At AKG Canada, a major contract won in 2019 rapidly became unprofitable due to unforeseen market shifts caused by COVID. With no ability to reduce headcount outside admin staff, a budget structure of only 8% opex to 92% payroll, and a multi-year fixed-rate agreement that ruled out rate increases or new business, the only lever available to restore margin was a targeted rightsizing effort paired with a full service delivery redesign.
I led the effort to map every role against revenue-generating impact and partnered with operations leaders to redesign service delivery models across the organization. At the outset, performance was only tracked at the per-location level, and per previous leadership's philosophy, poor individual performance was never communicated to the teams responsible for it — case managers had no idea they were underperforming. I set clear, individual-level performance standards and targets for case managers based on the interventions and revenue activities that actually moved the needle, communicated them transparently, and built incentives around them. Working alongside the Directors of Business Admin and Operations, we identified which interventions generated the most profit for the least effort in each department and built more specific processes to increase average revenue per client interaction — including a billable service that was significantly underused relative to client need despite case managers already being qualified to deliver it.
Within two quarters of rolling out individual KPIs, the contract moved from underperforming in every region provincially to 2nd place among all contractors in the province. By end of fiscal year, the contract turned from a projected loss into a 35% margin — a shift directly attributable to intervention volume and mix per case manager, since no rate increases or new business were possible during that window. Turnover spiked 22% in the first quarter as the new standards took hold, then dropped and stabilized in line with historic levels; regrettable exits rose only 2% before stabilizing as well, showing the redesign drove performance without sacrificing the workforce.