Organizing or Reorganizing an Organization and Its Employees
Sections of This Topic Include
Reorganizing Will Be Easier If You Have Been Doing
…
Typical Problems that Suggest Need for Reorganizing
First Guideline for Reorganizing – Review Overall Purpose
of Organization
Organizational Change: General Guidelines for Carrying
it Out
Specific Suggestions for Reorganizing an Organization
Reorganizing Staff / Employees
Additional Perspectives on Organizational Design
Also consider
Related Library Topics
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REORGANIZING AN ORGANIZATION
Reorganizing Will Be Easier if You Have Been Doing …
You will have a pretty good handle on the need for
change and what changes must be done if you’ve been
1. Conducting strategic planning to regularly review the purpose
of your organization, its overall goals and who should be doing
what to meet those goals
2. Using sound principles of employee performance management to
regularly review what employees should be doing to produce results,
how they’re doing toward their results, and what must be done
to help them do a better job of achieving results
Typical Problems
That Suggest Need for Reorganizing
There are a wide variety of reasons for reorganizing
an organization, particularly in today’s rapidly changing marketplace.
However, there are several reasons for reorganization that seem
to keep coming up in small businesses, whether for-profit or nonprofit.
These reasons include
1. An employee keeps complaining (and you agree) that he or she
is overloaded with work.
2. Employees complain that their activities overlap.
3. An employee indicates (and you agree) that he or she does not
have enough work to do during a work day.
4. Employees complain that they’re reporting to more than one
boss, or supervisor.
5. An employee complains that their work includes very different
tasks. For example, they may have a highly complex and demanding
project (e.g., leading strategic planning) and a large routine,
recurring task (sorting a great deal of the organization’s daily
mail).
6. Management notices a large amount of employee turnover, that
is, employees don’t stay long enough with the organization.
7. A department, or major function in the organization, has recurring
problems.
NOTE: It is not always problems that provoke the need for reorganizing.
For example, if the organization has been conducting strategic
planning and produced new goals, these goals may require the organization
to reorganize. For example, if the business wants to expand marketshare
in a certain region, then the organization may need a new office
in that region, more sales people, etc.
First Guideline
for Reorganizing – Revisit Overall Purpose of Business
Recurring problems often seem to have little to do
with the business’s overall purpose and goals. However, any attempts
at reorganizing may be just fine tuning, or tweaking, if not done
with the long term in mind. In fact, the recurring problems may
be a symptom of the organization’s not having clearly thought
out what its overall purpose and goals are. Without visiting the
overall purpose and goals, redesign is usually a highly reactive
and very short-term fix. Carefully consider conducting a strategic
planning process to guide you through reviewing your organization’s
purpose. See
Strategic Planning
How Is Organization-Wide
Change Best Carried Out?
Successful change must involve top management, including
the board and chief executive. Usually there’s a champion who
initially instigates the change by being visionary, persuasive
and consistent. A change agent role is usually responsible to
translate the vision to a realistic plan and carry out the plan.
Change is usually best carried out as a team-wide effort. Communications
about the change should be frequent and with all organization
members. To sustain change, the structures of the organization
itself should be modified, including strategic plans, policies
and procedures. This change in the structures of the organization
typically involves an unfreezing, change and re-freezing process.
The best approaches to address resistances is through increased
and sustained communications and education. For example, the leader
should meet with all managers and staff to explain reasons for
the change, how it generally will be carried out and where others
can go for additional information. A plan should be developed
and communicated. Plans do change. That’s fine, but communicate
that the plan has changed and why. Forums should be held for organization
members to express their ideas for the plan. They should be able
to express their concerns and frustrations as well. For additional
information, see the topic Guidelines, Methods and Resources for Organizational
Change Agents.
Specific Suggestions
In addition to the above general guidelines, there
are a few basic guidelines to keep in mind.
1. Consider using a consultant. Ensure the consultant is highly
experienced in organization-wide change. Ask to see references
and check the references.
2. Widely communicate the potential need for change. Communicate
what you’re doing about it. Communicate what was done and how
it worked out.
