Organizational Design Challenges
Just like the managers look for the organizational deigns that will most suitable support as well as facilitate the employees in doing their jobs in manner which is more effective and efficient, contending with a few challenges on the way is highly important.
Keeping the employees connected
It was the twentieth century when the design concepts of many of the organizations were developed. During that time the work that was done at the place of the business of the employer under the very supervision of the manager was quite constant and predictable. Most of the jobs of these people were of a constant nature and were full-time and they carried on for an indefinite period of time. For example, you will find several employees of the Sysco Systems just sit at desks which are unassigned to them in the team rooms and they are interspersed with the communal recess areas. You will find at some of the divisions of the IBM company, only a few employees such as the assistants and their boss who are top managers of the company have their own offices or fixed desks. For the others, they either are mobile employees of the company or need to share their desks when they require to work at the office. At the company Sbra Holding, the employees have to find their own place of work when they enter the office building and also the teams of employees are given certain neighbourhoods of the workspaces.
You will find that these examples will pose as a challenge to the managers in terms of major essential design. Thus the managers will have to find a way which is much more flexible while also keeping the mobile as well as the diverse employees in touch with the organization. The discovery of mobile and the communication technology have given both the employees and the organizations several methods to more productive and stay in touch with the organization they are a part of. For example, take the instance of handheld devices having calendars, contacts and email services that you can use at any place irrespective of whether there is a wired network connection present there. these services work with wireless connections and do not require internet.
Also these exact mobile deice can also be used for the purpose of logging into the company intranets and the corporate databases. The employees can also video conference with their colleagues and bosses with the usage of Webcams and the broadband network. There are several organizations who are also giving their staffs key fobs with passwords or encryption codes which constantly change. These key fobs allow the employees towards logging into the corporate network for the purpose of accessing the company e-mails as well as the data of the company with the help of a computer which is connected to a proper internet connection. The cell phones can switch in a seamless manner between the cellular networks as well as the connection of the corporate Wi-Fi. The only big issue reacted to working at any time and at any place is the matter of security. It is necessary for the companies to preserve and protect the information that is sensitive and private. Luckily the heavily advanced disabling devices with latest software technology has minimized the very issue of security to quite a considerable amount. The insurance providers are also quite comfortable in giving out their information to their employees such is the strength of the software nowadays. The health Net Inc. has given Blackberry phones to several of his managers so that they are able to extract the customer information from anywhere at time. as was said by the CEO of a famous tech company, the companies can start to make apps which are much more innovative that can be created as well as delivered to their workers from anywhere.
Managing Global structural issues
Ask yourself the question. Does the organizational structure comprise of global differences? Do the United States organizations have the same structure as that of the Australian ones? Is there similarity between the organizational structure found in Mexico and France as that of German? Based on the global condition of the current business environment, it is of utmost importance that the managers are familiar with this particular issue. It has been found by the researchers and they have come to the conclusion that there is similarity between strategies and structures of organizations all over the world and they also maintain a cultural uniqueness while maintaining the behaviour within them. With the point of view of the efficient and effective structures, what is the difference between the culture and strategy has to do with it? It is important that the managers think of the implications that certain elements of the design have culture wise while they are changing or designing structure. For example, it has been shown by one study that certain organizations who have people coming from countries such as France, Latin America and Greece which are of high power have employees who accept the mechanistic structure much more in comparison to the employees who come from the low power and distance countries. There are several other structural designs which might also get affected due to the difference in the culture.
Thus irrespective of the structural design chosen by the manager for the organization, it is important that the chosen design helps the employee to do their work in the best possible manner efficiently and effectively. The structure chosen also needs to facilitate and support the members of the organization as they complete their work for the organization. At the end of the day, the structure of the organization is simply to bring end to the means.
Links of Previous Main Topic:-
- What is social responsibility
- Managing change and innovation
- Managers as decision makers
- Foundations of planning
- Strategic management
- Basic organizational design
- Adaptive organizational design
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