Modern management 4_pd

The job description is a list of particular activities or tasks an employee should undertake in an organization under the particular position he/she holds.  It is a sort of a formal statement and is highly specific to an employee in order to avoid creating confusion.  If a job description is clear, the employee can center on hisgoalswithin the organization and can succeed.  The organization would also become more efficient.  An individual would have to perform certain tasks or make sure that another person executes those tasks.

The job description helps the employees to bring about certain levels in performance and act as a guide to help them achieve their goals.  The manager of the organization delegates the job description so that each and every employee can perform their activities.  The activities should be distributed in such a manner that efficiency and effectiveness of the employee is brought about.

The process of allocating the work and doing the job analysis varies from time to time and depends on several factors including the aims and objectives of the organization and the conditions prevailing.  There may be three issues related toresponsibility, namely, distributing the job activities, being responsible and clarifying the job activities of the managers.  The process of job analysis involves several processes including:-

1.      determining the aims and objectives of the organization

2.      determine the jobs to be performed to achieve these objectives

3.      accumulating the available job descriptions

4.      preparing the job analysis questionnaire (has the job title, summary, duties to be performed, time allocations, relationships with others in the organization, educational qualifications required, etc)

5.      any other issues have to be addressed accordingly

6.      Additional activities in case the data gaps are still present such asinterviewquestionnaire, performance appraisals, organizational surveys, discussions, etc.

7.      A final job description is then prepared

8.      The employees should be made more responsible for performing their duties

The outbreak of the internet has made mangers to focus heavily on this segment and make job descriptions to suit these positions.  The data regarding various organizational functions is specifically analyzed and handled using programs.  One of the main duties of an information analyst is to design and create new programs that can be custom-made to suit the end-user.  The internet is having a major role in modifying the job descriptions as more efficient ways of helping the employees to achieve the objectives of the organization are discovered.  The programmers are concentrating on the internet rather than programming to ensure that their information systems are adjusted to suit current trend.

Thistechnologyhas permitted the employees to interact more closely with the clients.  For an organization to succeed, high connectivity internet along with adequate broadband capabilities is required.  The organizational information should be available to the clients in order to bring about success.  The management could also use the internet to makemoney(as internet business is a trend nowadays).  It is very important that an organization concentrates on the internet, as it could play a major role in bringing about success of the organization.

Organizational chart is the manner in which the work of the company or organization is distributed to bring about efficiency and effectiveness.  The matrix organizations are the modifications of the traditional organizational setup to bring about certain changes that would enable completion of certain activities.  The changing of the organizational chart to suit the specific needs is known as project organizations’.

The organization I belong to has 4 divisions, namely, the clinical trials department, the data management department, the biochemical department and the bioengineering department.  Each of these departments would be having two phases, namely, the resources allocation phase and the market phase, along with support to the projects that exist within the organization.  Each project would have a production unit, engineering and research unit, logistics unit, HR unit and the accounts and administration unit.  These units could be further divided into project A, B, C, D, etc.

Each of these projects has an in-charge manager.  The work would usually flow or begin from the accounts unit (For allocations of resources), human resource unit, logistics units, engineering and research unit (for development of technology) and finally into the production unit.  Once a particular project is completed, then the organization would get back to the traditional chart in which each of the units are not subdivided as per the projects existing.

Having such a structural organizational chart has several benefits and limitations.  The ability to manage the workflow, client satisfaction levels, development time, costs, quality, etc, can easily be controlled.  However, organizational charts can bring about difficulty in operations and conflicts in handling day to day issues.  Sometimes, it may be very difficult to manage such an organization.  The organization should be interested in changing the present traditional organizational setup into a matrix model to suit the changing needs which may be short-term.

The organization would be having several departments as each of tense departments would be under a particular manager.  Each of these managers would be having several units and each of these units would be contributing to a particular project.  Each of these projects would be sharing some of the fixed log-term resources with another project.

In my organization, all the five units exist, namely the accounts unit, personal unit, logistics unit and the production unit are existent.  Wrigley’s chewing gum brought about lot of changes the structure of the organization, and modifications were observed to all the units.  These departments help to eliminate or add certain activities exercised by the organization.  The flow of work in an organization can be brought about one factor that lies before one of these criteria.

The Wrigley’s experience is a situation in which all the five units or levels are present and have to be managed to ensure the proper flow of work.  The extent of success achieved by one product or services various depending on several factors which may be the motivational levels of the staff, incentives provided, proper logistic management, conducting adequate amount of research and finally creating the product or service.

References:

Cresto, S. C. and Cresto, S. T. (2006). Chapter 3: Organianl aChange andStress, Modern Management, (10th ed), New Jersey: Upper Saddle River, pp. 299-322.