Essay Example on Organizational Structures: 4 Traditional Forms

Introduction

An organizational structure is a framework that defines an organization's functions, such as supervision, allocation, and coordination. These functions are aimed at achieving organizational aims. There are four traditional forms of organizational structure, namely divisional, functional, matrix as well as flat. Organizational structures are important as they guide all the employees by establishing official relationships that facilitate easy and effective governance of the organization's workflow (Huselid, 1995). An organizational structure determines HR practices, such as hiring and retaining staff.

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Organizational structure impacts human resources management in various ways, such as employee engagement. This includes the behavior of the employees, promoting the performance, motivation, satisfaction, passion as well as boosting the morale of the employees. Subsequently, these functions influence the achievement of organizational objectives. However, the organizational structure is not the only determinant of human resources practices. Organizational structures influence the criteria and method used in performance appraisal (Stone, and Stone, 2013). Organizational structures can either promote or inhibit performance. This depends on the effectiveness of the supervisors and their relationship with the employees as well as the influence of the workflow on productivity.

In any organization, employees are a vital resource, and to achieve the objectives; the organization has to set out performance measurement policies. Organizational structures can promote or hinder the performance of the employees. Organizational structures define the structure of different departments as well as the reporting hierarchy (ClaverCortes, ZaragozaSaez, and PertusaOrtega, 2007). Managers are given the power to review the performance of employees at different levels. Organization structure is characterized by decision making authority, reporting relationship as well as control. These aspects determine how well human resource managers can promote employee performance.

In performance management, individuals in the organization are assigned roles and responsibilities. The assigning of the roles is done by aligning the organizational structure with the objectives of the organization (Ahmady, Mehrpour, and Nikooravesh, 2016). Performance evaluation of individual employees should be based on the tasks as well as the responsibilities assigned in the structure. Performance appraisals results give insights into the performance management processes. When designing human resources policies, organizations consider their organizational structure as well as the organizational objectives. Product-based organizational structures emphasize performance criteria policies that are based on the outcomes. This is because they would want to establish they are on track and that every employee is undertaking his/her responsibilities to achieve the organization's objectives.

Organizational structures determine human resources practice through performance (Ahmady, Mehrpour, and Nikooravesh, 2016). Some organizational structures promote participation and allow the employees to establish strategies that can improve the way they perform their tasks. Some organizational structures do not allow teamwork or job rotation. This affects the performance of the employees since there are increased cases of reduced employee morale due to monotony. In such organizations, human resource managers should create policies that align with the organizational structure and its merits and demerits.

Restructuring

Sometimes organizations restructure due to change in the external or internal factors that affect its productivity (Balogun, and Johnson, 2004). Through restructuring, the organization establishes survival and growth strategies. When an organization undergoes such changes it changes its structure to give authority and responsibilities to people who have the skills needed to achieve the objectives. Organizational structures impact constant restructuring. Organizations also restructure to boost efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Organizational structure determines the constant restructuring because the changes are vital, and they occur, for example, during acquisition (Ahmady, Mehrpour, and Nikooravesh, 2016). The executives' opinions in such circumstances determine whether the organization will continue with the restructuring or not. There should be engagement at all levels of the organization, and a consensus has to be reached about the matter. In some cases, some managers may reject proposals of restructuring for fear that the organization will lose focus and finally collapse. Therefore for key changes to be implemented, the employee assigned various tasks to work harmoniously.

During the restructuring, some of the employees as some of the departments may be pruned or merged to reduce operational costs (Benos et al., 2016). The human resources managers, therefore, need to be engaged during the restructuring processes to ensure that the consequences are not severe. After restructuring the organization, the structure may be relatively smaller, which may affect productivity. Before restructuring, the managers look at the organizational structure as it determines the scope, the working relationships as well as sharing of the resources. This is a structure that determines how the activities are carried out hence the necessity of referring to it when restructuring need arises. Even after restructuring the organizational structure should focus on the organization's strategy and attainment of the set objectives.

