Human Resources at the AES Corp
Structural Frame
The organisational structure and management systems of AES are well aligned with its set of values and principles of (a) fun at work through making decisions and being accountable, (b) trusting its people by being treated fairly and with respect and (c) social and corporate integrity.
No functional departments: fun but a costly trade-off?
These values are manifest through a simple, five level hierarchical structure. Each plant has three levels - the plant manager, seven area superintendents and front-line staff while a divisional layer oversees the plants and projects by area providing the interaction between the headquarters and plants followed by the CEO.
Each plant comprises a number of small; multi-skilled; flexible; collaborative and self-managed teams instead of functional departments with specialised functions (e.g. legal, finance or human resources etc as in a conventional system). These teams have the decision-making power over all plant-specific business functions including capital allocation, expenditures, strategic planning and plant design. This bottom-up decision making process emphasises the trust the company places in its employees and is very effective in decentralizing the power base, consequently, involving every employee in being responsible for the performance of the company not just the CEO.
This management structure where “everyone does everything”, obviously create an ideal learning environment, “one in which people have an engaging experience on a daily basis”. While it permits speed in decision making since approvals are not required from the top management, they can also prove to be inefficient and costly at times. Not only does the employe...
... middle of paper ...
...ture, hence, prepare, adapt and be able to communicate a corporate strategy to all the staff.
This would pull the company together strengthening it in the face of incoming competition while keeping all its existing structure and value system intact. Rather than take away responsibility from the employees, the functional specialists together with the functional operators’ level would introduce dynamic measures of collecting and coordinating operations across the whole company and thus, not only giving direction but keeping everybody well informed about market conditions/trends and company focussed and prepared for future changes. Teams will then be able to take better decisions in view of the overall company’s short and long- run strategy. Knowing that the company is stable and well prepared for future contingencies boosts the employees’ and shareholders’ confidence.
Every organization and business enterprise has a dream of making the highest profit in all their ventures as well as minimizing all the inputs while at the same time maintaining the quality of their products and services. This goal cannot be achieved without the proper and powerful management team that directs all the organization operations and calls the shots. Management comprises of procedures and processes for rationalizing and connecting the activities of the business in order to achieve defined objectives and goals. In most cases, management is included as a fundamental of production process in the same category as machines, raw materials, and cash (Niederle, 2013). However, for an organization’s management to effectively and efficiently manage all its activities that include staffing, organizing, coordinating and controlling, it has to be conversant with rules of the land regarding
They are considered to be top level, middle level and first level each one of these managerial levels are considered to be known as a hierarchy which is ranked in order of importance. In accordance to these different levels of management they are put in place to give emphasis on the roles and responsibilities that they must accomplish on the job to hold their positions. Even though these changes are occurring managerial hierarchy seems to be and increasing using teams to outsource and spread out the use of structure in
AES is operating in a network structure. In this structure, employees form groups to solve problems and achieve common objectives. Employees may volunteer for task forces, without any formal credentials, because they are interested in a particular subject or want to set effective company policies. Although employees are not given a formal career path at AES, they are given latitude to move up the career ladder within the company to other positions.
Involving senior corporate management in the development of functional tactics improves their understanding of what must be done to achieve long- term objectives of the organization. It also helps ensure that functional tactics reflect the reality of the day-to-day operating situation. Most importantly it can increase the commitment of corporate management to the strategies developed.
Systems and structures provide the organizational foundation, but it is the human capital that really provides for the success or failure of any organization. In order for real change to happen, the staff needs to fully embrace the vision and the systems of change. This can only be accomplished if they feel respected, valued and involved in all parts of the change process. It is important to authentically embrace this group and treat them as colleagues in the process. This is the group that is responsible for implementing all systems and providing the public relations for the structure. The
Every company has its own unique organisational structure. This can be described as the system or pattern of relationship in which power and roles are given to the employers and employees. It also involves how the company is designed in order to achieve its goals and its communication channels. A good structure is crucial because the strategic decisions made can either benefit or worsen an organisation (Mullins, 2005). For example, a good structure would encourage and motivate employees in order to keep morale and job satisfaction at the highest possible level so that productive efficiency can be reached. This essay will describe the different designs of organisational structures and assess whether in today’s world, organisations are better off with flatter organisational structures or not. The essay will essentially conclude that there are no one best template structure all companies should choose to adopt because certain companies in certain industries will be better off will flatter structures whilst other are better off with taller structures. It is best to have a balanced of both. Not only this but it is not only about flat or tall structures but internal and external factors such as learning and cultural factors which influence employees all plays a part.
