Organizational Structure and HR Practices: A Detailed Analysis

This essay explores the significant relationship between organizational structure and HR practices. It begins by highlighting the need for organizational flexibility in response to market changes and customer expectations. The essay then defines organizational structure and its importance in defining employee roles and coordination. The core of the essay discusses the influence of different organizational structures, including hierarchical, matrix, flat, and networking structures, on HR practices such as recruitment, training, and performance appraisal. It emphasizes how each structure affects HR decision-making and employee management. The essay also references the views of Harley Davidson on the impact of organizational structure on employee behavior. The essay underscores the importance of adapting HR practices to align with the chosen organizational structure to enhance overall organizational effectiveness and employee satisfaction.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND HR MANAGEMNT
Title: To what extent the organisational Structure impacts the HR practices?
Name of Student:
Name of Organisation:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
The increase in the customer expectations and the global competitions has created the
demand for the companies to gain the highest level of quality and efficiency as well as the
incorporation of flexibility in order to adapt and cope up with the changing demands of the
market (Coccia 2015). The undertaking of approaches that will lead to the simplifications of the
operating structure of the organization and integrations of all the relevant business practices will
help the companies to keep abreast of the changing demands. The structure of the organization
has to focus on the way it will perform the functions most effectively and efficiently. The
employees who are the part of the organization need to have a clear idea about the systematic
manner in which they should be working. A proper idea about the structure and their defined
roles will help the employees to understand where exactly they fit in the organization and how to
co ordinate in their efforts (Ashton, 2004). The establishment of a well-defined relationship
between the important elements in the organization is generally known as the organizational
structure.
The organizational structure thus can be viewed as the arrangement of the people
in an organization in a systematic manner and the setting of the defined framework that will
determine the relationships among the people of the organization. The choice of the formation of
the organization is a dynamic process. The organizational structure is formed on the basis of the
type of the organization. The way in which the organization decides to position itself determines
the structure it would follow. As the organization expands and changes according to the needs of
the market, it needs to change the structural pattern (Boyle 2007). Moreover, the technological
revolution also influences the structure of the organization. The task of the human resource

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management in the organization is to take in account all these external and internal influences
including the legal political and economic subsystems. The HR practices of the organization
decides the operations of the business and sustain the relationship between the organization and
the employees where, not only the organization has expectations from the employees but it is
also the other way round. It is not enough to look after the factor that the organization is staffed
with the qualified employees. The formation of the structure is to be prepared by the Human
Resource Management to determine what the organization needs to offer to the employees. The
HR department is also responsible for providing proper trainings to the employee whereby they
can develop their skills and competencies (Chung 2008). The job description and positions often
are altered because of the changes in the organizational structure. The present essay will discuss
the relationship between the organizational structure and the HR practices. Since the main
function of the HR department is to manage the human resource of the organization and this
resource forms the main tangible assets, the structure of the organization largely influence the
HR practices and the systems of operating those practices. The essay will take into account the
structural variations in the organizations and analyse how each of them affect the decision-
making policies of the HR department.
HR Practices:
“Any practice that deals with enhancing competencies, satisfaction, commitment and
culture building can be considered a HR practice. The practice can take the form of a system, a
process, an activity, a norm, a rule or just a way of doing things. Good Human Resource
Practices do make a difference in the functioning of the organizations. Good HR Practices are
those that contribute to one or more of the three Cs: Competencies, commitment and culture.

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They need to be identified and implemented cost effectively, reviewing and revising them from
time to time to enhance their effectiveness and appropriateness.” (Rao 2003)
It is generally considered that the HR practices in a company is designed to contribute to
three major goals within an organization.
1. To build capabilities that is critical for the organization.
2. To enhance the satisfaction level of the employees.
3. To improve the shareholder’s and customer’s satisfaction. (Huselid 1995)
The incorporation of Good HR practices is supposed to enhance the workplace efficiencies of the
employees and look after their wellbeing. This will help the organization as a whole to face any
new unforseen problems. The main HR practices that any company undertakes are
a. Planning
b. Recruitment and selection
c. Induction
d. Training and development
e. Performance appraisal and carrier planning
f. Promotion and transfers
Organizational Structure:
With the immergence of the large organizations as one of the prevailing phenomenon
within the social and the economic structure critics on organizational function and behaviour
started to form a definite concept about the “Optimal Structure” of the organization (Maduenyi,
Oke, Fadeyi and Ajagbe 2015). The recent seminal studies on the organizational structures have

