human
Give me essay about in every organization, there has to be a structure.
assistant
#Sociology. Evolution of Formal Organizations Research Paper
In every organization, there has to be a structure. Since time immemorial, structures in organizations have been inevitable. In this century, formal organizations have changed so much from the way we do things and how we do them. It is very different from the way things used to be done in the last century where formal organizations basically practiced bureaucracy. Formal organizations have come a long way. In the past century, employers were imposing extraordinary standards of discipline on the untrained workforce as a result of fines imposed on the factory owners. The formal structures concentrated more on dominating others and employees had to follow the laid down structure other than questioning anything. This was based on the fact that if people were let informally, they were thought to put their interest first instead of the organizations’. An organization structure explains the way authority flows in an organization. It could flow from top to bottom, bottom to top, or even horizontally (Chang 2004). The two main categories of structures are informal and formal structures. A formal structure is what is laid on a piece of paper while the informal one is not. In most cases, an informal structure develops along the way as people continue to interact, people tend to forget the formal structures as they find it easier to work with informal structures. The employees find working informally as time-saving and tend to discover new ways of doing things.
The formal structures in the last century concentrated more on the specialization of a particular task. This means continually and no change of task, there was no social interaction and instead, there had to be a strict limitation of interaction among employees to avoid time wastage. In the last century, the authority had to flow in a vertical way, meaning from top to bottom there was no room for questioning authority. The employees were responsible for every wastage of resources even though the resources were purchased by the organizations. Organizations rewarded their employees on a regular salary and most of the work done was full time. In case of anything an employee has prospects of career advancement, then that meant a salary increase. New employees got their jobs only through technical qualifications (Weber 1968).
However, with time the formal organizations have changed. They have discovered the need for change from the past century’s mistakes. Today’s formal structures have discovered the need to involve the employees in most decision-making rather than being bureaucratic. Comparing with the last century, formal organizations have discovered that the vertical flow of authority is more chaotic. When some departments are not involved in decision-making, they become frustrated and feel isolated which can affect morale in the workplace. Therefore, in this century, organizations are being flexible and all employees are involved in decision making and their views are sort before implementing new rules. Today’s formal organizations highly value human skills as an asset to the organization. Mostly, employees are not recruited on technical competence only, but also in regard to merit. Formal organizations are also recruiting fresh graduates with no technical experience so as to train them and give them an opportunity to work. In turn, these organizations are enjoying fresh blood in the organization.
A century ago, specialization was highly regarded, unlike today. Formal organizations have realized that monotony creates boredom and inefficiency at work. Therefore, there has been a need to interchange employees in their duties in order to make them multi-skilled. In terms of compensation, employees are now not only given salary but are also given bonuses, allowances, commissions, and other awards, for instance, ’employee of the year award’ (Scott1962).
Recently, most organizations have realized that as much as they are not the same, so is their structure different and therefore need to study their organizations well and know the best structure for them. The current trends in formal organizations are fascinating. There is technology, unlike in the past where people had to meet face to face in order to strike deals. Currently, there are calls, computer networking, easy storage of information and this has improved efficiency and productivity in the organizations. There has been great improvement in companies as a result of modernization. Organizations now have set rules on how to run their organizations which brings an organized environment. In the current trend, communication is mainly done via telephone, letters, or email. In the past, work used to be done in a particular way and employees had to work towards a stated goal and at the end of the day be answerable to a specific supervisor. However, times are changing and new work methods have come up. The most common being the open, flexible method. This method has overshadowed bureaucracy, employees are finding room for creativity. Healthy competition is being developed among teams and the organizations are now going for multi-skilled employees and consequently, specialization is becoming a thing of the past. Employees are now working towards generalized goals thus, enabling employees to view each other as colleagues other than competitors. However, the new work methods are not applicable to all caliber of employees. The highly skilled staff are enjoying it more than the lower-level staff who are now working extra hard. Bureaucratic organizations are still in place for these lower-level employees since they still have supervisors above them and still remain at the bottom. Similarly, organizations that deal with only one type of product remain to be bureaucratic since they no longer offer room for creativity.
In Micah’s organization, the structure is conventional and bureaucratic that makes him very uncomfortable, and would want to leave to go to an open flexible organization. In these organizations, there seems to be a problem in interrelationship. There is no room for employees to interact with their supervisors, new rules are just imposed on them without questioning and indeed there is no room for the informal structure. In these organizations, work is done as a ritual behavior due to specialization and this brings about boredom no wonder Micah wants to move to another organization. According to these organizations, people with no or fewer qualifications occupy a position with most tasks. These can be so de-motivating and unfulfilling. These characteristics of these formal organizations are likely to change to be more open and flexible. This is because in the modern world most organizations are up to satisfying their customers due to the increased competition. Therefore, at one time the organizations have to bend rules to reach customers faster, rather than following all the departmental rules. There is also the issue of these organizations following a hierarchy where a department relies on another department. This is likely to change since when one department fails then the rest also fails automatically. This will have to change especially if the workload is much for organizations and also these departments have to be responsible for their own delays to ensure other departments do not lag behind.
In regard to the relationship in organizations, Micah’s organization is just based on organizational rules being very important rather than the individual’s, yet in reality, every work done relies heavily on human care, creativity, commitment, frustration, and morale. This will then have to change and be considered before working, thus boosting productivity. These organizations will eventually embrace change by building teams, promoting openness of communication, that is, from the president to the receptionist and this will generate understanding and innovation as well as great respect for one another.
In a case study found in (www.kaschassociates.com/orgcom), these formal organizations will have to embrace change since their priority now shifts to customer satisfaction and so rules have to be twisted in order to meet customer’s needs.
Generally, in the future, the formal organizations will still be categorical, that is, there will still be the two classes of employees, the lower class, still having to work extra hard than they are doing and bureaucracy still on their neck. However, the upper class of employees will be entitled to a more flexible and open structure that will create room for creativity moreover a conducive environment for working.
The type of work environment will also depend much on the type of work done, for instance, a shelf stocker cannot be compared to a machine operator, the machine operator may require a longer deadline to repair the machine while the shelf stocker is given only 2 hours to stock the shelves, there may need to work as a team for the machine operator to save time and work efficiently.
According to a case study done by Scott (1962), most formal organizations are recognizing informal organizations since they turn to be a motivator to the employees. Workgroups that form in formal organizations tend to recognize each other’s efforts which in turn increases loyalty amongst the employees.
However, if the formal organizations are to embrace informal organizations so much, then an employee who has been rewarded by an informal organization may not find a promotion by a formal organization relevant. In conclusion, formal organizations will keep on changing. What we have today is not what we had in the last century and so a lot is expected to evolve as the organizations embrace new techniques.