understand why my team feels busy but not productive.”
- “We’re offshoring right now, but it feels chaotic. Now I know why.”
Rice’s ability to simplify complex business redesign into visual, actionable shifts made a big impression. He didn’t sell a service. He offered a solution to a problem most leaders know they have, but don’t know how to solve.
Where to Start if You’re Feeling Stuck
If you’re a CEO, RTO owner, or education ops leader who feels like your team is overwhelmed or underperforming, Rice’s session was a clear invitation: start with structure.
Begin by asking:
- What roles are essential, and what are just “how we’ve always done it”?
- Who is doing tasks they shouldn’t be doing?
- How much time are you, as a leader, spending on admin vs strategy?
Then go deeper:
- Map your current workflows
- Identify where clarity is missing
- Segment roles into onshore vs offshore
You’ll likely find you don’t need more people. You need the right people in the right seats. And that is the PeoplePartners difference.
Ready to Re-Engineer Your Team?
Anthony Rice’s message at Meshed Innovation Day wasn’t just a talk. It was a playbook.
If your team feels bloated, if margins are tight, or if your growth feels stuck, you don’t need a bigger team. You need a better structure.
Contact us today and let’s walk you through your current org chart. We’ll show you what to keep, what to change, and how global staffing can amplify your capacity without adding complexity.
Let’s re-engineer your workforce for scalability, efficiency, and profitability.
