Pfizer: Improving Employees' Performance & Efficiency - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

Pfizer is a pharmaceutical company in New York founded by two German cousins. Pfizer has put a deliberate focus to ensure that it increases its employees' performance at all levels in the organization. The primary goal of Pfizer is to improve the employees’ effectiveness and efficiency.

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Supporting Work

Pfizer has noticed that the "magic button" is a reality for many employees in the organization. 20%-40% of employees' time is spent in supporting work hence the poor performance of the employees and the company. In 2008, Pfizer launched the magic button to let the company outsource people from India to do the supporting work and allow its employees to do the knowledge work.

The company will be able to create many offices worldwide that will run its operations smoothly. Besides, the information will be easily accessible to all its staff worldwide. Moreover, the structure consists of the six organizational design elements that are essential to any organization.

Specialization

Work specialization leads to a division of labor among the employees. An employee handles a task in which he or she is a specialist. The Pfizer employees will concentrate more on the knowledge work they love; hence they will be more efficient.

Departmentalization refers to the process of placing together employees with the same skills and knowledge in a specific field. Pfizer has increased departments by outsourcing team in India to do the time-consuming works.
Chain of the command shows the flow of authority in an organization across the different departments. There is no change at Pfizer as the physical proximity is farther among the staff.

Span of Control

A span of control refers to the capacity of each manager in an organization. The span of control at Pfizer Company will reduce due to increased departments consisting of teams in India.

Pfizer has decentralized its operations to increase the general performance of its employees. The primary goal is to allow the employees to make and implement the decisions faster. Further, decentralization will enable efficient communication among the employees.

At Pfizer, there is no formalization. The formalization goal is to ensure that there are standard procedures for carrying activities in an organization. Formalization is a vital tool in big organizations to ensure actions flow correctly.

Pfizer’s organizational arrangement would work well for other companies as it increases employees’ performances and effectiveness. The structure would correctly work in organizations with many offices in different geographical areas like government and phone offices. However, this arrangement would not work well for banks as it will leak information.

Conclusion

The organizational structure plays a significant role in an organization as it allows an efficient flow of information in the organization, increasing productivity. The structure improves the organization's level of innovativeness, and less time is used in decision-making and executing plans. Further, it boosts the company's responsiveness to its internal and external stakeholders.