A company is like an atom, where the employees are the electrons, and the company goal is the nucleus. Just as the movement of electrons plays an essential role in many physical phenomena, the activity of employees is crucial for fulfilling the team’s objectives and achieving the organization’s purpose.
And the similarities don’t end here. Employees move within a well-defined organizational structure the same way the electrons move inside an atom.
I know you are not reading this article to expand your physics knowledge but to learn more about organizational structure. So, let us dive in!
TABLE OF CONTENT
The organizational structure is the formal arrangement of roles and responsibilities within an organization. It defines the way the organization functions, manages its employees and assets, and interacts with external stakeholders.
Organizational structures evolved since the Industrial Revolution when individuals were structured based on the assembly line. In 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management, advancing the idea that “workers and managers must collaborate” and “employers should divide work and responsibilities among employees.”
“The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee” Taylor said.
We have come a long way since the Industrial Revolution. Today, organizational structures are more flexible. They adapt and realign to fit new working environments while maintaining the company’s core vision.
An organizational structure defines the workflows and hierarchy of a company. It identifies each job, its role and responsibilities, and its reporting lines within the organization.
Simply put, the organizational structure lays out who does what and reports to whom, so the company can meet its objectives.
Traditional organizational structures categorize employees by function (such as finance or HR), region, or industry. Newer charts are more fluid; they adapt faster to economic realities.
Although there are many organizational structures, all of them are visual representations of how the company is shaped, with the most powerful members sitting at the top while those with the least power are at the bottom.
The purpose of any company is to hire and maintain an engaged workforce that supports the organization’s vision and goals. The organizational structure chart makes this process more transparent and straightforward.
You probably have come across an organizational structure chart at some point during your career. So, you know what we are talking about.
We will analyze the seven organizational structures, their pros, and cons, and help you pick the one that will strengthen your company. More exactly we will cover the following examples:
Let's start with the most popular organizational structure, the hierarchical one.
The hierarchical structure is the most common organizational chart. The employees are grouped by their role, function, or geography and are led by a manager. The chain of command goes from the top (highest level of leadership) down (low-level employees) through different departmental and team management levels.
At first glance, this pyramid-shaped structure seems ideal for large companies. But it has some disadvantages.
The pros of hierarchical structure:
The cons of hierarchical structure:
A functional organizational structure divides employees into departments by specific responsibilities and related roles. Each department has a designated manager who also has a supervisor. The supervisor is in charge of multiple departments.
The functional structure implements a vertically centralized decision-making process where staff report to mid-level (department) managers who answer to upper management.
The pros of functional structure:
The cons of functional structure:
A divisional structure (known also as a geographical org structure) splits the employees based on products or markets. Multinationals that operate in broad geographic areas use this structure. In this structure, each division has control of the business functions from top management to sales and marketing, engineering, HR, and communication.
The pros of divisional structure:
The cons of divisional structure:
In a horizontal structure (also known as flat org structure), the decision spreads along horizontal lines creating a collaborative environment that improves morale, productivity, and creativity. This relaxed structure fits small and start-up companies with few levels between top management and employees.
The pros of horizontal structure:
The cons of horizontal structure:
Team-based organizational structures consist of several teams sharing a mission while working on their projects. They are less hierarchical and more flexible, focusing on problem-solving, teamwork, and employee empowerment.
The pros of team-based structure:
The cons of team-based structure:
Related guides:
Network organizational structure is a newer type of structure based on social networks. Managers coordinate and control both internal and external activities of the company. The network structures are decentralized, meaning a wider span of control and a vertical bottom-up flow of ideas.
The pros of network structure:
The cons of network structure:
In a matrix work structure, team members (remote or in-house) usually have dual reporting relationships: a project manager and their department head. This structure looks like a grid, a matrix; it manages cross-functional teams that form to create new products and services without realigning them.
The pros of matrix structure:
The cons of matrix structure:
When you want to centralize your workforce and have all the essential details available easily, dynamic tools are here to help. For each employee, you have a profile with professional details that you can filter by team, location, approver flow, and more. It works in the cloud, is fast, encrypted, and provides multiple access levels and people analytics. It is free for up to 9 employees and just $1.35 per user for larger business. Learn more.
