The Line and Staff Organizational Chart - Essay Example

INTRODUCTION The line and staff organizational chart shows us who reports to whom directly. The relationship between subordinates and management is a complex situation. The two cases below discusses some instances of such subordinate - management conflicts. CASE I POWER. The power lies in the General Manager. Power then goes down through the chain of command from the General Manager to the Sales manager then to the unit manager and then finally to the financial advisers. The General Manager applies strict management to it lines employees. The advantage of this policy to force the lazy employees to work hard and this management style fits here. But this management style does not fit other types of employees. Other types of subordinates prefer their heads or supervisors to be more lenient with them and to allow them room to finish assigned tasked in the best way the subordinate thinks he or she could finish the job faster. The employees feel like human beings whenever their opinions or suggestion and even complaints are taken into account by their superiors. Alternative Ways of Behaving. Management should apply different styles of management in order to fit each kind of individual employee. Strictness and penalties can be applied to lazy employees and awards and promotion could be given to employees who love to conquer challenges in return for the awards, citations and promotions given. Management could also implement a mixture of strict management policy for some line employees and also implement a soft management stand of giving the employees a wider room to navigate in order for the employees to better accomplish, in terms of quality and quantity, all tasks assigned beforehand to the subordinates (the sales managers, unit managers and the financial advisors) Less strictness will also lessen the subordinates' resentment or resistance to power imposed on them. Case Material Program Evaluation Review Technique. In case 1, management has been strict to employees namely the sales manager, the unit manger and the finally, the financial advisors. This will result to anger and even fear of being reprimanded, suspended or even worst, terminated, in case the employees do not perform in accordance with predetermined benchmarks. Since, in this case, the financial advisors report directly to the unit managers and the unit managers are loyal to the sales managers who has a very harmonious working relationship with the unit managers and the financial advisors, the sale manager who is revolting against the strict management policy of the general manager has won the hearts and minds of the employees and enticed them to leave the company. In economics, some people prefer to be insulted and they are willing to swallow their pride and even their person than to resign from the job where they are not happy. This is because they cannot feed their family with their pride. Other persons prefer to resign from a company when their pride is hurt. Still other persons are so strong willed that they confront the management and ask for leniency or a little more space in order for the employee to move around more freely. This space will result to more happy employees and happy employees do better jobs. (Dilworth, 1993) Some employees, though, will not follow the sales manager's offer to resign from the company because these types of employees love the strictness being implemented by top management. Range and Application of theories In the Critical path management concept, the financial advisor will submit his work to the Unit manger that then does some analysis and interpretation and then gives the final report to the sales manger. The sales manager then gives his sales department's summary report to the general manager who is strict in this case. If the financial advisor is lazy then the work of the unit manager will lag behind resulting to work delays of the sales manager and the general manager. (Raiborn et al., 1993) Using exchange theory, the subordinates (financial advisors, unit managers and the sales managers) are sensitive to how upper manager reciprocates the hard work that the subordinates do. If the subordinates feel that they are short changed, then they will be become dissatisfied with their work and production quality and quantity will start to decline. Some employees may tinker with the idea of resigning from their jobs because they feel their hard work is not, in the subordinates' opinions, equally compensated or rewarded. Under the theory of power of resources, human resources (the sales mangers, unit managers and the financial advisors) are the hardest to harness. This is because when employees have gained the necessary experiences (in this case their improved selling techniques) some employees may apply to other competing or related companies that offer higher commissions and other fringe benefits. The resignation of the sales manager and his bringing along unit managers and financial advisors away from the strict manager's outstretched arms is a sign that top management has drastically changed its management style to stop the further exodus of its remaining bright and hardworking employees. Power, in this case, has now shifted strongly in favor of the sales manager who has won the hearts and minds of the unit managers and the financial advisors, and away from the top management. The sales knowledge gained by the financial advisors and the unit managers and the sales managers in their many years of actual selling activities will now be used by other selling companies. Interpretation and Insight Strictness, per se, is not a bad management prerogative. It is good in some instances but it will not work in other instances. Communication has been going one way in this case. The employees will accept management policies and procedures if the subordinates are allowed to give their own opinions, suggestions and complaints on the communication received from above. Employees will feel better they are told that strictness is for the betterment of all line and staff personnel of the company. (Irwin, 2000) Rewards and promotions are better work enhancers than strictness coupled with fines, suspensions and even, in the worst instances, termination. (Fossum, 1999) Building strong inter department relationships (Top management and the Sales Department in this case, will improve the company's competitive advantage over its competitors, according to Michael Porter.(Campbell & Sommers Luchs, 1998) Management's strictness could be classified as one of the weaknesses under the management analytical tool called SWOT (Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities and threats) analysis. This tool will help much in analyzing the internal as well as the external factors that will affect the sales and expenses of this company. (Campbell & Sommers Luchs, 1997) Forming a strategy to accomplish company goals and objectives is one of the five tasks of strategic management and strictness is a good strategy to wake up slow moving employees in order to prod them to reach their benchmarks when the time period ends.