Organization Design

The management of people in organizations constantly raises questions such as ‘Who does what?’, ‘How should activities be grouped together?’, ‘What lines and means of communication need to be established?’, ‘How should people be helped to understand their roles in relation to the objectives of the organization and the roles of their colleagues?’, ‘Are we doing everything that we ought to be doing and nothing that we ought not to be doing?’ and ‘Have we got too many unnecessary layers of management in the organization?’

These are questions involving people which must concern HR practitioners in their capacity of helping the business to make the best use of its people. HR specialists should be able to contribute to the processes of organization design or redesign as described below because of their understanding of the factors affecting organizational behaviour and because they are in a position to take an overall view of how the business is organized, which it is difficult for the heads of other functional departments to obtain.