3. Get as much feedback as practical from employees, including
what they think are the problems and what should be done to resolve
them. If possible, work with a team of employees to manage the
change.
4. Don’t get wrapped up in doing change for the sake of change.
Know why you’re making the change. What goal(s) do you hope to
accomplish?
6. Plan the change. How do you plan to reach the goals, what will
you need to reach the goals, how long might it take and how will
you know when you’ve reached your goals or not? Focus on the coordination
of the departments/programs in your organization, not on each
part by itself. Have someone in charge of the plan.
7. End up having every employee ultimately reporting to one person,
if possible, and they should know who that person is. Job descriptions
are often complained about, but they are useful in specifying
who reports to whom.
8. Delegate decisions to employees as much as possible. This includes
granting them the authority and responsibility to get the job
done. As much as possible, let them decide how to do the project.
9. The process won’t be an “aha!” It will take longer
than you think.
10. Keep perspective. Keep focused on meeting the needs of your
customer or clients.
11. Take care of yourself first. Organization-wide change can
be highly stressful.
12. Don’t seek to control change, but rather to expect it, understand
it and manage it.
13. Include closure in the plan. Acknowledge and celebrate your
accomplishments.
14. Read some resources about organizational change, including new forms and structures.
Reorganizing Staff / Employees
(If you have already done some basic business planning and drafted a basic business
plan, then you probably already have the answers to all or many of the following
questions.)
Lewis, Lewis and Souflee, in Management of Human Service Organizations
(Books/Cole, 1991, p. 80) list several key questions developing an organizational
design. These questions apply, whether for-profit or nonprofit organization.
(Items in brackets “[!]” were added by Carter McNamara.)
1. What are the primary goals and objectives that the organization should be
designed to meet? (The topic strategic
planning can help you determine what these goals are.)
2. What continuing activities need to be performed in order to implement the
strategies that have been selected as part of the planning process? (The topic
strategic
planning can help you determine the answer to this question, too.)
3. How can the necessary activities to be divided so that individuals or groups
can be assigned responsibility for performing them [that is, organized into
separate roles and jobs!]? [Activities should be grouped into related and similar
activities as much as possible so that individuals are working on tasks that
are related and similar.!]?
How to Know
What Positions and Jobs Are Needed (Workforce Planning)
How to
Design a New Job — a New Position or Role
4. Once activities have been grouped into specific jobs, what kind of authority
and responsibility should be assigned? (You might take a look at Basic
Terms in Management.)
5. How and by whom should decisions be made? [Attempt to always and ultimately
have one person who is singularly responsible for decisions!]. (You might take
a look at the topic Making
Decisions.)
6. How specialized should roles be? (The following links can help you answer
this question.)
How to Know
What Positions and Jobs Are Needed (Workforce Planning)
How to
Design a New Job — a New Position or Role
7. Who should control the work being performed? (See the topic Management
Control. )
8. How can communication and coordination among members of the organization
be facilitated? (Se the topic Management
Control.)
9. How can job and role descriptions be developed to take into account both
functions and accountabilities?
How to Know
What Positions and Jobs Are Needed (Workforce Planning)
How to
Design a New Job — a New Position or Role
10. How can coordination and communication with the external social environment
be facilitated? (See the topic Management
Control. )
Also:
11. Strive to have every employee ultimately reporting to one person, if possible,
and they should know who that person is. Job descriptions are often complained
about, but they are useful in specifying who reports to whom.
12. Carefully consider the span of control, that is, how many people are reporting
to whom. Can each manager really supervise that many people in an effective
fashion?
13. When done designing the group, always build structure into the new design
through the use of organizational charts, job descriptions, policies and procedures
that document the design and who is doing what in it.
Additional Perspectives on Organizational Design
Organizational Design
— Guidelines
Also consider
Basics, Terms and
Definitions (and Misconceptions) About Management
Basic
Terms in Training and Development
Glossary
of HR Terms
Job,
Role, Competency and Skills Analysis
Return to Staffing
for the next step in the staffing process.
For the Category of Management:
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
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