New Year New: Operational Structure
We ensure that Raffingers are practicing what we preach, to so many of our clients. The need to ensure that your internal structure and operations are slick and smooth ensures that you have the required accurate, up to date information at your fingertips so that you can make informed decisions and, if change is required, are able to adapt swiftly and efficiently.
All of that sounds great, but what does that actually mean in practice? I’ve listed below just a couple of issues that I’ve been concentrating on internally over the last year in relation to our organisational review.
Job descriptions
Ensure all team members have job descriptions that are detailed, clear, unambiguous and complete. It’s vital that all your team members know exactly what their responsibilities are and that they are confident they have the required skills to complete these tasks. So many aspects of your team management flow from this such as; team training, one to one meetings, team assessments, annual reviews etc.
Clear reporting lines
It’s vital that you have clear reporting lines, so that everyone knows who they report to and if appropriate, who they manage. We've seen the importance of this in the second half of this year with remote working, ensuring that everybody knows exactly what they are doing and the chain of commands as if we were in the office.
These two aspects are usually dealt with in large organisations as they understand the need for structure. In small and medium sized companies’ these responsibilities and reporting lines are often a little blurred. As people in smaller businesses tend to wear ‘too many hats’, some employees may think they have many different superiors. When times are good, work is being done, the end results are positive, and this does not cause a problem. However, there are times when this lack of clarity can lead to confusion and even frustration.
This can be especially frustrating when it comes to team performance issues. It’s vital, as I mentioned earlier, that there are clear reporting lines and clear job roles so that the right people are involved in the performance review and corrective action process.
I understand that for many small and medium sized businesses it’s not easy to address these issues and put the required structure in place as you don’t always have the time to dedicate to this. At Raffingers we support our clients on these matters with our unique organisational review. An organisational review will help you build a functional Organisation Chart which visually defines departments, key functions, roles and responsibilities.
If you think you need help to structure your business so that it is more sustainable, scalable and, ultimately, saleable, then get in touch with us today.