The Foodcorp is a big organization of more than twenty thousand employees. The structure should help the organization achieved established goals and objectives. Therefore, the appropriate structural design is very crucial. The performance and the efficiency of the organization can be enhanced through specialization and appropriate division of labor. Foodcorp used a matrix structure but the management style of Foodcorp seemed to be a one boss arrangement. Information and decisions directly comes from the top. As we can see from the chart, group members report and communicate primarily with president. In my opinion, this style will work best in a simple organization, but not for a big organization like Foodcorp. If it relies too much on the president, the employees might face with many problems such as delays and bad decisions. Finally, Foodcorp may suffer from its structure. In my ...
This is because, all employees in management will have to be taught on the most effective decision making models. Once a mastery of the models has been achieved and a particular model settled for, the management can be allowed to gradually apply the model in day to day decision making. The approach will begin with small decisions to monitor its effectiveness and afterwards, more significant decisions will be subjected to the model that has been agreed upon. Teaching the skill of integrative decision making makes each associate to feel appreciated as their opinion and suggestions are valued thus the employees feel part and parcel of the organization. The implementation of decisions becomes more feasible as decisions are not imposed rather, they are deliberated upon in a consultative
Its functional structure is organized with many executive vice presidents reporting to the CEO and additional functions representing a major component of the Target value chain such as a store, design, manufacturing, sales and marketing, logistics, and customer service. Each functional unit is supervised by a functional chain of command that focuses on their area of responsibility. This way CEO provides direction and ensures that the activities of the functional managers are coordinated and integrated across Target
Moreover, the company has placed great significance on open and honest communications with the employees on many levels. Even more, leadership expected a plan that would utilize all human assets in a way that would support the organization’s attitude in servicing customers and employees. As such, they found it important to centralize the staffing initiative in order to maintain the unique corporate culture created in the beginning. Every one of these strategies would be focused on centralizing staffing, brining in the best possible employees, and retaining each on a high
Everything to discover the valuable personnel in the company and preserve them in the organization, based on the value of enrich the company with the best individuals, and encourage others to increase our value for the company, directing the attention in implementing changes in education, leadership disciplines, and
The main stage, learning, requires workers and administrators to rearrange their schedules to elevate associations that prompt to effective answers for specific issues, to perceive and dodge broken movement and vital blind sides, and to make suitable utilization of organization together and procurement to bring new vital resources into the firm from outside sources (Teece, Pisano & Shuen,
Rational organisation can and has reduced costs and gave management a greater control over the workforce. With bureaucratic methods workers can be monitored to make sure that they are achieving output targets and new methods to increase efficiency can be recorded and then implemented to the workforce. McDonalds undertakes a very strong rational...
Organizational structure within an organization is a critical component of the day to day operations of a business. An organization benefits from organizational structure as a result of all it encompasses. It is used to define how tasks are divided, grouped and coordinated. Six elements should be addressed during the design of the organization’s structure: work specialization, departmentalization, chain of command, spans of control, centralization and decentralization. These components are a direct reflection of the organization’s culture, power and politics.
To achieve equilibrium, H&M encourages open communication and employee engagement within the company to satisfy both goal and needs. They came up with an “open book principle” granting every employee the right to express their thoughts on work related issues directly with management. They, too, reinforce the Human Resource Management system by having performance appraisal, a method to evaluate job performance. H&M has done it by using the method of providing feedback as they believe in learning through their own mistakes. Besides, to ensure workers’ work-life balance, the company strongly discourage overtime work and endorse flexible working hours. Everyone in the company is given the opportunity to schedule around their personal and working responsibility. The company also provide comprehensive fringe benefits for their worker which includes staff discounts, incentive bonuses, maternity leave and many more. This is because the Human Resources in H&M emphasise more on job satisfaction rather than title or pay structure. Analysis indicates that H&M has incorporated job enlargement into their business whereby they increase task variety by combining two or more task for more experience working. However, the volume of task to be done is too gruelling for employees causing their company to be listed as one of the highest employee turnover and lowest labour morale in 2008. This shows they have poor job