Introduction
Organizations are important units that engage in several activities to benefit members of the society in different ways. Their set up includes areas that deal with health, businesses, government, private organizations and learning institutions. The role of organizations in the society covers a wide area that includes services delivery, product innovation and other responsibilities that benefit community members.
As a result, organizations have a responsibility to formulate strategies and policies to ensure effective work flow with their management structures. The strategies they come up with are used to implement new plans and projects that include resource management units that include finances, tangible assets, technology and human input. This paper will discuss several factors that organizing has in management in relation to the resources mentioned above.
Management
Management is an important aspect of any organization because it dictates how activities are run. It is charged with the responsibility of managing resources in the society and to make sure that these resources are productive and accounted for which forms the basis for organizations in the modern times. However, principles of management do not entirely depend on modern systems but seeks to address emerging business needs, respect for humanity and organized distribution of economic resources.
As stated earlier, these resources include permanent assets, financial assets, manpower and technology. For effective management to be realized there is a team that works closely with managers to implement their recommendations. Samson & Daft (2009) argue that “Among the common responsibilities of managers include setting goals, drawing plans, organizing events, education and training and instituting controls.”
Organizing
Organizing in management involves instituting mechanism in management structure that revolves around dividing labor responsibilities, collaboration, management of tasks and information exchange within the flow of the organization. Organization involves positioning resources in a manner that would smoothly implement the plans, propose working relations and disperse resources to meet the targets of the organization.
A graphical representation is used to illustrate flow of power in the organization upon which decision making relies. Robbins, etal. (2003), wrote that, “It is also part of organizing to allocate individual responsibilities within an organization.” An agreement has to be made regarding job description of individuals and the manner in which they should execute them.
According to Fayol (1949), “Part of organizing in an organization involves making decisions to create departments or job clusters in order to ensure effective implementation of roles.” Departments are formed on the basis duties, results, location or customer needs. The process of organizing involves assigning an individual responsibility that produces the best out of them.
In the past, jobs were assigned with strict adherence to specialization of labor which was based on the assumption that the narrower the job description the better the performance. However, recent research has opposed this assumption and argued that some job specifications can be excessively narrow. For instance, a person working as a teller in a bank would be bored after working in a bank for two decades without being given other responsibilities. It would possibly lead to low morale and dissatisfaction.
Recent studies reveal that organizations are focusing on allocation of jobs with specialization as well as roles that have a variety of responsibilities. This is the concept of organizing as it strikes to give autonomy to employees. Examples of these revelations are from job enrichment and team work that are widely used by organizations.
For instance, most manufacturing companies have abolished multiple departments and instead directed efforts on customer response. They have substituted board room meetings with team huddles thereby making them understand their customers and what they require. This shows the flexibility of organizing.
Controlling
On the other hand Fayol (1949) argues that, “controlling approaches to management ensures that performance is not done below the standards that have been set.”
Procedures that are used in controlling include: setting performance targets, comparison of performance and targets and remedies to failures. Performance targets are established in terms of financial ratings or units, defects and quality produced. Assessment of performance is done using several ways like reports, results, satisfaction of customers and appraisals.
Controlling is done by managers at all levels of the organization. However, the role of managers in controlling should not be likened to manipulation. It does not give managers a mandate to force people to behave in a particular manner nor change their values and principles. Instead, they ensure that all responsibilities related to work are done to produce consistent results that meet the goals of the organization.
Just like organizing, controlling requires plans to be drawn because they form the basis for performance standards. Along with planning, controlling requires that managers distinguish mistakes that derail performance and other common mistakes. The two approaches used to gauge performance in controlling include audit and budget scrutiny.
Under auditing, all records are assessed and verified using the available records while budget audit assesses the position of the company with respect to the initial plans. Despite the fact that controlling is thought to control finances, managers must oversee manufacturing, operations, conformity to company regulations and service delivery along with several other duties. This reveals how controlling is rigid because employees must conform to the standards set which is contrary to organizing.
Aspects of organizing
A good example is health care setting. When managers in health institutions use organizing, they are able to evaluate the strength of their resources enabling them allocate and distribute them effectively.
