Evolution of Formal Organizations Paper Ashley Porterfield July 17, 2009 For many centuries now formal organizations have operated in the same ways. Progress in time and new workers start to takeover, a lot of formal organizations change to be more flexible in the work environment. Many organizations such as the one Micah works for are more than likely to change. Advancement of today’s technology, formal organizations are increasing the new way to be more efficient and get the job done.
The organization that Micah belongs to have several things that should be changed, so the environment and flexibility that he wants will change. For starters all employees’ activities should be more of a team based and also equal between all the employees’s of the team. Organizations are now seeing that the increase productivity of team work, thanks to team work and the diminishment of the one employee per job are gone. Also organizations must also let go of some levels in the hierarchy to allow the work to be more effective so employees will be on the same level.
With this it will then create a unified workforce only because people will feel equally responsible and also needed. With the technology that allow for faster and also less formal communications. Today formal organizations are no becoming less bureaucratic and flexible. Newer workers enter and take over and as technology, which means that more jobs are becoming less dependent on manual labor and more dependent on technology. Formal organizations have CEO instead of numerous managers and few senior managers and other employees are put into teams and work towards one specific goal.
This is showing more openness and team work than ever before and productivity has also increased because of it. Formal organizations has been powered by traditional and bureaucracy for several centuries. Pyramid chain of commanded starts with CEO at the top going down. Rules and regulations are written down and if the rules are not followed, the employees are in serious trouble. Communication is very formal and in writing. Some instance relationships are secondary, but some employees have primary relationships.
Formal organizations are leaning toward future trends which are open, flexible work environments that will increase productivity. Gunn and Burroughs (1996) agree that organizations will create teams to so all the work. They also say that teams will be disposable and will grow and shrink at the will of the management. Gunn and Burroughs (1996) explain that communication will become more fluid as emails are becoming that feature mode of communication. My prediction is that many formal organizations will evolve and be more flexible environment and some will continue using the conventional bureaucracy.
I think that not all of the organizations are suited for a flexible environment. Telemarketing or fast food organizations will not see the changes because conventional bureaucracy is best for them. The professional jobs on the other hand will see the change, because it is a necessity to evolve in these types of jobs. It is proven that team work improves productivity and the use of new technology allows employees to focus on other task besides the mind numbing repeative task that should be done by the computer.
In conclusion, changes have and will be seen in formal organizations. These organizations have become accustomed to the traditional bureaucratic form of operations. With the newer generations they are showing that they want the changes in the work environment. Micah’s organization really should consider the changes because it will pull the employees together and they will be more loyal because of it. These changes seem to be better option for professional field of work, but non-professionals should stay with the traditional way.
I know that there will be a split decision on this change. References: Brady, T. (1996) The future workplace and the impact on HR managers. Employment Relations Today, 22(4), 1. Gunn, R. A. , Burroughs, M. S. (1996). Work spaces that work: Designing high performance offices. The futurist, 30(2), 19. Holtz, S. (2006) The impact of new technologies on internal communication. Strategic communication management, 10(1), 22-25 Macionis. J. J. (2006) Society: The basics (8th ed. ) Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson Prentice Hall
