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Tales_from_the_Corporate_Frontlines_The_Importance_of_Organizational_Structure
| Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: The Importance of Organizational Structure
This article relates to the organizational structure
competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys.
It shows how structural concerns can affect the typical employee
workday, as well as feelings towards your organization's
management hierarchy and reporting structure. A healthy
organizational structure is one that arranges the activities of
the enterprise in such a way that they contribute to the goals
of the organization. Specifically, this competency looks to see
if your employees clearly understand who they report to, as well
as measure their sense of accountability to the organization.
Evaluating this competency can be especially useful if your
organization has recently experienced an organizational
restructuring or might be considering one in the future.
This short story, The Importance of Organizational Structure, is
part of AlphaMeasure's compilation, Tales From the Corporate
Frontlines. It illustrates how upheavals in organizational order
interfere with the flow of work and how important it is to
address problems immediately.
Anonymous Submission
My office neighbor, Chris, slammed a stack of binders onto his
desk and grumbled for the third time that day. I 'd kept quiet
for the first two, but now I had to know what the problem was.
What's up? I peeked around the corner into his cubicle. Chris
rolled his eyes and told me how, three times that day, he had
carried his finished report across the huge building to three
different people. Every one of them sent him away, claiming that
he or she was not the manager responsible for reviewing and
acting on Chris' reports.
I crept back to my chair as Chris vented, " There is no
organization around here anymore. I used to deliver the finished
work to Joe, but he retired. Then it went to Diana, but she was
downsized. Now, nobody's sure where it goes!"
As the day progressed, I noticed that this was not an isolated
problem. I heard of various employees around the company going
through same futile motions. A recent downsizing seemed to have
thrown the organizational structure of the company into
upheaval. Direct reports changes, managers were assigned to
additional departments or transferred to new ones. People were
beginning to panic.
Later that afternoon, we all received a memo. It contained a
rough outline of the new organizational structure along with
information about meetings taking place that would smooth the
rough edges. There were a few gaps left by the reorganization,
but action was being taken to fill them as soon as possible.
We all felt much more at ease. Chris found out where his reports
belonged; he walked off whistling. Things calmed down and work
resumed as the sense of accountability of my fellow employees
was restored.
When you work for a fairly large company, its organizational
structure is like the backbone. Employees get nervous when their
chain of command is not clear or even if it's missing a few
links, as in the situation I've described here. But it helps to
know that those in charge are aware and will take the required
actions quickly.
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© 2005 AlphaMeasure
Employee Surveys, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
This article may be reprinted, provided it is published in its
entirety, includes
the author bio information, and all links remain active.
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About the author:
Measure. Report. Improve your organization with AlphaMeasure employee
surveys.
Josh Greenberg is President of AlphaMeasure, Inc.
AlphaMeasure provides organizations a powerful web based method
for conducting employee surveys.
Launch your employee
engagement survey with AlphaMeasure.
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