When organization is done carefully, healthcare stakeholders can successfully plan and carry out projects that concern their line of work. With proper organizing, roles are going to be sub divided among sub groups for effective implementation which is an important approach compared to controlling which proposes collectiveness and monitoring.
In health care, human resources are all staff that participates in clinical and non clinical duties with an aim of improving the health of community and individuals. Their output will largely depend on their professional training, expertise and motivation. The composition of several experts in health care setting reveals its ability to provide a range of services and interventions that are needed by people.
From the discussion, it is evident that organizing is a critical factor in management. When plans have been drawn, the role of a manager is to ensure that everything in the plan has been implemented. When the mission and strategies have been clearly stipulated in the plan, it is the function of organizing to dictate roles and relations in the work place. A challenge might be experienced while selecting organizational approach to fit the demands of the organization.
After planning, jobs are clustered in groups according to different expertise called departments to allow collaboration in efforts. As it had been discussed earlier, there are several ways to create departments with each having its merits and demerits. The most common way of creating a department is through the functions done by employees which are characterized by assembling jobs with common features into the same department.
The second way of creating a department is by using products produced. This approach involves creating departments along specific productions lines. Majority of the companies use departmentalization as a means of organizing their management structure and this technique has proven to produce positive results.
Fayol, (1949) wrote that, “Organizing proposes a chain of command where flow of authority is stated in the organization. Traditional principles state that the role and power of managers should be clearly stated in the flow of command.” Organizing in management proposes that an individual should only have one boss to report to. Another aspect in organizing is the number of persons that a manager should supervise for effective service delivery.
The principles of organizing suggest that there are a number of subjects that a manager should not exceed in managing for quality services to be realized. Therefore, managers must always review these numbers to ensure that they are on track. Managers given large numbers of employees to manage are often overwhelmed and might lead to lack of accountability in the organization. Managers overseeing a small group of employee are likely to find an easy time supervising them, hence more efficiency is realized.
This strategy of having few subjects is effective, but very costly for an organization. Organizing proposes that managers oversee small groups and reduction of management commands to minimal levels as possible. Advancements in technology have been very helpful in implementation of this aspect because it has enhanced speedy execution of information processes and communication within the structure of the organization.
Centralization is a key element in organizing. According to Samson & Daft (2009), “When the structure of making decisions is strictly centralized key decisions of the organization would be made by the upper mangers.” This is contrary to decentralized authorities where crucial decisions are made at lower levels in the command structure.
However, the manner in which decentralization is implemented in an organization relies on a number of factors that include nature of the organization, scope of service, and expertise of employees. Organizing as an aspect of management, advocates for decentralization of duties of decision making.
Formalization is another aspect of organizing. In defines the standards and procedures that employees should abide by. An organization with high levels of formalization provides employees with detailed terms of service, and rules and regulations that govern employee behaviors. On the contrary, an organization which does not stress on formalization has non structured job description and less rules and regulations.
When organizations grow, it is unavoidable to increase formalization. This is due to the fact that employees need guidance on responsibilities they should undertake so as to gain consistency and good results. However, organizing aspect warns that managers should practice formalization with a lot of caution becomes it comes with increased costs and may hinder responsiveness to issues in the organization.
Conclusion
From the discussion, using organizing as an aspect of management is flexible because it gives room for several options for organizations to structure themselves that include inclusive decision making, decentralization, formalization, departmentalization and a flexible chain of command.
There are however, factors that affect organizing decisions. Strategy affects that manner in which decisions are made. A change in strategy would call for change in the manner in which an organization is managed. The size of the organization dictates several implementation procedures in the organization that include decentralization and other features discussed in the paper.
Environmental conditions affect the manner in which decisions are made in the organization. When there is high competition, an organization would be forced to formulate strategies that can sustain it in the market, hence affecting organizing decisions. The last factor that affects organizing is technology. Advancement in technology requires that organizations adopt them so as to conform to emerging demands.
References
Fayol, H. (1949). General and Industrial Administration. London: Sir Issac Pitman & Sons, Ltd.
Samson, D. & Daft, R. (2009). Fundamentals of Management. 3rd edition. Australia: Cengage
Robbins, S. etal. (2003) Management. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.