Among the pool of advice available on organizational design, all the methods, options, and strategies can be grouped in three main categories to design approach. According to Robert W. Keidel of the Academy of Management Executive, these approaches are: restructuring (organizational unit solutions), re engineering (organizational process solutions), and rethinking (organizational cognition).
Achieving maximum productivity and consistency overtime requires a great effort from the organization as a whole. And the organization’s design is a crucial element that can shape and boost outstanding results. Because organizations, like systems, change constantly and must adapt themselves to the environment, it’s highly probable that its design will shift as well at least until the company finds a good fit for an extended period of time.
Paired with each stage of organizational growth will come a particular organizational design. It is this design that can help the company move ahead to the next growth stage; or rather it can hinder that possibility.
In the current global market where competition should never be underestimated, companies have to grasp on their only asset which is not replicable: human capital. Products, formulas, processes, and ideas can all be copied at any time, but the people behind all of these can’t.
This is the single most important factor in today’s economy: people. From company executives to every level of employees, managing the workforce is crucial. And to achieve the highest levels of productivity, human capital must be managed in the proper way.
For small businesses, employee motivation is crucial for the success or demise of the company. Generally as a small business, organizations have fewer employees, which challenges them to get the best out of this scarce resource.
Even as small businesses think of employee motivation as a problem, entrepreneurs should be mindful of the effects that low employee motivation brings. These problems include complacency, disinterest, even widespread discouragement. Such attitudes can accumulate into crises.
Small business owners must devise an employee motivation program that aligns with the company’s objectives and needs.
The conventional organizational models that still prevail were defined as “scientific management” in the 1900s. These models perceived the organization as “a collection of parts that need to be standardized and centrally controlled.”
“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage” Jack Welch, Former CEO of General Electric
It might take quite some time before organizations understand the importance of knowledge management. It is a topic more aligned with big corporations, while smaller businesses may not ever have heard about this concept.
But not having heard about it doesn’t mean they don’t unknowingly practice it. Knowledge management has been around for ages, existing whether we acknowledge it or not.
There is no universal definition of knowledge management and no real agreement as to what constitutes it. Some define knowledge management as the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge within an organization. What is clear is that it’s a value-creating process, “through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets.”
Employee Volunteer Programs are one of the many ways for companies to be socially responsible while also involving their employees in social initiatives.
EVPs bring countless benefits to business, from an improved company image to more productive employees.
Stress is a body’s reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response. The feeling is experienced when a person perceives that the demands exceed their personal and social resources that he or she disposes of.
There are two types of stress: eustress and distress. Eustress is the “healthy” stress, the one that provides the feeling of fulfillment. It is made up of a process of exploring potential gains.
Distress, on the other hand, is a severe strain that results from exhaustion or an accident.
Organizational design involves deciding on key elements. One of them is the type of departmentalization the company should work in. This is the basis by which jobs will be grouped together, and every organization can have its own way of doing so depending on the business operations and company objectives. Departmentalization subdivides work and workers into separate units responsible for the completion of specific tasks.
Work-life balance can be simply described as the delicate balance between an individual’s work and personal life.
It is crucial for every individual to find his or her own balance, as for everyone it is unique. If not paid attention to, an unbalance can bring grave physical, emotional, and mental problems, resulting from stress, lack of sleep or relationship problems.