Bureaucratic organizational structure - Essay Example

Bureaucratic organizational structure Place Inside each organization, there exist a wide range of regulations and procedures, which every member should adhere. Inside bureaucratic organization, every process has a structure, the roles have targets, the productivity of team is monitored and there is a design of different solutions. However, it is complicated to abide rules, follow certain policy, perform job properly and achieve common goals if the personnel do not take active part in life of organization, cannot make its own decisions concerning work and does not see or know its role in the team. The following paper will illustrate how psychometric testing helps to identify talents for the organizations; it will examine the employee empowerment as a strategy for achieving goals. The paper will also explain the need of every employee to have its role in a team basing on Belbin’s theory. To enable its employees to make decisions about their job, organizations use such strategy as employee empowerment. It helps employees to take responsibility for the results of their performace, helps them to serve customers at the proper level of the organization. The process of empowerment enables or authorizes person to think, behave, make decisions, take action and control its work without constant supervision and management from the other sides. The organization is responsible for creation of proper work environment for the employee that will help him/her to bring up the ability and want to perform its job in empowered ways. It is up to organization to remove limitations that stop staff acting in empowered ways. Such management actions give possibilities for work in the perfect organization. The important step for empowering employees is to demonstrate that the organization values its people, helps them understand and feel as if they are part of something bigger and their individual job is highly appreciated. This may be executed letting employees access to the organizations vision, mission and strategic plans. If it is possible to involve employees in goal setting and planning, the organization should let such process start. It will add value, knowledge, ideas, experience to the employees and let them act independent. The organization will empower its employees if it trust their intentions to make the decision and choices. This may differ from what the top of organizational management decides, however, it will work because its employees did it. To make thoughtful decisions, it is essential to delegate the important meetings or memberships that puts impact on the development of product or project and decision making. It is vital to the employee to know that his/her achievements are noticed. This may be performed through frequent feedback. Its purpose is recognition and opportunity for improvement and coaching. To empower employees, the organization should give a space, in which they will communicate and ask questions, This will give an opportunity to be more knowledgeable about the process of work and will give employees thought that they are heard. Under-compensation, under-noticing of employees’ achievements, under-praising and under-appreciation will not play into hands for the organization (Heathfield 2014). Among the benefits of employee empowerment is the improvement of organizational productivity. It also reduce costs, gives more opportunity and enhances customer service, empowered employees are free to take new responsibilities and are not afraid of challenges, which are critical for the organization in modern fast-changing environment (Richards 2014). When the organization think of its further achievements, it thinks of the empoyees, which will be the main power for them. For this reason, it is essential for the organization to choose the right candidates for a particular position in the process of recruitment. However, simple selection of a right person is not the complete nice picture. The organization should also think of how retain and develop their current talented employees. For this purpose, the psychometric testing is a helpful tool and a value-added step within the organization. The benefit of psychometric testing is great, but only because it is used properly and in a professional manner. The benefits of psychometric testing is that organization will save its money by hiring the right person at once. The conducted assessment will help to displace the unsuitable candidates earlier and allow focusing on the more suitable ones. The evaluation of potential employees allows to treat them equally and fairly when the objective information results are used. The test gives possibilities to detect people who need to improve their skills thus the organisation initiates development trainings for their employees. Most important for the organization, the use of psychometric testing has the potential to assess all selection processes and information that is not always possible to do by using other evaluaton or testing systems (Psychometric testing within an organization, n.d.). There are no clear disadvantages of the psychometric testing. It should be uses correctly however, it is not usually necessary to rely too much on it, because there is always a risk for inaccurate interpretations of the test results. In this case, it will bring more damage to the testee and organization and will also ruin the credibility of the use of tests. Among other pitfalls of psychometric testing is that it may be used unfairly against some testee deliverately. For instance, some job applicants may have cultural differences, eyesight problems or not enough language skills (Stone 2011). When the recruitment process finishes, there appears an important step of gathering a team. As organisations reduce its sizes and become less bureaucratic with time, the importance of teams become more essential. Organizations know that a combination of personality characteristics are vital and the composition of a team is important to further success. Before an perfect team is created, the organization should consider the degree of complexity, because the mix of individuals will be included into the team. A British researcher and management theorist Meredith Belbin defines a “team role as a tendency to behave, contribute, and interrelate with others at work in certain distinctive ways”. Each team member contributes the organization in its own unique way. There is a recommendation to create a team of six people maximum, because the larger team will be considered as a group and less quantity of people will bring no effect at all, as not all roles within the team will be distributed. There should be three main groups inside a balanced team (Obagun O., n.d.). Common and positive team language will enable individuals and teams to communicate and cooperate with each other with bigger understanding, bringing a new team together or making the existing team motivated and perform its work in the effective way. While psychometric tests measures psychological attributes of the person, such as intelligence and personality traits, Belbin uses a different approach in identifying personality and its ability to work in a team. He states that personality can be hardly able to change, while behaviour may be adapted to the required situation or role. Thus, for individuals and teams could work more effectively, organizations need to focus on changes of behaviour. In such case, the importance of team roles should be paid more attention. Along with it, the observer assessments to accompany one’s self perception will give possibility to indicate and modify the team role profile and give accurate picture of how different individuals fit into one team and how they behave working together (Leadership solutions 2007). There are certain limitations of Belbin team role assessment. They are designed specifically for teams. The theory can be used to prevent team performance  used in a work setting. An individual cannot be measured by its team-related behaviors.  In addition, organization should take the factor of one’s personality into consideration.  