Organizational Chart Activity

In no less than 300 words, discuss the six elements of your organizational chart as a group and turn in your essay with your organizational chart in one Word document.

 

Six elements:

1.      Work Specialization:  Consider how narrow the focus of each job is. Determine division of labor in the agency.

 

2.      Departmentalization:  Once work specialization is determined, jobs must be departmentalized or grouped according to function, product, geography, or customer. 

 

3.      Chain of Command:  Describe the line of authority (i.e., who reports to who).  When creating the organizational chart, these lines of authority would be represented by the lines connecting the various positions in the chart.

 

4.      Span of Control:  Represents the number of employees, units, & operations a manager/supervisor controls.  Typically, there is a smaller span of control at the top of the organization with only a handful (~3-5) of people directly reporting to the CEO.  The span of control increases further down the chart.  Research has suggested that seven is the optimum number a manager should supervise. 

 

5.      Centralization:  Is the degree to which decision making is concentrated at a single point in the organization.  In contrast, a decentralized organization has decision making occurring further down in the organization by the managers/supervisors who are closest to the situation.

 

6.      Formalization:  Represents the degree to which jobs are standardized.  More standardized jobs = less employee discretion in how, what, and when to do things.  Less formalization increases freedom.