Navigating Organizational Designs: Aligning Structure and Goals for Efficiency

Abstract

Organizational Designs Essay Introduction Success in realizing the set organizational goals depends on how best the managing body formulates and enforces managerial strategies that best address the workforce and the organization's demands. The human resource department proves an essential force in determining an organization's direction based on its inputs on workforce motivation towards the set organizational goals. While paying close attention to organizational design, it is clear that the approach defines how an organization is structured to execute its strategic plans and achieve the set goals in the most convenient manner possible (Hernaus, Aleksić, and Klindzic, 2013). However, there are no right or wrong organizational designs. On the contrary, the organization determines what designs work best for them. To this effect, the effectiveness of any organizational design remains associated with the design's ability to align the organization's structure with its goals aimed at enhancing efficiency and effectiveness. Organizational designs are divided into two major groups; traditional and contemporary designs. Simple, functional, and divisional designs fall under the traditional organizational design. At the same time, team structure, matrix structure, project structure, autonomous internal unit, boundary less organization, and learning organization are the main contemporary organizational designs. Modern organizational designs prove the most practical strategy that can best support human resource and diversity management since they do not follow a strict chain of command that makes many leaders dictatorial over their junior. According to Anand and Daft (2007), organizational design proves an essential process in running a business towards its objectives. This process aligns the organization's structure with its goals to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Traditional organizational design is one of the major categories of organizational designs that business entities use to enhance the management of their resources and workforce to realize the set organizational goals (Anand and Daft, 2007). In a traditional design set up, the business organization is hierarchical in that task allocation and management focus on a top-down structure with strict chains of command. It is an approach that can demine workforce morale when their seniors take advantage and misuse power vested on them, thus not the most applicable in managing human resources and diversity. Simple, functional, and divisional serve as the primary approaches in traditional designs. A simple structure defines strict controls, centralized authority, little formalization, and low departmentalization (Anand and Daft, 2007). In short, this design gives the business owner the most power in governing the organization. It is applicable mainly in small start-up businesses with limited employees who multitask to meet the demands of the available tasks. However, a simple design approach is not a long-lasting approach as the start-up companies outgrow it and embrace other complex structure that proves more beneficial to a growing business entity. The functional design proves more complex than the simple approach since it focuses on departmentalization (Anand and Daft, 2007). It is an approach that groups specialists in similar groups, enhancing efficiency in delivering the same group roles. Specialized work units take control of their departments with defined commands to strengthen management and flow of operations within the specified teams. Last but not least, the divisional structure emphasizes the management of different organization departments based on each division's set goals (Anand and Daft, 2007). In this approach, there are different units with defined plans that each division aims at accomplishing. Managers of these divisions remain accountable for their units' success or failure, which makes their work quite demanding and challenging. However, though some businesses endeavor through these approaches and achieve their set organizational goals in the long-run, contemporary processes prove essential as they are more advanced and more realistic in enhancing organizational success (Anand and Daft, (2007). The team structure is among the most logical contemporary approaches that an organization can apply and best manage human resources and diversity. A team structure defines teams within an organization, and each team works towards achieving a mutual goal. In this approach, teams must do their best as held accountable for their performances. As Lu et al. (2019) put it, teamwork allows different talents to come together, share their ideas, and contribute differently towards any given task. In such a case, any problem within the assigned task becomes confronted through different approaches allowing for the realization of the most suitable solutions in the long run. The fact that there is no hierarchy of commands in the team structure will enable members to feel free and ready for work, thus figuring out the most effective and appropriate way to perform their tasks and achieve their set goals. On the other hand, Matrix design allows for the recognition of specialists, which enhances the realization of the set organizational objectives. Managing human resources and diversity using this structure proves achievable as the assigned specialists can employ their skills and talent in their given project, which enhances success excellently. It is imperative to note that specialists may come from different areas, which embraces diversification of talents provided it best matches the demand of the assigned projects. It also helps manage human resources as skills remain directed to their most applicable job roles. Like matrix structure, project structure also emphasizes specialization in project management, where workers employ their specialized skills in completing their assigned projects (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). The continuity in this project structure allows employees to acquire great experiences that boost their morale and attitude towards the organization's tasks, thus handling any job as a team conveniently. It is an approach that enhances human resource management more than diversity as the same employees continue to attend different projects without rotating. Diverting attention to autonomous internal unit design, it is clear that this approach remains applicable to the large organization due to its complexity. The approach best suits companies with many interdependent decentralized business units dealing independently in terms of products, competitors, goals, and products. Though the approach has no centralized controls or resource allocation, it can best fit in managing diversity since it remains applicable to larger organizations that manage different people, products, and goals which reports success in the long run (Aubry and Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018). Boundaryless design proves flexible as it enables an organization to use a team approach instead of having departments (Gustafsson and Lidskog, 2018). It is an approach that makes the workforce feel appreciated regardless of their contributions to realizing the set organizational goals. It is an organization that embraces virtual approaches that excellently enhance diversity and workforce management. Finally, learning organization design proves a fundamental approach as it enables an organization to develop a permanent environment to learn, adapt and change. It is an approach that requires smart talents to enforce it and apply it in a work environment. The process, if well embraced, can serve best in managing human resources and diversity since an imaginative mind proves essential in achieving the set goals in any task. Conclusion The organizational design proves an essential process in running a business towards its set objectives as this process aligns the organization's structure with its goals to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Organizational designs are divided into two major groups; traditional and contemporary methods. Simple, functional, and divisional designs fall under the traditional organizational design. At the same time, team structure, matrix structure, project structure, autonomous internal unit, boundary less organization, and learning organization are the main contemporary organizational designs. Contemporary organizational designs prove the most practical strategy to best support human resource and diversity management. They do not follow a strict chain of command that makes many leaders dictatorial over their junior but instead emphasizes specialization and team approaches for task management. Reference Anand, N., & Daft, R. L. (2007). What is the right organizational design?. Leading organizations: Perspectives for a new era, 307-322. Aubry, M., & Lavoie-Tremblay, M. (2018). Rethinking organizational design for managing multiple projects. International Journal of Project Management, 36(1), 12-26. Gustafsson, K. M., & Lidskog, R. (2018). 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