Organizational Design
Contrary to typical assumptions that will associate the concept of organization design with that of structuring organizational charts and the likes, organization design has a more comprehensive and practical designation than it really sounds. There is a holistic way of looking at organization design –it is the modeling and alignment of all the involved elements of an organization with the intention of achieving an agreed upon objective. Organizational design is a forthright organizational process with a pertinence so outspoken, that it should literally be addressed in every status meeting of every department on that organization. Organization design is carried out in a stepwise refined manner, and it serves to identify the defect present in the work processes, guidelines, systems and frameworks. Dysfunctions are then realigned, and then the necessary plan amendments are made so as to embrace the new realignment changes and also to fit the current objectives of the organization. Interacting people (in this case employees) with the core processes of the organization is also a facet of organizational design – the idea of form matching structure, function, strategy, and the success of collective effort is key at this juncture. Some of the strengths that a restructured organization design presents to the involved firm include:
Improved customer care services
An improved profitability trend
Operational costs are reduced drastically
Efficiency improvement and reduced cycle time
Positively motivated and committed employees
Well laid out strategic frameworks for the management and growth of the organization
On the manager’s side, some of the strengths realized are:
Better control of the limited resources
Control of the processes used in decision making
Boundary control
Aptness in dealing with uncertainty
Better technological control
Interpersonal coalitions (notably between the manager and the subordinates)
The most notable weaknesses are:
Failure of acceptance of results from the design process on the manager’s end
Poor administration in handling agreements – agreement on a course of action might not sit well with the workforce, and since no channel exists for airing concern, verbal agreement (and oftentimes tacit agreement) are considered the only form of consent.
Tendency to assume situations (from the manager’s end)
Being one-sided when it comes to looking at processes in perspective
Global Linkages and Personnel Management
Global associations of an organization to other international firms forms part of the larger macroeconomic framework that defines the interdependency between a firm and its outer-boundary business counterparts. A Mundell-Fleming model can best define and analyze the global affiliations of a company to its external links. This early 60s model was designed to explicate the macroeconomic relations of a firm under purely theoretical nuances. One major assumption was used to support the theory – the presence of high capital kinesis between the interacting countries. The theory accumulates focus on the short-term effects of changes induced in company policies and not the long-term ones. Using the congruent economies of a home and a foreign country, this model will establish a differential multiplier that helps figure the effects of policy changes. The differential representation is in the order of dYdX i.e. the subservient change in policy variable X in response to a change in the variable Y. The above representation is for the global shift in policies of any of the belonging countries, however, if X and Y are representations of correspondence to different countries, then the international multiplier is considered. Warwick, McKibbin & Sachs (2011) hold that the international monetary transmission policy is theoretically abstruse, so that monetary expansion at local level tends to depreciate the mother currency and then reduce interest rates globally. In the Mundell-Fleming model, the output price as well as wages remain constant. Depreciation as it occurs leads to a shift in demand of the home currency from other countries in the direction of the home country. On the contrary, the whole interest rates imbalance phenomenon causes demand to increase in the rest of the world. At this point, the exchange rate situation prevails whereby foreign output declines with every increase in money supply of the home country. This theory has been long since been disembarked upon due to its two-country ideology which highly disregards the likelihood of an international capital cross-flow. The agency’s global linkages can monitored, amended or altogether changed with guidance harnessed from the Mundell-Fleming model.
Personnel Management
Douglas McGregor is known for his contributions to the social aspects that affect and corroborate entrepreneurial activities. He postulated that the human inter-engagement in business activity can be any one of two theoretical dispositions: Theory X or theory Y.
Theory X was his first effort at indulging the social interactions of employees into the business realm. Both of these theories were from a managerial standpoint – theory X was an authoritarian regimen. Here, he posited that a manager views employees as having a general dislike towards work and are generally characterized by non-ambitiousness, irresponsibility, resistance to change and a general biasness towards being followers other than leaders. After lingering on the inappropriateness of this theory, he restructured it differently to create theory Y. Theory Y is a positively motivated type of managerial outlook where the employees are viewed as having willfulness to work, self-control apt, responsible, ingenious, creative, and self-driven.
McGregor talks of self-fulfillment in an almost prophetic way, in that the behaviors and actions of a theory Y conformist eventually evoke an environment motivated towards ratifying the characterization of the theory. Therefore, inasmuch as the agency may be embracing an egalitarian (theory Y conformant) approach towards personnel management, it is good practice to constantly motivate the workforce. This is so because, as ill-motivation encroaches the employee mindset, shifts from theory Y to X quickly race in. Another backing theory is Argyris’s theory of adult personality, which pays homage to the fact that organizational practices are derivatives of managerial approaches other than the personality of the adults involved.
