Organisational Design Factors - Case Study Example

Jones Lang LaSalle Case Analysis: Organisational Design Factors Student’s Name Institution Table of Contents A. Introduction…………………………………………………..3 B. Background of the Case...……………………………………3 C. Key Contingent Factors Influencing Organisational Design...3 I. Business Strategy.........................................................4 II. External Environment..................................................6 III. Technology...................................................................9 IV. Physical Frameworks..................................................10 D. Conclusion...............................................................................10 Reference List................................................................................11 A. Introduction The focus of this report paper is to identify the fundamental contingent factors that senior managers in JLL will have to assume in order to ensure that there is consistent productivity at all times. It will put up a discussion on such important aspects of organisational design as external environment, technology, physical frameworks, and improvements in business strategies like the current notable Activity Based Working mechanism. The conclusion will provide stances related to the discussion while making sure not to introduce any newer philosophy that was never raised in the analysis. B. Background of the Case From the case materials provided, it can be seen that JLL operates under a functional organisational structure. The structure, which provides a fundamental reflection of the framework perspective of the entire organisational design, also offers a chain of command that depicts the different ways the overall model is hierarchically structured. The functional structure of JLL is based on the different sizes of the departments that act to ensure all business needs are attained without fail. The senior managers of the firm seem to hold lots of responsibilities that they delegate to the junior managers and staff in accordance with their respective qualifications and experiences. C. Key Contingent Factors Influencing Organisational Design There are a good number of aspects that need to be co-ordinated by the senior managers of the firm as a way of formulating an efficient and effecting organisational design that can go a long way to achieve its overall objectives of delivering top notch performance. Numerous researches indicate that the efficient integration of the factors will ascertain a significant level of impact on the immediate success or failure of operations. Despite its rather well-composed organisational structure, the senior managers at JLL should also ensure that the focus more on some of the factors in order to ensure that they achieve distinct performance levels. These factors are discussed in detail in the next section. I. Business Strategy The organisational strategy refers to the immediate integration of the mission, vision and competitive placement of the business in the industry of operations. It thus goes without saying that the designs of organisation like JLL should be formulated in a way that allows serving the entire strategic functions in place. The mission and vision of the organisation should be articulated in a way that can help attain a common purpose that serves to inform both the senior and junior managers and, also interlink them together within the firm as a whole (Head, Yaeger, & Sorensen, 2010). These senior managers should improve the existing mission statement and objectives so that it can provide leadership to the employees; failure to do this might lead to possible confusion and conflicts in the future, which hinder production activities. Consequently, the vision of the organisation should also undergo specific improvement in order to accommodate possible future-orientations by formulating detailed information on where the firm will be positioned in a predefined number of years (Head, Yaeger, & Sorensen, 2010). The vision statement should also be set out in a way that will allow future perspective of the firm by potential stakeholders. JLL chief executive should ensure that the existing mission and vision statement offers the element of flexibility that will allow future penetration of objectives. The current mission of the firm states that; “We are in business to create and deliver real value for clients, shareholders and our own people in a complex world that is constantly changing” (JLL, 2015). This mission has taken to indicate the stakeholders that will be entirely affected by the operations however; it does not indicate the manner for which JLL will ensure positive performance. It needs to be specific so that it can allow clear attainment of goals and objectives. JLL should come up with an efficient way of developing strategies. These strategies should be formulated in a way that allows both long term planning prowess but also ways through which the desires of the organisation should be attained altogether. The strategy should ensure that sharpens decision-making process by identifying the immediate choice of technologies for which real estate products and services are based, facilitate the development and processess involved in the production and release of newer products and services, marketing distribution as well as the ways for which the organisation can respond to aspects related to competition (Head, Yaeger, & Sorensen, 2010). For instance, the firm just recently employed an Activity Based Working (ABC) strategy to facilitate productivity. The program is a workplace strategy that avails personnel with a distinctive options of settings related to numerous workplace-based activities. JLL formulated a productivity framework that is based on three fundamental aspects; business, people and real