Organizational Structures
The organizational structure is necessary to determine the authority as well as the division of labor and decision-making within an organization. The organizational structure of WestCoast Capital is flat where decision-making is relegated even to the support staff (Hoffman, 12). In the case of Jane, she can decide on her own as she prepares and plans for her client’s funds. WestCoast, however, may still be considered to have a tall organizational structure that flows down from the Bank of the Pacific board of directors down to support staff like Jane.
As for Samantha, her organization, the Human Resources Program, is a division of the Federal Government supporting ministries through policies and programs such as the establishment of Human Resources (HR) policy framework and design labor relations. Specifically, she works with the HR Strategies Branch’ Youth Initiative Unit. Typical of government agencies, hers is a tall organizational structure that deals with a lot of hierarchal levels. Incidentally, her division of labor belongs to the vertical level where there is an apportioning of authority for planning and decision-making, where communication is difficult.
Authority
Jane’s portfolio managers are Bob and Brad. But above Bob and Brad are the WestCoast Branch Managers Peter and Fred. Her organization aims to provide timely and seamless service to their clients so that each staff or manager usually covers for the other adding efficiency to the organization. On the other hand, Samantha works under Jack and although she sometimes works directly with the Director of HR Strategies Branch for special projects, it does not necessarily mean she may involve the director of her procedural problems at work. The director, however, may in his discretion endorse better work procedures to Samantha’s manager Jack.
Division of labor and specialization
In WestCoast Capital’s Personal Investment Manager Group, there is an “adhocracy” and hybrid departmentation type of organization where the employees have adopted a more flexible working division achieving the common purpose of more productive output. They are in close proximity to one another and frequently interact so that it comes to the point where they may exchange roles and tasks specifically with Jane who has acquired the qualification and skills of a Portfolio Manager while still officially a Support Staff.
As for Samantha, she has the specific role of coordinating and dealing with newly hired interns from different ministries. The interns called in on a daily basis.
Rules, regulations, policies, procedures
In business organizations such as the Bank of the Pacific, certain employee rules and regulations are commonly imparted and practiced, and this includes bureaucratic or organizational procedures in the communication process (Hoffman, 22). Being a profit-oriented organization, however, Bank of the Pacific subsidiary WestCoast has a more flexible as well as efficient way of dealing with staff problems such as that of Jane. It does not, however, guarantee that an ideal solution may be agreed upon immediately as her case has shown.
With Samantha, while flexibility is encouraged as this would be in line with what the Bureau tries to achieve: a safe and fair work condition for employees, the bureaucratic division due to lack of staff cannot in itself adopt ideal policies it has helped to pass, including the condensed work week (CWW) which Samantha badly needs considering her as a nursing mother. It was not specific whether Samantha herself is allowed to propose a working system within her unit or Bureau in order to accommodate her desired schedule. However, considering that their division deals with policies in the workplace, she may with the support of Jack and the director, propose a system that will allow her to timely deal with customers or the various ministries’ intern requirements while adopting a CWW schedule.
Merit System
The merit system is usually adopted by all organizations both profit and non-profit-oriented. This is, however, more problematic with non-profit agencies as there are limited or vague ways to determine positive output. For WestCoast, its profit-oriented nature automatically provides Jane the incentive that she deserves as clear regulations for commissions are usually expected from financial institutions like the Bank of the Pacific.
The merit system for government or non-profit organizations like the HR Strategies Branch is heavily dependent on a trickle-down basis, meaning, communication, instructions and other benefits are usually applicable to encompass the whole organization, thereby needing approval and processing from the uppermost layer of the hierarchy down to the staff like Samantha. – Impersonality
The workplace due to changes in communication and information technology has become as impersonal as it could get. In fact, in bigger institutions, it was difficult to ascertain who may be the staff in charge of preparing memorandum or notices, or where these memos should originate and be processed. However, considering the close-knit work environment of the Personal Investment Manager Group of WestCoast, as well as its newness, impersonality has been properly addressed through social gatherings as well as non-personal dealing with the workloads of others when covering is necessary. As was stated, there was seamless service from the group. Impersonality, however, is being established with uncooperative and sometimes ignorant people like Fred and Sally who, by virtue of their position and seniority, give weight to structure rather than facilitating a flexible work environment where cost and efficiency are important.
For Samantha’s division, impersonality has been cemented like a landmark statue, almost unforgiving, stiff, and unworkable: where the personal need of Samantha has taken a backseat altogether. The lack of staff has been used as a weapon against the staff themselves as seen in the high turnover. The situation should be addressed in a way that all workers get equal treatment and benefits considering that longer work hours are expected to some, and regular work hours are given to the majority.
Degree of Bureaucratization
Both agencies – WestCoast Capital and HR Strategies Branch – have a very high degree of bureaucratization, meaning, policies and processes pass through several layers of hierarchy. However, WestCoast has maintained a hybrid departmentation when it comes to its Personal Investment Manager Group. The flexibility and openness of the team make an efficient team work. The HR Strategies Youth Initiative Unit, however, has a very stiff bureaucratization made more severe with the shortage of staff.
