In management, there are so many activities done to ensure that various activities are a success within the shortest time possible, as well as by using the minimum resources for maximum production. There are many personnel that ensure everything is done the right way, and in that case, there is a need to work in groups. Group work ensures that employees and employer work in collaboration toward the same objective (Healy & Meagher, 2004). In most cases, group work ensures execution of work more perfectly and faster.
The most common types of groups in workplace are formal and informal groups. Formal group is made up of managers, their assistance or both, and they interact more closely to influence the behavior of other people in the group. The objective of formal group is to coordinate all the activities done in the organization by the employees from the top management. On the other hand, informal group is dictated by personal relationship and an agreement between the workers to work on what is good and satisfying to each other, to achieve the common goal of the organization. (Carpenter, Bauer & Erdogan, 2009). The objective of informal group is to manage the psychological and social needs for their satisfaction so as to work towards the goal of the organization.
In most cases, managers pay attention to informal group over formal group because in informal group, the needs of employees as well as their capabilities are endorsed, and a person works where they feel they can be productive. Workers collaborate with other workers in sharing of activities, and each person is allowed to work as per their talents, and this allows innovation and diverse sharing of ideas. Overall, the productivity under informal group is high, because they can appoint their leader to govern on what to do at what time, meaning that its management is simple and fair, and workers produce more on such environments (Wellins, 1991).
References
Carpenter, M. A., Bauer, T., & Erdogan, B. (2009). Principles of Management. Washington, DC: Flat World Knowledge.
Healy, K., & Meagher, G. (2004). The Reprofessionalization of Social work: Collaborative Approaches for Achieving Professional Recognition. British Journal of Social Work, 34(2), 243-260.
Wellins, R. S. (1991). Empowered Teams: Creating Self-Directed Work Groups that Improve Quality, Productivity, and Participation. Jossey-Bass Inc., 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104-1310.
