How to Handle Poor Organizational Structure

An organizational structure defines the hierarchy of people who work together to achieve goals. Organizations characterized by high staff turnover, poor productivity, low customer satisfaction and decreasing profitability typically require changes. Improvements typically increase employee morale and enable business results to achieve a competitive advantage. Properly handling a poor organizational structure involves closely examining the current design in order to reengineer it over time. Changing an organizational structure can be time consuming and costly, so unless there is a great urgency, work within your current structure until you gain senior leadership sponsorship for major shifts in priorities and processes.

Instructions

1. Identify business conditions that cause operational problems due to your current organizational structure by distributing an employee survey to gather input and suggestions from the people experiencing challenges.

2. Identify current roles and responsibilities to assess your organization's ability to deliver on commitments and set expectations accordingly. For example, if you determine your development team is also responsible for providing customer support, you must prioritize activities so that project milestones and customer service level agreements are both met.

3. Analyze employee feedback to identify gaps in the organizational structure that prevent effective work flow. For example, employees may lack training on the use of new equipment, software or procedures. Poor organizational structure can prevent employees from describing their operational needs effectively. Once you have identified these gaps, you can respond by proposing possible alternatives to your executive management team.

4. Focus your organization on a common vision and strategic goals. Implement business processes that support these goals to compensate for the poor organizational structure.

5. Align all work to your company's strategic goals, rather than the organizational structure. When tasks align to your company's goals, increased productivity and reduced waste leads to better financial performance for the company as a whole.

6. Ensure employees have clear performance goals and development plans in place. When people understand their responsibilities, they are more likely to express commitment and loyalty to the company mission.

7. Monitor your new processes and improve them as directed by employee (and customer) input.

8. Adjust your organizational structure to reflect the best way to achieve business goals. Establishing a flat hierarchy (one without too many levels), decentralized reporting, shared responsibilities and open communication that enables employees to respond rapidly to situations tends to yield the best results.

References

• "Designing Organizations: An Executive Guide to Strategy, Structure, and Process;" Jay R. Galbraith; 2001
• "Organizational Strategy, Structure, and Process;" Raymond Miles and Charles Snow; 2003
• "Designing Your Organization: Using the STAR Model to Solve 5 Critical Design Challenges;" Amy Kates and Jay R. Galbraith; 2007