Type of Organizational Structure – Mechanistic or Organic
The organizational structure of WestCoast’s Personal Investment Manager Group is organic, where there is a low degree of bureaucratization as well as a flexible and less predictable work system. On the other hand, when it encompasses the whole Bank of the Pacific, it becomes mechanistic, where there is a boxed or predictable work system expected.
For the HR Strategies Branch, the organizational structure is mechanistic. There is a degree of bureaucratization and the expectation from the workers is fixed, and hardly changeable (Hoffman, 112).
Cases:
- Peter’s contention that Jane’s request amounted to a communications issue that needed a resolution is correct. However, the communication process Peter’s task force had in mind was quite outdated and lacked a comprehensive consideration on addressing the problem. Communication is a process of information sharing between sender and receiver. The problem with the proposal of the task force to pass information through Branch Administrator Sally’s office is quite useless and adds additional workload not only to the people who will be tasked to work on the communication in the form of a memorandum or summative report, dissemination and recipients (Support Staff aside from Jane).
- Peter’s decision to set up a Communication Task Force to resolve the complaint of Jane is professional as he was not very sure how to handle the issue on his own. By taking into consideration the view of both new and old members of the team, he will be presented with differing views about the matter. However, if Peter will limit his decision through the provision of weight for seniority or even position, then, it will blur his judgment. He needs to consider that Jane’s case is unique as the branch and team itself are unique allowing positive changes for the growth of their team and their company. Jane is an Investment Specialist with WestCoast Capital, a subsidiary of the Bank of the Pacific. She belongs to a small team of Personal Investment Manager Group handling peoples’ money through trading. Jane is generally a support staff under Portfolio Managers Bob and Brad. As support staff, she has interchangeable or overlapping duties covering the managers and the Administrative Assistant with the end aim to provide seamless client service. What motivated Peter to set up the Communication Task Force is his esteem needs dictated upon corporate structural procedure. The esteem needs, under Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, is fourth in the pyramid of which he feels inadequate to decide and act upon the problem of Jane. In his desire to be perceived as competent, independent, strong, confident, as well as appreciated by his peer managers, he has engaged in an unnecessary procedure. The WestCoast is fairly conservative and almost a localized group adaptable to change and innovation. However, Peter must have seen that it is still under the corporate structure of the Bank of the Pacific following rigid division of staff classification. When Jane and her team added in their services selling insurance and general financial planning, they saw it as a positive move for Jane to complete a financial planning course and acquire First Level Insurance License. She became responsible for designing, preparing and presenting financial planning summaries for the clients as well as fully responsible for the needs of some clients. In reality, she has taken the role of a portfolio manager while being retained technically as a Support Staff. In the daily meetings of the Branch Managers and Portfolio Managers of WestCoast, investment strategies, important information about stocks, and other business process concerns are discussed. Peter is partly correct to deny the inclusion of Jane in the meeting for the technical reasons that she is a Support Staff. However, he also needs to weigh the relevance of Jane’s contention, and he will be able to do this through input from the Communication Task Force.
- Passing a summary of the morning meeting may not effectively communicate what Jane needed to know. In the communication process, the sender of the message needs to think, encode and transmit the information. Sally the Branch Administrator who insisted to expedite the communication process has no training or expertise in financial planning. The task of sending the information becomes a burden not only to the person charged to make the summary among the WestCoast Managers but more so with Sally who may not at all have no idea what is being transmitted. There will not be problems with receiving the information at the end of Jane. Jane is capable to perceive, decode and understand information. The problem will be whether or not the information passed through is exact, relevant for her work or of any use at all since it was created or passed through a channel – the Branch Administrator -without the ability to understand the information. It is to be noted in this case that the importance of communication is that it has to be of the best quality and quantity that serves the purpose. The purpose of communication in the case of Jane is to grasp important information about the work she deals with, portfolio and funds of her clients, and share back to her fellow portfolio handlers insights about her tasks.
- The cultural fit between WestCoast Branch and the Bank of the Pacific is not clearly described. However, there seems to be a clash between the old and the new as the recent merging of the two provided a more rigid adaptation to corporate structure. While WestCoast has its own previous corporate structure which could probably have influenced the view of its senior staff, it also allowed what is considered “new blood” to flow through it through the Personal Investment Manager Group. In the case of Jane, there was no cultural conflict that may be linked directly to the Bank of the Pacific as the problematic stance on her case is from Fred and Sally, both WestCoast veterans. The working attitude, as well as the limited orientation of Fred and Sally, added a burden to the case. However, considering that WestCoast seemed more lenient in their dealing with staff, it was surprising that Fred and Sally would limit their understanding of Sally’s case to the rigid corporate structure of Bank of the Pacific, citing for instance the structure of the branch, the role of the Portfolio Managers, as well as the role of the Branch Administrator.
