UNIT 3

For this unit i am going to discuss organizational structure from chapter 15.

The way an oraganization is structrued can literally make or break a company.  Many companies today have moved toward a network organization, which has many different units doing different things.  This organizational structure is so popular today because it is very complex but very efficent at the same time.  The traditional organizations were set up as a chain of command, where communication flowed from top to bottom.  In most cases, this has shown to be very inefficient and leaves the bottom level employees unhappy becuase they feel that they have no control over any of the decision making process.

This summer I had an internship with a TV station back home.  I was in the sales and marketing department and I mostly just assisted any of the sales reps and went out on calls.  The company was set up as a network organization with many different units all having different responsibilites.  You had the traffic department whos job was to organize commercials that would run at certain times, the sales department (where I was), the news room where people were getting stories ready for the evening news and you also had your news anchors.  There was plenty of other untis, but these were the main ones.  Within the company, there was little to no hierarchy.  The sales reps that i worked with were, for the most part, on their own schedules.  They spent mostly all their time out of the office visiting with clients and things.  The way the company was set up was to have trust in the people that were working there.  It would be pretty obvious if you werent producing new clients and bringing in money for the company so everybody was self-motivated to do their best.  After all, the more money they bring in, the more money in their pocket.

Companies like the one I worked for over the summer were the kind of companies I hope i can work for in the future.  Having the freedom to work without having somebody breathing down your neck was great.  I couldnt help but notice how happy everybody was everyday.  Most of the people working there had been there for years which told me that the money was good and they were treated right.  Companies with a chain of command these days do not seem to be what people are looking for anymore.  Even though there are plenty of those kind of companies out there, nobody in them seems to be happy.  Look at most blue collar jobs.  Most of these jobs (like warehouse jobs) have really high turn over because of the way the company is structured.  People are most happy in the workplace when they are given the freedoms to get their work done without the day to day pressures of angry, power hungry bosses.