Organizational structure's impact on employee behavior and creativity

Organizational Research and Theory

The science of grouping people and skills with an aim to accomplish particular tasks is what organizational structure is largely about. It is about identifying and cementing relationships between managers and workers in order to encourage or prevent certain behavior at the place of work so as to gain maximally from their input. There are many different configurations of organizational structure. The choice should be guided by organizational goals, the immediate and long-term objectives; including the size. Gaining inner understanding of how each of the structures affects the behavior of employees is a critical knowledge tool that one can put to use to select and adopt the best structure focused on the specific needs of their organization (Johnson, 2016). Typical functional structures are largely mechanistic and rather rightly termed as such. The power in the organization increases as you go up the ranks. Indeed, the ultimate power to make critical decisions is pushed as high up the ranks as it possibly can. Many processes and events run based on a predetermined order. The labor force operates based on their function. If it is a sales person, they operate along sales and fellow sales reps, the members of staff normally will cling on to standardized jobs. Management control efforts and rules make it necessary for employees to work only to the stipulated outlines. The employees will show increased efficiency but manifest very little creativity. Such a structure strangles the creative mind and makes them a system that generates only followers. The army makes use of the functional structure. Small businesses also tend to prefer the structure (Johnson, 2016).

There will be a problem with information flow if the structure of your organization is set up poorly. If middle management does not have effective and fast communicative avenues with the executive, communication of company information from the decision organs could take too long before it reaches the intended people. There should be fast and proactive correction of flaws that have the potential to trigger a breakdown in communication; in order to avert grinding work to snail -- speed and encourage efficient service delivery (Root, 2016).

Employee contribution is invaluable. Such suggestions help to add to the company\'s reservoir of ideas and provide a wide range of independent opinion.

Bureaucracy can be a hindrance to growth in companies because it stifles the creative mind. If an ordinary factory staff member shares an idea that could help make better use of the equipment at the factory. However, such an idea finally sinks into oblivion because there are bureaucratic red tape tendencies among humans. The organization could be losing a lot of money at a time when there should be a productivity boom (Johnson, 2016).

A customer focused business can be achieved through constant encouragement of your employees by empowering them and enabling them to make use of their creative mind. This is also how brand loyalty comes into existence. One of the ways to empower your employees is to remove bureaucratic barriers that prevent them from focusing on the customer. Carrying out immediate ways with meaning for workers to employ their discretion to provide better customer experience without need to get approval from specific managers is possibly the most practical and immediate way to empower your staffs to be creative and guarantee improved customer service.