Organisational design is the process of organising the company’s structure so that it is aligned with organisational culture and objectives. Organisations are aimed to be designed in a way that they function the most effectively and efficiently as possible.

The structure of the way the decision-making process flows in the organisation.

Organisations that follow rigid hierarchical structures, implement formal protocols, employees have clearly defined roles and responsibilities. The communication within and between hierarchical levels is usually formal. In contrast, organisations that follow a flat hierarchy design do not formally establish employees’ roles and responsibilities instead employees have flexibility regarding their duties and responsibilities. Additionally, communication between employees and managers is usually informal.

The chains of command, the span of control and levels of hierarchy.

Organisational growth, the current organisational structure is complex and costly, employees need more motivation and the quality of a company’s services or goods requires improvement

1. Solving business problems first
2. Maximising efficiency of the employees
3. Building accountability and responsibility in all organisational levels
4.  Build on existent organisational strengths
5.  Ensuring that hierarchy fits the organisational purpose

Because employees are the ones who bring value to the organisation. So, the goal is to develop an organisational design that will fit their needs and motivate them to work effectively.

By focusing on workforce roles, workforce loads and job allocation.

Delayering, Delegation and Employee empowerment.

This is the process of assigning tasks and responsibilities to another person. For example, authority can assign tasks to other managers at the lower level and reduce top-levels management’s workload and help them to focus on main tasks.

Changing organisational design can help businesses to keep up with the new trends and execute new strategies.

For example, if the company transitions from a start-up to a bigger company. To implement this new transition effectively the company needs to alternate its design. When the company was a start-up, a flat and informal structure worked effectively. However, once it becomes a bigger organisation it needs to adapt its design and implement a more formal structure with more hierarchical levels to organise the workforce effectively. This change of organisational design can assist the company to organise its workforce and achieving organisational goals.

In this context resource allocation means that the company allocates its resources in the most effective and efficient way possible to maximise employees’ productivity and innovations in their roles.

1) Job simplification 2) Job rotation 3) Job enrichment 4) Job enlargement

This is when more duties and tasks are added to the job role horizontally, meaning that even though the variety of duties and tasks will increase the employees will stay at the same hierarchical level.

Job design is important because it is a guidance that employees will follow when performing their roles. Additionally, a well-designed job will help employees to develop their skills, increase motivation and productivity which will have a positive impact on the company’s performance.

The poorly designed job can bring negative outcomes for the company such as low-performance rates, high staff turnover.

The job design process is important as it helps HR managers to design job that is effective and important in the organisation. Moreover, by following this process managers can avoid errors such as setting employees wrong working hours.

The key job design models are Taylorism, Socio-technical systems approach and Core Characteristics model.

The socio-technical systems approach is focusing on the social and technical aspects of the job and highly focuses on making a job that will fulfil employees’ needs. On the other hand, Taylorism focuses on implementing scientific methods that increased the maximisation of efficiency rather than the fulfilment of employees.

The main job characteristics are Skill variety, Task Identity, Task significance, Autonomy, Feedback.

Task significance is the extent to which a task is important in the organisation. For example, a doctor has a high task significance as not everyone will be able to do their job and their role requires qualifications. Doctors’ everyday tasks of consulting patients are important for hospitals to function.

The incorporation of job characteristics will help employees to experience positive psychological states which will lead to outcomes such as increased job satisfaction, motivation and productivity. This will positively impact the organisation as organisational performance are likely to improve.

Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model is one of the key models regarding employees’ motivation at work. This model focuses on looking closer into the individual task design included in the job role rather than the job as a whole.

 The Job Characteristics Theory (JCT) and Core characteristics model.

This model focuses on increasing employees’ satisfaction at work by incorporating job characteristic elements into the job design. The five elements are Task variety, Task identity, Task significance, Task anatomy and Task significance.

 in the 1970s

Task variety, Task identity, Task significance, Task anatomy and Task significance.

 Task identity means that tasks that are assigned to employees should feel whole and complete. Meaning that employees’ involvement in the task should be from start to the finish rather than only being responsible for adding small parts to the whole task.

 Experience of meaningfulness, the experience of responsibility and experience of outcomes.

 For example, temporary employees such as administrators have low task significance as the majority of people will have the ability to send emails and answer phone calls. On the other hand, the doctor has a high task significance as not everyone will be able to do their job and their roles require qualifications. Moreover, doctors everyday tasks of consulting patients are important for hospitals to function.

The task identity means that tasks that are assigned to employees should feel whole and complete. Meaning that employees’ involvement in the task should be from start to the finish rather than only being responsible for adding small parts to the whole task. On the other hand, task significance means the extent to which a task has importance in the organisation.

This model aims to increase employees’ satisfaction at work and more satisfied employees are likely to work harder and perform better. Better employees performance will contribute to achieving organisational goals.

Hackman and Oldham’s model assumed that all organisations should incorporate similar job characteristics in their job designs. However, now organisations design jobs based on their core competencies and each job design includes different features to be effective. The job characteristics model follows the ‘one fits all approach’ this approach to job design may not be fitted to today’s trends.

No, because some employees may not desire to have job characteristics incorporated in their jobs such as flexibility of organising their work or be required to have a variety of skills to perform a job. This may even cause employees burdensome and dissatisfaction.

Human resource flow describes the way employees ‘flow’ throughout the organisation. It explains employees’ journey from the begging when entering the company to the end when exiting the organisation.

3 steps.

Inflow, Throughflow, Outflow.

The employee’s life cycle in the organisation.