Personnel Recruitment and Hiring Practices
The term personnel function is rightly used to refer to a system of undertakings and practical activities that allows for the provision, utilization, remuneration, training, development as well as maintenance of a reliable team of personnel workmen. This system is structured majorly through the aid of analytical techniques, and other forms of ancillary aids.
A few considerations need to be taken into account before incorporating a personnel function into an organization. First, the beginning to the end of a personnel function ought to be monitored and any along-the-way changes made and noted for future reference. Also, it is important to evaluate the compatibility of the personnel function with the set budget. It is then required that the implementation of the personnel function be standardized, procedural, and expertly done. The three main components (not the only three) of personnel recruitment and training to be discussed here are:
Personnel Recruitment – is the methodology of tracing and interesting accomplished applicants for employment. The main importance of this component of personnel function is to determine the current as well as future requirements for the agency in terms of personnel. This activity also provides the agency with an adequate pool of qualified manpower, and also eradicates the likelihood of the chosen candidates withdrawing from the job after a short period of working.
Personnel Selection – it is the method of differentiating the various applicants to segregate those that qualify for the organizational tasks from those that do not. The two major reasons to carry out selection is for work performance enhancement in the organization, and, to subsidize the cost incurred in the recruitment and training process, since a wrong selection infers more costs.
Training and Development – whatsoever attempt at improving the current performance of the employees (and also the future one) by inducing an increase in the capability of the employee to enhance performance through learning. This is especially done by remodeling an employee’s attitude or by creating room for an increment in their skills and acquaintance. It should be noted that while training is a job experience sharpener, education is a classroom activity, with general concepts and a broader perspective, and training tasks are more specific, and the perspective narrower. The main inputs found in training and development are education, training, change of attitude, ethics, and skills in decision making.
Employee Skills Training
The training process starts with a needs assessment forum which analyses existing problems as well as those in the future that are to be resolved through training and development. The analysis carried out can either be organizational or individual. A programme is then designed and in it is specified who participates, who trains, what techniques are employed, what level, what learning ideologies, and where the programme is conducted. The trainees are mostly recommended members of the workforce, or those that are self-nominated. For new employees, the training is mostly offered to the entire lot, but for the trained employees, a selection is carried out. The trainers are normally supervisors, co-workers, personnel staff, outsourced consultants, and university faculty members. On the other hand, training methods are divided into on and off-job methods where on-job refer to those applied at the place of work, while off-job are used away from the workplace. The training techniques mostly used are films, audio files, films, case studies, simulations, video tapes etc. The level of training mostly depends on the effectiveness of the technique, so that higher level training involves the use of better techniques.
Strengths in recruitment and training
Easier tackling of work related shortcomings
Improved performance
Satisfaction on the employees’ end
Productivity increment
Self-drive among employees
Weaknesses in effective training
Managerial commitment is limited or totally absent
Inadequate aggregate spending for training
Issuance of degree awards to graduates who lack in skills
Poaching of trained staff on a large scale
Non-aid to displaced workers due to being downsized
Recruitment and Training Recommendations
The agency should consider putting more funds into the recruitment and training program so that the resultant quality of knowledge passed on to the employees can be reflected in the productivity of the agency itself.
Old personnel training and retraining should be conducted annually to keep the employees up to date with the current technological advancements as well as to avoid slowed work output
Diversification of the personnel selection process to strike a gender equalized equilibrium.
References
Allen, D. R. (2012, February). What is Organizational Design? Retrieved from The Center for Organzational Design: http://www.centerod.com/2012/02/what-is-organizational-design/
Aswathappa, K. (2013). Human resource management: Text and cases. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Gandolfo, G. (2016). Policy Implications of the Mundell-Fleming Model, and the Assignment Problem. In G. Gandolfo, International Finance and Open-Economy Macroeconomics (pp. 221-242). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Klingner, D., Nalbandian, J., & Llorens, J. J. (2015). Public personnel management. Routledge.
McKibbin, W. J., & Sachs, J. D. (2012). Global linkages: macroeconomic interdependence and cooperation in the world economy. Brookings Institution Press.
Stanford, N. (2013). Guide to organisation design: Creating high-performing and adaptable enterprises (Vol. 10). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Taylor, F. W. (2014). The Industrial Revolution.
Watson, T. (2013). The Personnel Managers (Routledge Revivals): A Study in the Sociology of Work and Employment. Routledge.