The Belbin assessment cannot measure personality attributes because it is not a psychometric tool (The Limitations of Belbin 2014). There is a statement that people seek out allegiance to social groups but are easily involved into intergroup clashes. The classic  social psychology experiment in 1950s explained the possible psychological basis of the reasons why social groups and countries involved themselves into conflict with each other. This experiment has also shown how such indivuals could learn to cooperate again. Study leader Muzafer Sherif presented two groups of eleven boys at the age of eleven to Robbers Cave State Park for "summer camp" in Oklahoma. The groups "Eagles" and the "Rattlers" were separated and spent one week knowing nothing about the existence of the other group. When the two groups at the end were gatheres, the boys started to call names of each other and while competing in different games, there more conflicts have appeared and finally the groups even refused to eat together. The next phase designed by Sherif was made try to gather the boys and enjoy leisure activities together. It was unsuccessful. Only when the boys were set the target to solve the common problem, they began to ease the conflict (Green n.d.). When different individuals start their work together, it is obvious that there have to be some time for adapting of each attributes and visions. The presence of conflicts inside the team means that it includes people who possess their certain roles and want to prove its meaning to the rest of the ream. However, if the problem occurs and it is common for the whole team, it touches all the roles and all individuals together. This is how the team will be formed: by gathering different people and their ability to solve problems together. With time, when the team knows each member’s role inside it, it gives the team more power to resolve controversial issues and thus bring benefit for the organization. Each organizational culture is constituted of values, beliefs, norms which canonot be easily judged or measured. It is made up of experience of each employee and is influenced by the organization’s founders or executives. It is alo deeply rooted with culture of certain nation, social and religious setup. That is why it needs to be properly treated when there is a need for changing the organization culture (Jacob 2014). Growing over time, people become more comfortable with the current culture and it is a significant event for them when the organization decides to change its culture. It requires their understanding and commitment. The organization decides its strategic movement and demands from its employees to change their behavior to create the new desired organizational culture (Heathfield 2014). When the organization follows the bureaucratic way of conduct, it organizes it work with a high degree of formality. There are organizational charts that exist for every department and decisions- making passing its every branch. Rules and job responsibilities are presented in the accurate way, hierarchy of power is well known to all employees. For the insurance organization who wants to implement bureaucracy, first what is important, that employees shoud be hired based on their skills and knowledge and not because of favoritism or luck. Salaries should be tied to a pay-grade system. Bureaucracy organizations are unable to adapt to changing conditions quickly, however, the insurance companies should follow the time with its rapid changes, but at the same time implement strategies that will bring benefit to the organization. In the hierarchical organization, managers control how the business is run. They create policies and rules and regulations of how their employees should perform their duties to service many customers within a short period of time and ensure efficiency of work (Manker n.d.). Since there are many types of businesses to which the insurance companies serve, the types of insurance also differs. For example, government requires certain types of insurance for the employers, which include worker’s compensation and unemployment insurance. For that reason, the bureaucratic approach inside the organization will require the management of the organization to create procedures for employees, which will protect them in case of accidents or in case of dismissal. For insurance companies, which follow the bureaucratic way of work, the creation of policies is essential as they deal with the legal fees and judgments that are associated with accidents, negligence or professional errors, home-based businesses (Nichols, n.d.). For the bureaucracy insurance organization to work properly, there is a need to conduct functional departmentalization, where every type of insurance will be given its department, its own policies and regulations will serve for the employees, management and people. Such dividing into departments will be another advantage of efficiency. Grouping works require same knowledge, skills and resources and may promote the development of bigger expertise among those who belong to certain group. Organizations, which are spread around the bigger area, have their advantages in organizing their work along different geographic lines. Thus, all the activities they perform are managed together. However, the centralized coordination may be more difficult. Using bureaucracy approaches, such as policies, instruction and rules will help such coordination to be conducted efficiently. Many organizations state that bureaucracy makes all the work difficult as it imposes its system to everything. However, the absence of regulations and formalities would stop certain processes. If implemented in a right manner, it serves all the parties, allowing employees to make right decisions basing on the procedures and policies. Thanks to the psychometric testing it is possible to choose and create teams that will bring much benefit for the company and will create its perfect organizational culture. References Green C., n.d. Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment, Available from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Sherif/ Heathfield S. 2014, How to Change Your Culture, Available from http://humanresources.about.com/od/organizationalculture/a/culture_change.htm Heathfield S. 2014. The Credo of an Empowering Manager,Top 10 Principles of Employee Empowerment, Available from http://humanresources.about.com/od/managementandleadership/tp/empowerment.htm Jacob A., 2014. Is the Organization culture is something that can be easily changed or effectively managed?Available from http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Is-Organization-culture-is-something-3044917.S.42732529   Leadership solutions 2007, New Zealand Representatives for Belbin Associates and Belbin Pacific, Available from http://www.leadershipsolutions.co.nz/belbin_benefits.cfm Manker A., n.d., Bureaucratic Organizations: Examples, Lesson & Quiz, Educational Portal, Available from http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/bureaucratic-organizations-examples-lesson-quiz.html#lesson Nichols L., n.d., What Are the Functions of Insurance Companies? Available from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/functions-insurance-companies-58939.html Obagun O., n.d. “An evaluation of belbin’s team role self perception inventory: to help the project office construct an optimal team”, University of Dundee Psychometric testing within an organisation - a value-added step in the recruitment process, 2013, Available from http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/22/94425.html Richards L., 2014. What Are the Benefits of Employee Empowerment? The Houston Chronicle, Available from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-employee-empowerment-1177.html Stone N., 2011. Are there any disadvantages to using Psychometric Testing? Learning Consultancy Partnership, Available from http://lcp.org.uk/index.php/2011/07/disadvantages-psychometric-testing/ The Limitations of Belbin, 2014, Available from http://www.improvingteams.com/blog/the-limitations-of-belbin/ Read More