Great organizations are built upon a foundation of strong organizational structures. It's not just about having a bunch of talented individuals, but about how those individuals come together to form a cohesive unit. An effective organizational structure can help to clarify roles and responsibilities, promote efficiency, and enable growth and scalability. Additionally, organizational structures are add value to business because of the following reasons:
● Clarity and Focus
Organizational structures provide clarity and focus by defining the roles and responsibilities of different individuals and departments within the organization. This helps to ensure that everyone knows what is expected of them and that work is aligned with the organization's goals and objectives.
● Coordination and Collaboration
Organizational structures facilitate coordination and collaboration by establishing reporting relationships and communication channels between different roles and departments. This helps ensure that work is properly coordinated and everyone is working towards a common goal.
● Efficiency and Productivity
Organizational structures can help to increase efficiency and productivity by streamlining workflows and eliminating redundancies. By defining roles and responsibilities, work can be assigned to the most appropriate individuals, leading to increased efficiency and productivity.
● Resource Allocation
Organizational structures help to allocate resources, such as budget, personnel, and equipment, to different departments and individuals within the organization. This helps to ensure that resources are used effectively and efficiently, and that work is adequately resourced.
● Adaptability and Growth
Organizational structures can help organizations adapt and respond to changing circumstances. By defining roles and responsibilities, organizational structures can be adjusted to accommodate changes in the organization's goals, objectives, or external environment.
Overall, organizational structures are important because they help provide clarity and focus, facilitate coordination and collaboration, increase efficiency and productivity, allocate resources effectively, and enable organizations to adapt and respond to change.
Leaderships consider and combine six unique elements of organizational structure to craft a hierarchy and create a path for future efficient growth. Managers can benefit from understanding these elements and their critical role in developing and sustaining a successful business.
The six building elements are:
Work specialization: a manager assigns a specific task to the employee with the best-suited skillset and education. When managers entrust employees with clear responsibilities, they can focus on developing their leadership skills and improving overall performance.
Departmentalization: the efficient grouping of professionals based on similar skill sets, duties, and practices. As the organization expands, the structure adds more sub-departments and levels of management.
Compartments group employees from different professional backgrounds and specialties to use their talents in completing a project.
Formalization refers to the organizational policies, rules, and practices standardizing a workplace. In highly formalized structures, employees have little to no autonomy to make decisions about their jobs. When a problem arises, they will address the in-place procedures to handle it.
In a centralized organizational structure, the top management makes decisions and communicates them down the chain of command. These companies are unable to keep pace with changes in the business environments.
A decentralized approach shares the decision-making authority among multiple employees or departmental teams. These businesses often respond quickly to changes. Employees have a certain degree of autonomy to make business decisions in the local area.
The chain of command establishes the sequence of reporting in an organization. The chain of command clarifies accountability, authority hierarchy, and decision-making capacity. A proper chain of command verifies that every department has one person responsible for performance.
The span of control defines the number of direct subordinates supervised effectively by a manager. A span of control is either narrow (when a manager has fewer subordinates) or wide (more employees are under the manager’s direct control).
Creating an organizational structure involves several steps, which are:
Overall, creating an effective organizational structure requires careful planning and consideration of the organization's mission, goals, and resources, as well as the roles and responsibilities of different departments and individuals within the organization. Remember that depending on the size of your organization, the structure and complexity will increase. While the company is small, task management is super lean. Mid-to-large organizations have several levels of control and finding the person responsible for a specific task might be more difficult. Management will be simplified when you invest time in clearly defining responsibilities, building solid teams, and articulating the reporting structures.
We do have more than 10 examples free organizational chart templates that you can download in word and excel format, plus many additional tips to achive your goals when it coms to creating a visual org chart of your existing structure or your future one.
It is hard to imagine a small-sized business owner losing track of what each employee does. Crafting an organizational chart in a company where all employees are at the same level seems preposterous.
As the company develops, teams are more diverse, and employees’ roles are more specialized. Implementing a fit organization chart is not a choice; it becomes an obligation. These structures are crucial because they help identify employee skills gaps, implement efficient decision-making processes, and support business priorities.
In the current business environment, a company is no longer just a workplace; it is a community where individuals collaborate and share their innovative new ideas. Consequently, the organizational structure is no longer about reporting lines and channels of communication. Behind these flowcharts are the employees and their work relationships.
Automate your employee management with the easy to use online HR software.
Easy set-up ● No contracts required ● No credit cards