How to Determine the Organizational Structure of Your Selected Organization
An organizational structure is an operational framework that defines an organization's operational relationships, strategic objectives and scope of authority. Operational relationships comprise the routine duties and responsibilities of employees while strategic objectives focus on the long-term planning activities. The scope of authority determines the limits of the management and employees in exercising power, control, influence, coordination, delegation and information. You can choose to adopt either centralized or a decentralized organizational structure depending on its performance objectives. Centralized structures restrict authority to the top management, whereas decentralized structures delegate authority to departments.
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Instructions
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Develop a strategy that will form the basis for running the activities of your organization. It is at this stage that you should decide whether to should adopt a top down organization or functional departmentalization. A top-down organization is based on tightly controlled hierarchy in which decisions are made by senior managers and communicated to the lower levels for implementation. Functional departmentalization, on the other hand, is based on a network of functional teams that collaborate in decision-making processes.
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Draft questionnaires and use them to gather the views of employees about their preferred management structure. Consider the relevance of the views to your overall organizational management strategy. Employee suggestions will enable you to review their job titles and job descriptions from an informed perspective and gain greater understanding of their work place experiences.
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Choose the appropriate organizational structure to be designed and implemented. Consider the relevance of either the centralized structure or decentralized structure to the nature of your organizational activities. A centralized structure would be more appropriate for a hierarchical organization that requires tight controls whereas a decentralized organization would be appropriate for a functional organization that runs independent departments or autonomous operational units.
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Design your chosen organizational structure and assign titles, duties and responsibilities to the different management and employee positions at the different levels of the organization. Avoid overlapping duties and responsibilities for different positions because this would lead to duplication of duties.
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Specify the mechanisms for monitoring and reviewing the effectiveness of your organizational structure to ensure its consistent compliance to your operational and strategic objectives.
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Tips & Warnings
Draw a chart of the organization structure to serve as a detailed, but simplified illustration.
Give room for errors at the trial stages because a new organizational structure is prone to unexpected setbacks at the initial implementation stages.
Do not ignore the input of the employees and top management in determining the organization structure to avoid resistance to change during the implementation process.