- I agree with what Jane has said and done. In the case where Peter’s position on her attendance at the meeting does not change, Jane needs to provide a comprehensive report and recommendation about her case addressing a productive and cost-effective outcome of the problem. She needs to present both pros and cons (positive and the negative) implications of both attending the meeting as well as coursing through the Branch Administrator a communication that could be useless, costly and altogether impractical. By presenting an unbiased view on her case, Peter may consider her proposal and her case as a unique matter that could actually be helpful in the group and the company.
Summary and Analysis
Jane’s case with the WestCoast Capital is unique and the Personal Investment Manager Group represents a small, growing outfit that is evolving and needs to adapt to changes and improvement when these are presented. Incidentally, it is also quite problematic. Political structures and work culture are almost always imperative in many organizations and this includes Jane’s. With her group belonging to West Coast Capital, and WestCoast being a subsidiary of Bank of the Pacific, it is also important for the Branch Manager Peter to both consider culture and structure in the case.
Where Peter is given an independent view on the case of the Personal Investment Manager Group, he could have acted properly by weighing the advantages and disadvantages of including Jane in the daily meetings with Portfolio Managers. Technically, Jane is not a Portfolio Manager. However, she performs and produces what Portfolio Managers do so that essentially, she is a Portfolio Manager. This case should have been isolated and those who are not involved should have been left off the problem. Fred and Sally seem to be outsiders in the case of Jane as both have work and culture attitudes that are not progressive, whereas the Personal Investment Manager Group is a progressive group.
Peter could have identified first the desired effect of the Communication Task Force handling the case of Jane. Where harmony is the desired effect, then, Peter has done the right thing to include in the task force, Fred and Sally. But harmony may also be achieved through a better understanding of Jane’s unique role as Support Staff and Portfolio Manager. This is achieved by changing the behavior of some people in West Coast Capital. The senior officers should be made aware that through Jane’s extra contributions, both the organization and the people benefit from it. Peter should employ an effective communication strategy where people like Fred and Sally are made aware of the importance of the role of Jane without compromising corporate goals and identity. Through effective communication, Fred and Sally will understand the right information in a timely manner. Likewise, by giving weight to the request of Jane, Peter has allowed the right person who is Jane to receive the right information at the right time when she is allowed to attend the managers’ meetings.
Corporate structures often dictate the communication process of an organization. In the case of Peter, he is limited to dealing directly with the managers. In the case of Jane, she is labeled and needs to be treated like any ordinary support staff. Here, a conflict arises because Jane performs tasks that are the responsibility of Portfolio Managers. Peter could have addressed the problem by adapting the “Open door policy” where employees may communicate directly with a manager without going through the chain of command. This means that Jane is allowed to attend the meetings without involving the opinion as well as the input of Sally and Fred. If Peter accepts the suggestion of Sally to course through the Branch Administrator office information that Sally has no understanding, there is the risk of both filtering and cost-inefficiency as Sally cannot contribute anything for the solution of the case but would only be adding the bulk of useless work. As already suggested and discussed in lecture 3, a limited span of control affords the opportunity for high-quality supervisor-subordinate communication: by limiting involvement between Jane and the managers, the right message is sent in a timely.
By allowing Jane to attend the daily managerial meetings, Jane can share and analyze information that will result in autonomous decision-making, familiarize her with the team and the operation as well as allow better coordination, and provide the team with effective and diverse skills already existing among the members of the groups through well-coordinated team efforts. This system is flexible and removes structural boundaries, barriers to lateral communication and strict observance of hierarchy. While boundary-less organizations may incur greater resource use and lower efficiency, temporary flexibility may serve purposes and remodeling for other projects is ideal.
It is very important that Peter properly address the case of Jane because an employee perception of good communicator managers is directly linked with organizational performance. This upward-downward communication usually involves the proper task for Jane as both staff support and portfolio manager, as well as a clear understanding of her compensation for her extra effort and skills that contribute to the growth of WestCoast. The social and emotional support of Peter for Jane is also reflected in a good communication system or process.
Importance of Manager-Employee Communication
Jane’s approach to her case is relevant in her work. The response of Peter is correct in the sense that it followed organizational structure procedures. However, the extent of the issue was limited to Personal Investment Manager Group, so that unnecessary inclusion of organizational staff and management in the process. The need for Peter to address Jane’s case will resolve the differences in time allocation, job learning, payment or compensation issues, authority and independence of Jane’s work, appreciation of Jane’s skills and abilities, bringing out the best of Jane’s performance, as well as Peter’s leadership style.
Reference
Hoffman, Randy. 2004. Organizational Behaviour: Canadian Cases & Exercises, 5th Edition, Captus Press Johns and Saks. Custom PKG Organizational Behaviour Understanding & MYOBLAB.