(Thompson & Strickland, 1999) Employees need to be strictly watched and told what to do to the point where some employees are told not to think but only to follow management instructions blindly and without questions. Employees have to be strictly taught what to do or else the complaining employees are requested to resign. (Bryjak & Soroka, 1992) On the other hand, if the complaining employees will resign because they do not like strict management policies, economics tells us that there will always be a supply of labor or in this particular case sales manager's unit managers and financial advisors replacements. Therefore management can stick to its strict policy and just replace the unworthy and unfit employees. ( Slavin, 1996) Communication from the top management must be made in such a way that the subordinates will take the strict policies and procedures whole heartedly. It is how the message is crafted that spells the difference between a big or a small employee turnover. The top management must use feedback to determine if what they wanted to say is received in the same good intentioned way that management wants. Communication occurs basically when management sends a message to the subordinates, either through verbal or written statements, and the subordinates clearly receive the message. Management then asks the employees give their feedbacks on the strictness policy that will be implemented. (Lehman & DuFrene,1999) Reflexive Practice Based on the above literature, management can either continue with its policy of strictness or if the employees complain or even resign, then management can just hire new employees. The disadvantage of this top management policy is that big employee turnover will cost the company much in terms of ballooning training costs. Putting it another way, some employees have nowhere to go and so they have to accept their fate that, due to poverty, they must follow strictly all company policies and procedures sometimes for fear of being fined, suspended or, in worst case scenarios, unceremoniously terminated from the company. Management can also lessen the strictness to cover only lazy employees and top management, in this case, can offer rewards and promotions to employees who do well in their jobs. Some employees prefer the rewards and promotions schemes and other employees prefer the strictness, fines, suspensions and termination policies better. CASE II POWER. The General Manager holds the strings of all his subordinates composed of the sales managers, unit managers, senior financial advisors and the financial advisors. The sales department manager has four sales managers under him while the each of the four unit managers report directly to the sales manager. The senior financial advisors report directly to the unit managers. Lastly, the financial advisors report to the senior financial analyst. The closely knitted group of middle managers (sales managers, unit managers and senior financial advisors) exerts a strong opposing power to top management. Management must watch its steps in dealing with this big homogenous group of middle managers. The Financial advisers are grouped into one and reports to any of the four senior financial advisors. This will cause confusion because the financial advisors should be distributed evenly to each of the four financial advisors. Once each financial advisor is assigned to a senior financial advisor, then the other senior financial advisors cannot command or control such financial advisor. Alternative Ways. A very good suggestion is that there should be a pyramid type of line and staff arrangement. For example if there are two subordinates, then they would best be only one head for the two subordinates. This will result in lower labor cost as compared with the current setup in case 2 where one senior financial advisor reports directly to only one unit manager. Likewise, one unit manager reports to only one sales manager. To continue, one sales manager should have two or more unit managers. Case Material Economics tells us if one employee resigns because he feels that there is no clear future of salary increases or promotion or even rewards, there is a tendency for subordinates to get bored of doing the same routine tasks day in and day out. Economics also tells us that if an employee resigns, management can just easily look for replacement because in some job descriptions, some jobs are a dime a dozen. (Samuelson, 1973) Range and Application of theories One master theory of management. This management policy tells that a person cannot serve two masters at the same time. In case of conflict, the subordinate has to stop his links to one master and retain the head and subordinate relationship with the other master. In cases this may be true but in reality a subordinates usually can be approached and instructed to do jobs by heads of other departments. Close knit middle managers. Since the middle managers are so closely knitted together, management must be careful with how it communicates with the group. The middle managers, as a group, exert power over top management. Interpretation and Insight Since promotion is lessened by the current organizational chart in this case no 2, the employees will tend to resign and apply to competing firms and other companies where the salaries are bigger and the opportunities for promotion better. The policy of having all financial advisors grouped into one and the four senior financial advisors can just pick any of the financial advisors to do specific jobs can cause confusion. Reflexive Practice The current organizational chart should be replaced with an "almost" pyramid type of organizational chart. This pyramid chart states that two or three financial advisors will report to one senior financial advisor. Two or three senior financial advisors will report to one unit manager. Two or three unit managers should report to one sales manager. One scenario of employees resigning because they feel that promotion is bleak because of the current one is to one middle management setup could result to two outcomes. One outcome is that management will happily allow the complaining employees to resign because many jobless and skilled jobseekers can replace the resigning employees easily. The other outcome occurs when management courts the disgruntled and disillusioned employees that change will be put in place to address their grievances and grant the demands for promotion and other fringe benefits in the earliest possible time. Management will do this in order to retain quality employees and they are willing to let go of useless or lazy employees that do not perform according to par. CONCLUSION Management and subordinates must communicate often in order that one side does not unintentionally cause discouragement or disillusionment to the other party. REFERENCES: Dilworth, J., Production and Operations Management, McGraw-Hill, London, 1993 Raiborn et al, Managerial Accounting, West Publishing, US, 1993 Irwin, D., On Target, Achieving Best Business Performance, Thompson, UK, 2000 Fossum, J., Labor Relations, Irwin McGraw-Hill, London, 1999 Campbell A. & Sommers Luchs, K., Strategic Synergy, Thompson, UK, 1998 Campbell A. & Sommers Luchs, K., Core Competency Based Strategy, UK, 1997 Thompson A. & Strickland A III, Strategic Management, London, 1999 Bryjak, G., Soroka, M., Sociology, Simon & Schuster, London, 1992 Slavin, S., Economics, Richard Irwin, London, 1996 Lehman, C., & DuFrene, D., Business Communication, SouthWestern Pub., UK, 1999 Samuelson, P., Economics, McGraw-Hill, London, 1973 Read More