Management Assessment - Understanding Contemporary Organisational Structures and Contemporary People Management Practices

Management Assessment

Case Scenario/ Task

Write an essay on the topic Understanding Contemporary Organisational Structures and Contemporary People Management practices.

Introduction

In the highly dynamic and competitive era, the survival of businesses becomes very difficult. In order to maintain their sustainability and survival in the market, they need to adopt the recent trends and strategies of the market. The market has been witnessing drastic change since last five decades, which made the businesses purely customer centric as the customer are now very demanding and rational and are always in search of new and innovative products and services. The Companies are required matching their demand at the right time, place and price for that they need to be futuristic. The biggest impact can be seen in the organisational structure. Companies are not restricted to the geographical boundaries they are imprinting the globe and becoming multinational companies. It is not easy to operate business worldwide by a single person. The Bigger, the organisation, bigger are the responsibilities and duties. The contemporary organisational structure is very dynamic, adaptable and organic and based on decentralisation of powers and authority (Hall & Tolbert, 2016). This main aim of this essay is to analyse the organisational change and its impact on the employees and what are the practices are adopted by the companies to make it a success. The thesis statement of the essay is “Whether the current business scenario influences the organisation structure and the people management practices.”

Traditional organisation structure is not relevant for the companies who are operating in large scale and have a presence in multiple countries across the globe. In traditional organisations powers and authority is vested only with the single entity which leads the whole organisation which is now not convenient for the large companies. Many organisations are still following this structure as it provides the easy control and stability. In contrast, the contemporary organisational structure is like a network structure where all the stakeholders are inter-connected to each other. The communication is error free and fast which facilitates the healthy relationship of top management with the middle and lower level and other stakeholders of the business. Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and KPMG companies are adapted themselves and converted into the Contemporary structure. The matrix organisation structure is the example of this (Powell & DiMaggio, 2012).

The rapidly changing customer demands don’t support the traditional structure of business as the decisions need to be instantly taken which is not possible in the traditional structure. Better decisions can be made and implemented immediately and effectively as the authority and powers are decentralised in contemporary organisations.

(Source: https://www.accaglobal.com/an/en/student/exam-support-resources/fundamentals-exams-study-resources/f1/technical-articles/organisations.html)

The structure can be understood well with the help of given figure. Advantages of the contemporary structure are error free communication, speedy decision making, decentralisation of powers, transparency in the organisation, diversification of risk as one person does not take the decision, satisfaction among employees, low employee turnover, effective utilisation of resources, flexible. After the emergence of the contemporary organisational structure, the companies are witnessing more growth and prosperity and higher customer satisfaction. It never works to implement a single and uniform strategy on the entire organisations because every country has their laws and regulations and companies are expected to operate according to their law (Powell & DiMaggio, 2012). MC Donald’s initially faced protest in various Asian countries as it was serving the same non- vegetarian menu out there also and people hugely preached against them as most of the Asian countries possess the vegetarian population also. Later on they discovered that they need to modify their menu according to the demand of customer out there.

The contemporary structure is also a need based outcome of the present era where companies need to be futuristic and dynamic which help them to sustain in the market in long run. The decisions taken are more participative and thus led the company to quickly adapt the market changes and enjoy the first mover advantages (University of North Carolina).

The human resource management is an existing issue in the contemporary times as the human resource of an organisation is directly related to the performance, productivity and the value of the organisation. The effective human resource practices aim at the effectively planning of the talent so that the overall productivity of the organisation increases. As the human resource is an important resource of an organisation, the firms can use it to develop a competitive advantage. Among these practices, the contemporary resource for the management of the organisation is the knowledge management, employee motivation practices, and effective recruitment practices. The knowledge management practices relate to the learning and development of the employees and the amplification of the talent. In the knowledge management practices, the firms engage in the training and development of the employees and deployment of the strategies that augments the knowledge of the organisation. It includes the development of the knowledge both internally and externally. The knowledge management method can be referred as a management discipline that enhances the knowledge within the organisation and increases the efficiency of the organisation in terms of the knowledge acquired, shared and applied in the organisation (Tan and Nasurdin, 2011).

In the contemporary times, the employee motivation in considered as the most significant strategy to encourage the employees to keep doing the right things. The employees could be motivated by creating a family-like community, in which the employees feel that it is their responsibility to work for their organisation and co-workers. The employees consider them a part of an extended family, and it keeps motivated. Another motivational strategy is fair compensation to employees. The companies that want to motivate the employees by fair compensation pay higher wages by than their competitors. These companies also use incentives to motivate, reward and retain the employees. Another strategy to motivate the employees is by making their jobs more challenging. The contemporary people management practices also include the selection and training of the employees. The selection of the employees must be dependent on their fit with the organisation culture and the personal talent. The companies must make an effective process for the selection of the employees that analyses the personal, behavioural and professional skills of the employees. Furthermore, the feedbacks from the managers should be used to analyse the progress of the employees. At last, various organisations are using the strategies of employee engagement that motivates the people to provide their best input to the organisation (Armstrong, Brown and Reilly, 2011).

Conclusion

n the present dynamic and competitive era, it is necessary for the business organisations to maintain their sustainability and survival in the marketplace. The traditional organisational structure in not ideal in the present era as the power is bestowed on a single entity. Due to the changing customer demands and the business scenario, the traditional organisation structure is not effective and requires changes. In the present organisation structure, there are various independent authorities that take part in the decision-making process of the organisation. In addition to it, in the present business scenario, the people management is also critical. In the contemporary times, the business organisations use a variety of procedures in selection, motivation and tenure of the employees to keep them motivated and engaged. The organisation realises that the human resources are an important asset of the organisation and therefore make strategies to its effective management. The thesis statement of the essay can be restated as “Contemporary Organisational Structures and People Management practices are modified as a result of changing business scenario”.