Bringing human resources managers on board during restructuring helps in ensuring that if the organization's focus is on customized products, the structure is designed to boost individual achievement rather than mass accomplishment (Cascio, 2015). If after restructuring the production involves a chain of activities, the organization structure should support engagement between different levels of management. The type of organizational structure adopted after restructuring, therefore, depends on the type of products or services that the organization wants to focus on.

Delayering

Organizational structures determine human resources, such as delayering (Cascio, 2015). This is a process undertaken in the organization to remove some of the levels of the hierarchy between the highest and the lowest to promote organizational efficiency. Delayering is undertaken to cut down the wage bill by eliminating the middle managers and enabling the senior managers to have direct control over the entire organization. Through delayering, there is increased engagement and motivation since the junior workers do not have to be told what to do by the middle managers.

Delayering depends on the type of organizational structure and provides insights on the levels of the structure that can be removed without affecting the flow of work relationship (HR Zone, 2020). Delayering determines human resource activities such as retrenchment or demoting of employees whose managerial posts have been slashed out. After delayering, the senior managers get more control over the junior employees and make decisions without having to involve any other level of management in the lower tier. Delayering promotes direct communication between the employees and the senior managers and vice versa.

After delayering the human resource managers may be compelled to reassign roles which were carried out in the levels pruned out to other people (HR Zone, 2020). This, therefore, shows the influence of changes in organizational structure to human resource practices. After delayering people whose positions are declared redundant are affected, their morale decreases, and it is the responsibility of the human resource manager to ensure that he/she establishes strategies that can solve the problem. If not retrenched the performance of these workers cannot be evaluated on the same metrics that it was before delaying took place.

The organization structure has implications on human resource practices since the structure determines the allocation of roles as well as the flow of power and authority (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright, 2015). The organization structure determines who answers to who is responsible for what. Through organizational structures, human resource managers, as well as the leaders of the organization, can make each employee accountable.

Organization structure determines the promotion of employees (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright, 2015). When conducting performance appraisal, the manager can identify the employees who have performed their duties well as subsequently promote them to the next highest level base on merit. Whenever there is an alteration in the organizational structure, human resource managers have to make changes to capture the changes in the division of labor.

An organization structure provides clearly defined job roles. Through hierarchical, there is clear responsibility, and each individual is accountable for his/her actions (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright, 2015). The performance of individuals is also evaluated based on the roles and responsibility and rewards are given based on merit. The organizational culture, therefore, facilitates the productivity and accomplishment of the objectives for the organization.

An organizational structure guides the human resources in establishing rules and regulations that facilitate uniformity in decision making (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright, 2015). The organizational structure is designed to facilitate the accomplishment of the organization's objectives. The human resource managers also work towards the same objectives by hiring and retaining employees who are highly skilled and who can drive the organization's agenda forward. The employees are motivated to work hard in accomplishing the organization's objectives. The organizational structures harmonize the operations of the government. When the human resources managers realize that the middle managers or any other level of management hinders the functionality of the organization, they are compelled to undertake the process of delayering.

The human resource practice is influenced by the organizational structure of the organization, and it plays a critical role in ensuring that the organization achieves the objective it was set to achieve. The human resource department needs to understand that it plays a fundamental role in ensuring that the organization achieves the organization's goal that the organization wishes to achieve (Armstrong and Taylor, 2020). The human resource is responsible for structuring the organization and aligning the structure in a manner that the employees and other stakeholders will perform their roles in the best way possible. The human resource department in the organization needs to understand the best strategy to use in aligning the organization in a manner that the stakeholders will be productive and effective while playing their different roles.

There are different theories that explain human resource management to understand the effective ways that human resource managers can use to make employees effective in their work. Human motivation theory explains the importance of motivating employees (Bui, Liu, and Footner, 2016). The theory argues that motivated employees that are satisfied at work are more productive than the employees that are not motivated. The human motivation theory urges the human resource officers to motivate the employees to boost their morale at work and ensure that the employees feel appreciated for the different roles that they play at the organization. Human resource has the responsibility to ensure that the needs of the e...