Analysis of Issue - 3

“Corporations and other businesses should try to eliminate the many ranks and salary grades that classify employees according to their experience and expertise. A ‘flat’ organizational structure is more likely to encourage collegiality and cooperation among employees.”

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

 My take:

 Collegiality, which vests authority equally among the colleagues, and cooperation are essential for team work leading to high productivity of the organization. From my point of view maintaining these two important attributes in any organization/company does not have a typical solution which can fit to all types of organization. Factors such as the domain the company operates in, size of company, number of functions in the company and number of skills that contribute to the final product of the company influence the overall structure of the company. So eliminating the ranks and salary grades for achieving synergy in the employees might work for one type of company and fail for some other type.

 A flat organizational structure will prove to be more synergistic for a small company with limited number of functions. Division of the work force into two to three groups with well defined responsibilities will help in achieving the right productivity in the operations. For such an organization a multi tiered structure will be serve to add undesirable complexities.

 In case of an organization with a final product requiring value addition through application of many skills at various levels, an elaborate organizational structure will better foster the cooperation in the employees. For example in a fairly big company operating in Information Technology services sector where the final product needs to be worked upon by teams from marketing, account management, business analysis, development and testing divisions proper coordination is of utmost importance. This can be achieved by creating a multi tiered structure with groups having well defined responsibilities and each one of them following its own processes. Also with many skills contributing to the final product it is important to relatively grade and compensate the employees possessing those skills. Such kind of elaborate structure will help in proper work flow and will encourage the employees to give their best ensuring a qualitative product.

 So a flat organizational structure is not fit-to-all solution. A proper modularization of the work force into various units with easily traceable accountability helps in case of large organizations and a minimal division of work force ensures high productivity in case of small organizations.