Management Structures

Departmentalization
Departmentalization means to divide a company into different sections. Both large and small owners may separate their company into different departments in order to ensure success. Stores such as Wal-mart and Home Depot provide many services to customers and the company managers break them up into different departments. For example; Home Depot has paint, outdoor, lumbar, bathroom, kitchen, electrical, and many other departments in their store. It doesn't make sense to combine the kitchen and lumbar department because of their differences. By separating these departments a manager can hire staff members that are knowledgeable and trained to accommodate customers visiting their area. What good would it be for someone that knows everything about paint to be helping someone with picking out the best bathroom fixtures? Companies need to separate their services in order to successfully help customers with their needs. Even small companies that carry women's, men's, and children's clothing needs to have an expert on staff for each department of their store. Major problems may occur if a company is a complete mess and no one is trained regarding consumer products because they may not be able to answer customer questions. As I said before, customers go into a store such as Home Depot and expect to speak with an employee knowledgeable about the questions they have. If no employees are able to help them, they are more likely to leave without buying anything from the store.

Matrix Organizations
Many organizations create a matrix to follow in order to run at optimal function while satisfying employees, management, and customers. Companies usually appoint a supervisor or team leader in each sect to apply the matrix among staff members. The use of a matrix may be implemented in organizations such as; Hospitals, law firms, department stores, and grocery stores.

Large department stores may have one store manager and several supervisors that lead their own section of the store. Nationwide department stores such as; JcPenney, Macy's, and Dillard's have several different sections which may include; Women's, children's, home, shoe, men's, and junior department. Each department has a team of staff members and two to three supervisors depending on their size. One supervisor might be given the duty of placing staff members in different sections of their department, creating employee work schedules, assigning tasks, and other aspects of the job description. The other supervisor(s) might have the duty of making sure the matrix is followed through appropriately.

The Project Team
Both large and small organizations may utilize project teams in order to successfully complete their mission. A building company has team leaders and staff members in different areas that eventually combine to complete one task. In order to build a house or building there needs to be the following teams;

Architectural team
Engineer team
Construction team
Plumbing team
Electrical team

Each team is responsible for completing their tasks and when everything is combined a house or building will be complete. The architectural team creates the design plan, engineers work out the specific measurements, construction workers follow the design plan and measurements to build the house/building, the plumbing team equips the structure with a plumbing system, and the electrical team preps the structure with an electrical system. Without these teams a building company cannot complete their job of building and selling structures to people and/or companies. If one of the teams doesn't do their job then the safety of the structure may be impaired or deadlines could be missed.

The Collegial Model
Realtor offices may run off the collegial model in order to run a successful business. An educated and licensed realtor may create their own company or join a large chain association. A realtor company such as Century21 hires realtors on a commission base and it is the realtor's job to make sure a profit is made off their services. Often realtors pay the company a set percentage of their earnings and rent an office as well as the rights to using the company's title. Each realtor is responsible for profit and sometimes work together to be more successful. One realtor may slack off and not sell or lease as many properties required by the company which results in loss of profit and possible job termination.

Another example of a company using the collegial model is a car dealership. The job of the floor staff is to sell, buy, trade, and lease vehicles to individuals and companies. The dealership will begin to suffer if a salesman doesn't meet the required goal for each week or month. Each person needs to be responsible and pull their own weight for the company. By selling vehicles to customers the employee is not only helping the company but also writing their own paycheck.