Barbour Brown

MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANISATIONS TEST 4 At the moment Barbour Brown would be described as a flat organisational structure which means that the organizational structure has few levels of management. We can see this as it is a small company with only two managers which is David and Neil. Like any type of structure it has advantages and the advantages of a flat structure is that this structure allows better communication between employers and employees, also easier decision making and reduced costs to the company because they do not have many managers who have higher pay than employees also the workers will be more involved in decision making than being closely supervised by management.
There are also disadvantages to a flat structure which are there is not much room for promotion, it is mo9re time consuming to build this structure than a traditional as this structure generally depends on personal relationships between workers and managers. The flat structure is easily identifiable within the Barbour company as current work divisions are only on three levels the first being Civil, the second being Structural and the third being Administration. A flat structure is shown below: {draw:a} We can see that David would be seen as operating a centralised line as he supervises his workers by making them sign time sheets which will allow him to check up on his staff but Neil can be seen using a de-centralised team approach which allows him to delegate work to his subordinates.
In my opinion a structure that would be more applicable to the company would be a matrix structure which can allow scope for more time to be spent with the customer. Below is a diagram which identifies the Matrix structure. {draw:a} In a company like Barbour Brown there will be groups or teams of workers assigned to a particular project, for instance Neil could overview the marketing department, David could overview the main offices day to day activities and John could be onsite management. The new structure will allow Barbour Brown to benefit in all these ways: The adjustment and continual redefinition of
tasks Communication and a wider skill based approach that can be used more efficiently rather than being told what to do and decisions. More expertise and knowledge can be adopted to the new structure Tasks will be completed more effectively. More commitment to the task as they have not got many areas to look after. Also by using this new structure this will allow Neil, David and john to have better control over there project also less time will be spent on project development which can result in better customer relations and greater profit margins. {text:list-item} The size of a firm is important as it allows cost savings to be increased this can be seen when the two emerging companies can reduce the administration section, technology again is very advanced in this day and age as the use of internet, computers, phones and mobiles permits the company to communicate with the employees and customers technology can also make it easier to keep on top of everything as it is much quicker than doing it the manual way.
The merge with Johns Company would make it easier to decide who is in charge of what task for example David being in charge of administration also the task will allow growth and increase geographical spread in different services within the company and also the company could offer a close working partnership and major
clients. The new structure for the firm will allow a different line of structure to Neil, John and David each of the partners will be responsible for a selected area such as Neil for marketing, John for site development and David for administration and accounts. The new structure between John and Barbour Brown will be identified over three areas Structural, Site development and civil work this will help build relationships between the administration teams also the merger will allow function and lateral relationships Authority in the new structure can be defined as having power to make decisions about a job and who to send on it according to the knowledge and experience and also they have the authority to divide up work to staff. Delegation can be defined by allocating a responsibility to a subordinate from a superior for a specific task such as the manager giving employees specific duties within their department, Responsibility is defined as the employer is responsible for making sure that the tasks are done efficiently and that partners are responsible for their areas. The new company will allow partners to be responsible for each of their areas, all of the team will have been given the authority to organise and divide up work which will allow management to see who is performing the best and also these forms of management will allow them to have a clear idea about the staff roles and responsibilities which they will be performing the new company will affect staff by making them redundant as the company may not need to administration departments. The new merger will allow managers to delegate specific duties within their team which will allow their company to save time and make communication between more departments straight forward which will help resolve some of the problems