estate function. The business framework is set to develop a shareholder value through positively impacting the organisations bottom line as well as ensure a reduction in the existing cost base. The metrics that are used to evaluate the framework include the speed to market, market share as well as possibilities relating to revenues and profitability growth. The people framework is set out to develop a rather cohesive organisational culture by way of ensuring the creation of an inspiring workplace as well as decreasing the staff attrition rates. The metrics involved include; the time needed for hiring newer personnel as well as the levels of absenteeism. The real estate framework is set to provide a real estate strategy that will facilitate overall business performance through increasing the existing space utilisation prospects, sustaining rental costs over the operation period as well as in ensuring improved sustainability credentials. The metrics that should be used for measuring this aspect include the space utilisation studies, the accommodation costs per an individual as well as the energy consumption of the entire firm. An effective business strategy like the one mentioned above should allow for strategic review and evaluation process (Katz, & Kahn, 1978). In essence, the vision and mission statements should be subjected to periodic review to accommodate the ever-changing business environment while at the same time ensure that the focus on goals and objectives remain at par with expectations of the management. II. External Environment There is a need for any given firm to engage in continuous analysis and periodic review of the immediate environment upon where it operates since it plays a fundamental part in formulation and implementation of organisational designs that permits future prospective performances. JLL will likely benefit a lot from scanning the immediate environments upon where it operates so that it can devise ways that it can use to counter any possible element of conflict of policies. In fact, the scanning of the environment should adopt a PESTLE analysis framework in order to determine different expectations in the distinctive areas of operations. For instance, JLL Asia-Pacific business region should be scanned to ensure that the political and economic environment allow for real estate products. Given that the company has already established operations in different regions it will be fundamental that it ensures the existing frameworks support its existing objectives of positive and improved performances. As noted, the political and economic aspects affect the way the organisational design will be formulated and implemented to achieve better results. The recent shambolic labor government policies and lagging resource investments proved a major inhibitor to JLL performances within the period. However, there is sufficient information that sets out to indicate a significant gross domestic product growth of about 3.3 per cent. The growth can be used by JLL senior management to plan in advance the rate of developments to materialise within the Australian markets in comparison to the Asia-Pacific region. In truth, the senior managers should come up with fundamental goals that will aim to reduce direction of investment resources to stagnant markets and rather invest within the local market that provides a favourable prospect of market growth. Apart from the environment scanning of the business external aspects, JLL senior managers should also understand that they would be required to conduct regular stakeholder analysis as well. The review of stakeholders should be undertaken especially when evaluating the business strategy to be set in place and, also in the event that there is a significant project that is considered to be under development. In essence, the current mission strategy of the firm is limited to the customers, employees and shareholders while it is important to expand the list to include suppliers, trade unions and even governmental agencies. Effective stakeholders analysis will require the senior managers to list each of the stakeholders affected by the operations visa vie their respective needs and the manner for which they can influence important decision-making process. For instance, Harley (2014) indicates that there has been substantial improvement in the company’s stock prices from $US82 to 117 while the capitalisation of the firm now stands at more than $US5.2 billion with a 20 per cent rate of return. This information can be used by the managers to influence performance especially in regards to revenue and profitability growth within a certain operational period (Harley, 2014). A perfect example is when the senior managers formulate goals and objectives that conform to the expected anticipations of institutional investors opting to engage in intensive allocation of incremental capital to commercial real estate. It is important to note that all open systems function fairly-well whenever there is relative importation of energy. All open systems import a significant proportion of energy from the external environments given that functioning personality highly depends on a never-ending flow of social stimulation. It is for this reason that senior managers at JLL should understand the need and importance of social organisations in ensuring the drawing of renewed supplies of workable energies from other efficient institutions, personnel and material environment (Macey & Schneider, 2008). They should further comprehend the fact that there is no single social structure or even enterprise that can exist on a self-sufficient philosophy. The stakeholders should be allowed to play a critical role in influencing decisions of the firm and as a result, make sure that performance objectives are defined and met in predetermined timeframes. Another