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Organising the workforce - Coggle Diagram
Organising the workforce
The concept of organisation structure relates to the way an organisation is formally grouped and co-ordinated
Structuring has been used by organisations to gain advantage over competitors to enhance efficiency, control costs, improved communication or increase sales
It is a framework for getting things done and shows how the interrelated groups of an organisation are constructed
Structure within organisations also define how job tasks are formally divided, grouped and coordinated
Structure may be added through tools like job descriptions, business process maps and the organisational chart and may reference degrees of specialisation, centralisation, departmentalisation, chain of common and span of control
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Structure can mean anything composed of parts arranged together in some way and an organisation may be one example, it may also refer to the relationship or organisation of the components such as how a group of people are organisaed
There is overlap with the systems theory and there is some overlap with the concept of structure which can also mean the arrangment of and relations between the parts
Work specialisation
Rather than undertaking a complete job, the idea behind work specialisation is that an individual performs a limited number of tasks that that they understand very well
Complete jobs are broken down into their separate steps and individuals are responsible for a particular step
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Manufacturers typified by Henry Ford identified that work specialisation coupled with assembly line processes could increase production and productively dramatically
Specialisation allows for for efficient deployment of employees' skills as employees can be trained rapidly and cheaply in a particular element of a job
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Breaking down complex operations into simple repetitive tasks pioneered in work specialisation has lead to increased mechanisation (The process of changing from working largely or exclusively by hand to doing that work with machinery)
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Over the last 30 years, work specialisation has become less popular
A number of scholars have argued that specialisation brings efficiency in a predictable environment but demotivates employees as the work can become mundane and cause employees to leave, seeking work elsewhere that is more rewarding
However modern technology is increasingly enabling organisations to deploy industrial and software robotics to undertake these specialised and mundane tasks enabling them to deploy their human workforce more flexibly while benefiting from the efficiency of standardising and automating routine tasks
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Chain of command
The unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the organisation to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom
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Traditionally this chain has run from the chair or president to the directors, the senior managers through to departmental managers to supervisors down to the operatives
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In this model, every manager has a degree of authority relevant to their position in the hierarchy
For the chain of command to work effectively, each person should only have one person to whom they report
Having more than one manager causes conflict and weakens the chain of command, the exception to this rule is seen within the matrix organisation which is a system of management operating in a horizontal as well as vertical organisation structure. Managers in a matrix structure typically report to two superiors, one a departmental or line manager and the other a functional or project manager
In the contemporary organisation, the idea of the chain of command has less relevance, worker empowerment, leaner and flatter structures together with improved communication, mainly through IT mean that traditional views of authority and reporting are being rethought
Span of control
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The greater the number of employees managed, the greater the span of control
Contemporary organisations are seeking to widen the span of control because it reduces levels in the hierarchy and the number of managers needed thereby flattening the organisation
Training, empowerment and devolved decision making mean that an individual line manager now controls many more employees and often with much broader interests
Generally a narrow span of control, where a manager controls a small number of employees allows for greater supervision
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Traditional organisations having tall hierarchies tend to have many management levels with narrow spans of control
While such structures offer career progression opportunity, their long lines of communication and decision making can make such organisations slow to respond and may discourage initiative and risk taking at operational levels
Flatter more contemporary organisations have fewer management levels, typically no more than six and a wide span of control
The flatter organisation normally requires employees to become empowered and undertake some of the work that may have traditionally been done by a higher level worker or manager
Flatter organisations tend to be more responsive and employees are motivated by increased responsibility but may be demotivated by a reduced opportunity for career progression and promotion
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