Workplace Culture

Dear Workforce How Do We Beef Up Skill Levels While Revamping Our Organization

By Staff Report

Sep. 7, 2011

Dear Makeover:

This is a great opportunity for you to create the systems and processes you need for the future. A redesign will help you look at many facets of your organization to consider how to position your organization for success.

You may want to look at the two sides of organizational power to determine which one best supports your requirements for managing marketplace demands. One is “distributed” and the other is “consolidated,” where most of the power is given to the top layer of the organization.

The “distributed organization” could be really appealing. With this type of company, information, decision-making, resources and accountabilities exist closest to your marketplace, customer or core work. Advantages include faster decision-making, quicker and more adaptable responses to customers, and an ability to manage quality at the point of origin and service at the point of customer contact. And because distributing power to the unit usually translates into distributing power to core workers, greater employee commitment and innovation follows.

Although this is not a complete description of everything that goes into designing an organization, it provides a look at many important elements.

Management Strategies
	Consolidated	Distributed
Decision-making style	Top-down (autocratic)	Collaborative, personal choice
Information control	Information controlled by management (access by permission)	Information shared across organization, open, unrestricted
Accountability	Leaders accountable for organization success, core workers held accountable for their specific tasks	Personal choice to be accountable for organization’s success of failure
Resources (such as access to money, equipment)	Resources held and controlled by management	Resources accessed and managed by core workers
Work tasks	Tasks narrowly defined and simple	Broad, complex tasks
Work process	Processes controlled by management	Controlled by core workers in response to business requirements
Customer service and quality control	Specific issues go to a specialty (such as transferring calls to customer service rather than whoever answers phone helping customer), but decisions, such as exceptions to a customer-service policy, are made by management	Decisions by core workers–e.g. whoever stumbles across problem can deal with it
Structure	Organization by function, geography, product, etc.	Matrix (multiple reporting relationships), networked (project team-based) or virtual (everything is contracted except for that which you’re superior)
Core employee skills	Specific to tasks/responsibilities (management is making key decisions, so they’re the ones that need the management skills)	Broad business, technical, management skills because employees are making more decisions
Rewards	Rewards related to tasks and individual performance	Rewards based on business outcomes and unit performances
Management style	The management wants to control processes and be consistent	There’s a premium on flexibility and innovation
Training	Training is specific to job responsibility	Broad business-literacy training, skill development
Oversight	High oversight, low supervisor/subordinate	Minimal oversight or self-managing teams, high supervisor/subordination ratio

SOURCE: Kevin Herring, president, Ascent Management Consulting, Tucson, Arizona, March 1, 2005. Herring is co-author ofPractical Guide for Internal Consultants.

LEARN MORE:Acxiom Rebuilds From Scratch

The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.

Industry

Role

Use Case

Dear Workforce How Do We Beef Up Skill Levels While Revamping Our Organization

What’s New at Workforce.com?

Related Articles