fundamental point to note that relates to external environments as factors necessary for ensuring effective organisational design rests with the fact that enterprises like JLL should rely on acquiring negative entropy. This is meant to ensure that these firms improve on their survival placements and thereby acquire necessary reserves needed for conducting business within a reliable and relevant margin of operations. If adopted by the senior managers, the process will guarantee future operations as it allows organisations to undergo transformations and flexibilities in relation to the ever-changing business environments (Andersson, 2010). The steady state and dynamic homeostasis is a philosophy that will enhance JLL’s process of energy importation in order to ensure that there is a continuous stream of energy inflows from external environment and a subsequent export of the real estate products and services of the entire system. Still, in the evaluation of the open systems and the necessity of external environments rests with differentiation. It is important to comprehend the fact that these systems move in the direction of differentiation and elaboration so that senior managers of the firm can disembark global external patterns and replace them with specific functionalities (Andersson, 2010). The performance of the company can be improved by differentiation through replacement of rigidity of functions with elaboration of well-structured and defined roles with distinct specialisation. Senior managers at JLL should ensure that there is distinct interaction of numerous dynamic forces while there should be existing framework to regulate the amount of feedback at any given moment in time. Periodic review of feedback that is accessed from the effects of the external environment can be evaluated on a regular basis to act as a metric for establishing whether the current products being offered are desirable in the market. This way, JLL will ensure to be always placed in a position to gauge their respective performance prowess. These managers should also ensure to integrate and coordinate the outcomes from differentiation process (Shuman & Twombly, 2010). The integration and coordination will involve coming up with processess aimed at unifying the current organisational functional structure in place. Fixed controls can be integrated or rather replaced with flexible controls in order to accommodate positive and elongated performances. III Technology This is a contingency factor that JLL management can use to affect the current level of performances because it is ever-changing in nature. There is a high rate upon which technology changes to ensure productivity improvement. One of the most significant areas that JLL senior managers can use the impact of technology in communicating with the current relatively huge number of workforce involved is through adopting technological advancements that allow the elimination of the need for multiple tiers of existing management hence leading to the “flattening” of the entire organisational structure as a whole. Subsequently, these senior managers should comprehend the fact that inclusion of a most viable information technology plays a greater level of contribution to output in companies that employ more decentralised and human-capital-intensive work systems (Macey & Schneider, 2008). IV Physical Frameworks JLL senior managers should not overlook the need for effective physical frameworks of organisational design like the health and safety as well as the ergonomics involved. They should be fairly integrated with the underlying mission and vision of the company in order to generate efficient levels of impact. The capacity to create and sustain a positive and workable environment might go a long way to ensure that the level of employee turnover is reduced hence guaranteeing ample time for knowledge and skill transfer amongst the existing workforce (Macey & Schneider, 2008). A reduced employee turnover rate also results to increased productivity. D. Conclusion To sum up the analysis above, it can be ascertained that JLL senior managers have a duty to establish the contingency factors that specifically relates to the current functional organisational structure in place. The assignment has indicated that the physical frameworks, external environment analysis, technology as well business strategies are some of the best contingency factors of organisational design that can be adopted to ensure future improved performances. JLL senior managers should employ these factors in order to improve on the current functional organisational structure of the company. References List Andersson, A 2010,"Struggles of managerial being and becoming", Journal of Management Development, vol. 29, no. 2 pp. 167 - 176 Harley, R 2014. Jones Lang LaSalle finds multiple silver linings. The Financial Review, Retrieved on August 19, 2015 from http://www.afr.com/real-estate/commercial/jones-lang-lasalle-finds-multiple-silver-linings-20140212-ixt0x# Head, T., Yaeger, T & Sorensen, P. 2010, Global organisation structural design: speculation and a call for action. Organization Development Journal. vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 41-8. JLL. 2015. About Us. Retrieved on August 19, 2015 from http://www.jll.com.au/australia/en-au/about Katz, D & Kahn, R L1978 ‘Extract: The Social Psychology of Organizations.' In: The Social Psychology of Organizations, 2nd edn. Wiley, New York, pp. 23-34 Macey, W & Schneider, B 2008, The meaning of employee engagement. Industrial and Organisational Psychology, vol. 1, no. 1.pp. 3-30. Shuman, J & Twombly, J 2010, Collaborative networks are the organisation: an innovation in organisation design and management. The Journal for Decision Makers, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 1-13. Read More