Management Essay

Use of teams in organizational authority

Faisal Bajunaid

Tiffin University

MGT201-05

Organizational authority provides the hierarchy in which an organization is managed. It gives a frame in which organizational power flows from the top management to the lower management level. Organizational authority helps in the making and implementation of organizational goals and objectives by the top management as well as the other levels of management. Participation of work teams in organizational authority can not only be of great advantage to the organization but also to the team members. “The use of teams in organizational authority has become a reliable strategy that many organizations are using to achieve their goals effectively” (Williams, 2015). This paper examines an opinion why organizations should use teams in their organizational authority to realize their goals and objectives.

“Many companies have organized their employees into teams and have shown them ways of improving customers’ satisfaction, quality of products and services, product development speed and efficiency, decision making and their job satisfaction” (Williams, 2015). Organizational authority being in the hands of the teams gives them an opportunity to make organizational decisions that fit in the job situation they are in. “The advantage of using teams is that they are flexible and hey will give out what the organization expects since they have already been shown by the management on how to carry out production or perform their assigned tasks. It’s for this this reason that approximately 90 percent of all U.S employees work in teams” (Williams, 2015).

“Organizations should pass on their management authority to the teams because teams can help businesses increase customer satisfaction in many ways” (Williams, 2015). Creation of work teams which have been trained to meet specific customer expectations and needs can be way of increasing customer satisfaction in an organization. If an organization gives a trained work team an opportunity to hire temporary workers to complete certain production tasks, for sure it can’t regret. This is because these work teams have reliable information and solutions of meeting the specific customers’ needs and expectations. “For example, Joan Davison who is the chief operations manager in a leading online retailer expresses how their clients’ workforce had increased by more than a 100 percent because of using work teams to hire temporary employees” (Williams,2015).

When work teams possess organizational authority, they can take a direct responsibility on the goods and services they produce and sell. “Work teams can help organizations to improve their products and services quality” (Williams, 2015). If a company sells toys, games, arts and crafts, party supplies and teaching supplies through the media such as internet and a customer happens to complain about these products, the interdepartmental work teams can respond accordingly. The quality control teams can combine with the organization’s manufacturers to control or improve the quality of these products taking the least time.

Work teams lead to job satisfaction in organizations. Giving work teams the authority to make routine decisions can increase the organization’s job satisfaction. “Workers are able to improve their skills and capabilities when they work in work teams. Work teams can practice cross training when they are in the same team easily” (Williams, 2015). Cross training is advantageous because it gives the workers many diverse skills to perform any kind of task in the work team. Cross training is not only advantageous to the employees but also to the organization because employees can perform different tasks especially when one member of a team is absent.

However, work teams also have some disadvantages when they possess organizational authority. Team members may conflict because different members may have different views on the direction to take. Disagreements can arise which can even result to conflicts. Some employees may see their decisions to be better than those of other employees. They believe that their decisions are the best and should be followed. This may result to poor performance and reduced productivity to both the team and the organization at large.

Teams training and education may be costly to the organization. For the organization to give the teams organizational authority, they must train them first. Employees must be trained on the limits of the authority, what kind of decisions they are supposed to make and the strategies of accomplishing organizational goals and objectives. Employees must be trained on the limits they are supposed to go so that they don’t misuse the organizational authority. This training and education may not only be costly to the organization but also time consuming.

When organizations authority have been brought to the work teams’ s level, organization goals and objectives can be achieved easily as they will be having the capacity to run the organization. They can even at a point run the business like their own. There is a likelihood that the organization will increase its productivity, performance and high profits. The organization will have a competitive edge since work teams are more flexible when their members have worked together for some time.

Resources

Reference: Williams, C. (2015). MGMT: principles of management.

(7thed) South-Western College Pub.