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S S Technologies Inc D Organizational Design Case Solution

Solution Id Length Case Author Case Publisher
1177 2116 Words (6 Pages) Alexander Mikalachki, N Suttie Ivey Publishing : 9A94C008
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SS Technologies Inc. is a small-sized firm with thirty employees known for its industrial software and hardware development capabilities. The company has been performing reasonably well for the last couple of years and considering its current situation, the top management is expecting huge growth in terms of both net income and number of employees during the upcoming years. In this regard, both owners of the firm hired a consultant with expertise in organizational expansion and management so as to assist them in developing a new organizational structure, human resource management policies, strategic development, etc. Before initiating the restructuring process, the consultant carried out surveys from a few employees of the organization, which revealed some interesting facts and opinions that were never evident on the surface. For instance, employees were dissatisfied with the compensation/ bonus plan, there was no strategic vision within the firm and even if there was, it wasn’t known to all employees, there was no sophisticated mechanism for retaining the best talent of the firm. Above all, there was no organizational structure or clear reporting mechanism within the firm, which often created confusion among employees. Lastly, all supporting functions such as administration, human resources, etc. were managed on an ad hoc basis, which created high inefficiencies.

Following questions are answered in this case study solution

  1. What were the best structure, performance appraisal, compensation/bonus plan, company policies, and partnering programs that should be implemented?

  2. Introduction

  3. Organizational Structure and Policies

  • Organizational Goals and Strategies

  • Organizational Structure and Hierarchy

  • Formalizing the Role of Supporting Functions

  • Physical Space

  1. Performance Appraisal Mechanism

  2. Compensation/Bonus Plan

  3. Partnering Program

  4. Conclusion

Case Analysis for S S Technologies Inc D Organizational Design

Organizational Structure and Policies

Organizational Goals and Strategies

First of all, both Rick Brock and Keith Pritchard should fulfill their primary responsibility as the head of the firm i.e. to develop a long term as well as, a short term vision of the firm. This vision should ideally be developed by taking inputs from all senior employees in order to ensure their ownership within the firm. Once the vision has been developed, then it should be shared with each and every member of the firm so as to give them a clear idea of the direction in which they are supposed to travel, in the future. After forming the vision, the next task should be of developing and documenting the core values of the firm. This will allow new employees to understand immediately what is acceptable within the firm and what is not. Apart from this, the company should continue with its informal method of mentoring young recruits in order to develop them and groom their personality. Formalizing this particular role would bring the rigidity and may limit the contribution of senior members, which will hinder the learning process.

Organizational Structure and Hierarchy

The second major responsibility would be to develop a sophisticated organizational structure that is acceptable to all senior employees. Considering the current complicated situation of the company where reporting lines are not clear among colleagues, it would be recommended that the company forms multiple teams in both departments. Forming multiple teams is essential at this point because there are few employees within the firm who are at same level, but do not have any such position to make it apparent. If any of them will be made subordinate to the other, then he would take it in the wrong manner and might decide to leave the firm, irrespective of the compensation package. So, ideally, all these employees such as Ojala, Schwarz, Suttie, etc. should be made Team Leads, who should be reporting directly to Pritchard. In this manner, the organizational structure would stay lean as both owners wanted it to be. In addition to this, it will also resolve the reporting issue as teams will be formed. So primarily, only two levels would exist within the firm; first of CEO and President’s; and second of team leads. Moreover, in order to reduce the interpersonal competition within the firm, the top management can shift around team members from one team to another for different projects. This strategy would provide an opportunity to the young recruits to learn from different senior members as opposed to a single team lead throughout their stay at the firm. Furthermore, it will increase harmony among all employees as at the different points of time they will all be working with each other on a certain project.

Formalizing the Role of Supporting Functions

Another change within the organizational structure would be to officially include supporting functions within the organizational chart. As the top management expects to double the size of the company in the next few years, which means that the company would become a medium-sized firm from a small-sized firm; therefore, it is essential that supporting functions such as administration, human resource, finance, etc. should be officially recognized with a departmental lead who will be responsible for reporting directly to Keith Pritchard. Alternatively, the top management can also form a 6 – 9 member team for looking after these functions headed by a team leader who would report to Keith Pritchard. This department would then be categorized alongside Products Group and Integrated Systems Group. It is essential to give the same Team Lead position to the head of the supporting functions so as to document his authority in front of senior members of the firm such as Vivienne Ojala, Mark Schwarz, Ian Suttie, etc.

Physical Space

In terms of physical space, the company should acquire a bigger space or ask other companies to shar the space to vacate the space within the next couple of months, in order to make way for the potential growth in terms of the number of employees. While renovating the space, it should be kept in mind that the company wants to have a free culture so it is recommended that no rooms should be made rather, open hall space should be developed where employees are open to approach anyone within the firm. If rooms are necessary for the President and CEO of the company, then open door philosophy should be followed to encourage their core organizational cultural element i.e. open communications.

Performance Appraisal Mechanism

As the top management forms a new support group responsible for managing the human resource function then the first responsibility of the support group would be to plan a sitting with each employee of the firm in both departments and develop metrics for the performance evaluation. It is essential to form these metrics with the input of each employee so that they are well-aware of what is expected of them and how their performance will be evaluated at the end of the year. While developing these metrics, special consideration should be given on the element of transparency and tangibility, in order to make it visible for everyone.

In addition to this, performance appraisal meetings should be carried out almost every quarter with every employee of the firm. In this meeting, their performance during the quarter along with the extent to which they met, exceeded, or fell short of expectations should be discussed, at length. In each performance appraisal meeting, the line manager of employees i.e. team lead in the case of team members, or the President in case of team leads must be present in order to provide holistic feedback to the human resource team in the presence of the employee. Apart from this, all discussions of this meeting should be documented in a separate file in order to record them and access them, in the future.  

Compensation/Bonus Plan

As evident from the interviews that almost all employees were dissatisfied with the compensation/ bonus plan of the firm. First of all, there wasn’t any structured plan, which resulted in uneven hopes of employees along with a series of disappointments.

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