Pfizer is a global pharmaceutical company that has embraced and inculcated new organizational structures in the search for ways to help its employees be more effective and efficient. PfizerWork is an organizational structure in the company introduced by the senior director of organizational effectiveness. It developed after studies showed that employees in the pharmaceutical company spent lots of time, 20-40 percent, on support works that included creating documents, typing notes, doing research, scheduling meetings and manipulating data. The time would have gotten used on knowledge work that only got 60-80 percent of their time’s share. Introduction of this new kind of structure was purposed to ensure the employees spent 100 percent of their time specifically on strategy, alliance, invention, schmoozing, and critical thinking that they all enjoyed.
Pfizer Work allowed all employees of both high and low levels to shift their dreary and time-consuming support work simply by the click of the ‘magic button’. It involved the employees identifying and describing these support jobs on online forms that get subsequently sent by the click of the ‘magic button’ to Indian service-outsourcing firms. These Indian firms in turn carry on with the jobs after clarifying the details and costs with the involved Pfizer employee. They easily manage completing the work with very minimal time as compared to the time the pharmaceutical employee would have spent on it. The resulting effect is that it saves them a substantial amount of work hours which allows them to carry out knowledge work. Thus, enhancing their efficiency and productiveness which benefits both the employees and the company. PfizerWork is a very beneficial organizational structure in the pharmaceutical company. Its tenets ensure a system of efficiency and effectiveness from its human resource, hence unleashing their full potential.
Structural Implications
Organizational design involves the process by which a company aligns its organizational structure with its mission in accordance to the known six key elements. The approach on Pfizer pharmaceutical company’s kind of organizational designs provokes a number of implications that are both positive and negative. The PfizerWork structure specifies the kind of work its employees should do in line with the organizational structure key elements, and allocates the rest to other personnel. It is specific that employees carry out knowledge work and assign support work to the Indian service-outsourcing firms. The chain of command is evident as seen from the introduction of this structure by the senior director of organizational effectiveness. There are also low-level employees reporting to high-level employees (Garcia, Nguyen, Gardea, Ng, & Lilly, 2005).
On the other hand, Pfizer fails to comply with the departmentalization. Different departments should be involved in different duties in the Pfizer work structure instead of the employees dealing directly with the service-outsourcing firms and being charged directly from their department (Garcia et al., 2005). A specific and different functional department should get used in collecting the support work from employees and dealing directly with the Indian firms. Cost should get charged through a finance or accounts department.
The Pfizer Work kind of structure leaves no outline of rules meant to guide the pharmaceutical company’s employees’ behavior towards this structure. There is no standardization degree to what extent of jobs an employee should consider as support work. The employees will tend to send any job they do not feel like doing to the Indian service-outsourcing firms (Garcia et al., 2005). The formalization element of organizational design expects such rules and standardization degrees to be in place in the type of structure present in the company.
Pfizer Work is an organizational structure that would work for many other companies of similar and different types. Other companies would embrace this kind of structure making it more effective by considering all six key elements of organizational design. It will always serve them well by sparing them the tedious and time-consuming support works, thus, increasing its employee’s productivity and that of the company at the same time. Employees will always want to do what they are good at happily and efficiently. The structure will always give employees of various companies that chance if embraced (Feigenbaum, 2014).
For instance, in housing, and health-related companies, this kind of structure would offload employees their support works leaving them time for their specialties. These are just but examples of the many types of organizations which could use this kind of structure ranging from research institutions, manufacturing to communication companies.
Organizational structures play a role in enhancing effectiveness and efficiency of a company by creating a controlled growth of the company. It defines and describes various departments in the organization and fits everything together into, one making the company effective. It also ensures everybody in the company works together coherently and performs their specific roles. The structure gets revised often to monitor the trend of the organization by bringing in new departments and eliminating any drawbacks to the organization (Feigenbaum, 2014). That keeps the organization in a growing trend. A well-defined structure in an organization serves in bringing in and retaining its customers. By stipulating roles of customer representatives and giving them authority to handle customer issues, ensures their issues get well handled and do not bounce back or transfer to others. That retains the company’s customers and enhances its effectiveness. Communication is a prime aspect in every organization. A good structure ensures that any needed information gets easily accessed in time either by the company’s decision makers or the subjects (Feigenbaum, 2014).
References
Garcia, A., Nguyen, C., Gardea, C., Ng, J. C., & Lilly, Y. C. (2005). Organizational Structure and Designs with Case Study: QUALCOMM.MGMT 307 Group Project. Retrieved from www.emaytrix.com/mgmt307/section2.php
Feigenbaum, E. (2014). The Role of Organizational Structure in an Organization. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/role-organizational-structure-organization-3794.html