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dedicated themselves to focus on the identification of the various structures within the
organization and relate them with the size of organization, their availability of technologies,
nature of their main tasks and the environmental context of the organization. The organizations
in the present century faces a large number of propositions like disruptive technologies, global
competition, shorter life cycle of products etc. have made them difficult to sustain. These factors
had led the companies to introspect about the degree of their need to specify the units formally or
to link the roles of the authority and the units and the required tasks and responsibilities
undertaken by the company to deal with the further complexities. The modern companies need to
resort to the structure that would give them flexibility enough in order to communicate the lines
as and when required (Paauwe and Boon 2018.).
Organizational structure thus is the outline of the particular process abiding which the
performance of the activities will be regulated. It is built on the method, technology, nature and
social environment. The organization structures determine who will be performing a particular
job undertaking the required techniques. As the objective and nature of each organization varies,
the organizational structure will also vary accordingly.
The hierarchical structure: this is structure has evolved to be the most popular and effective in
the chart type of the organization. In this model, each employee is supposed to be grouped with
each other that will, in turn be monitored by one clear supervisor. In this structure, the employees
are distinctly ranked in various levels within the framework of the organization. Each level is
placed at the top of another. In each stage, a chain is formed and one individual directly
supervises the chain. While there are many levels in the tall hierarchical organizations, the flat
hierarchies will have few levels in it. In this type of structure the role of each employee is
clearly defined and they are made fully aware about their relationships with others. These

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structures have generally a narrowed down span of control which are widened as the pyramidal
structure goes down. The hierarchical organizations in general have a centralised policy, which
enables the company to take urgent decisions quickly by the higher authorities only. (Iyamu and
Mphahlele 2014.) The HR practices regarding the induction and training are done in these types
of structures more religiously. The decision of training needs is done by the HR wing after
consulting with the line managers.
Matrix Structure: the combination of the function wise departmentation and the product wise
departmentation within the same organizational structure is regarded as the matrix or grid
structure of the organization. A bi-way authority that flows within the same organizational
structure creates the matrix in the form of a grid which is the reason of the nomenclature of this
structure (Saunila, Mäkimattila and Salminen 2014). The flow of authority comes from both the
project structure as well as the functional structure. The reporting relationship in this structure is
set up in the form of a grid. People having the same skills are pooled for the particular
assignment. This results in the fact that more than one manager will be reporting to the higher
authority about the same task. The matrix structure of the organization is better used where there
are the conglomeration of more than one project. The structure is thus flexible enough so that it
can incorporate both the product oriented and the task-oriented dimensions.
Horizontal/ Flat organization: this type of organization can be utilised specially in the small or
start-up companies. Various levels associated with the middle management can be eliminated in
this structure since there is dearth of human resource in the small organizations. This structure
enables the company to take quick and independent decisions. The owner of the organization is
generally considered the top position of the structure. The managers or the team leaders are at the
second position that is responsible for reporting to the business owner. The third layer comprises

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of the employees or the members who are supervised by the leaders or the managers. This
structure is primarily an employee centred structure where most of the effort is invested in
forming the collaboration or the team working (Iyamu, and Mphahlele, 2014). Employees can
exercise more contacts with the managers and the owner and in this process the complicated part
of hierarchy is eliminated.
Networking Organizational structure: the structure where more than one organization group
together with the aim of producing one particular product or service is known as the networking
organizational structure. The organizations following the structure either get into the partnership
for an individual project or one organization can hire one or more than one organization with the
aim of delegating the function of handling the required segments. The networking organizational
structure is effective in the areas of operations. This helps the organization in undertaking tasks
of various dimensions and makes it able to operate globally.
Line organizational Structure: one of the simplest ways to structure the organization is opting for
the line organization. The authority in this structure generally flows from the higher level to the
lower level. Supportive or specialised services are not operated in this structure. The chain of the
command and the department of each head have the control over other departments.
Impact of Organizational Structure on Employees:
It is argued by Harley Davidson, who serves as the CEO of a company known as Teer
Link, that the structure of an organization is something that is seen to have an influence on the
attitude and the behaviour that is exercised by employees working for that organization. The
administrators place limits or constraints on the responsibilities, authority and the duties of the
organization and this in turn reduces the capability of the organization to adequately manage all

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the changes that are taking place to the business environment of that particular organization.
Hierarchical steepness is something that needs to be considerably reduced and the employees of
the organization have to be provided with authority. Harley Davidson has made the argument
that hierarchical structure is capable of working quite well when an organization is going through
an emergency or even before the emergency takes place, but once the crisis has passed such a
structure is not going to prove to be useful anymore. The top to bottom approach as it is termed
by Harley Davidson is not going to help the organization to respond in an apt fashion to the
competition or the external threats that the organization is faced with as a consequence of
internal resistance. The process of communication in a business organization is something that
has been described well enough by Harley Davidson, as going through a linear process, from the
executive level down to the middle management right up to first level managers after which the
communication is then passed onto all the staff members of the organization. (Pugliese and Cagan
2002.)
As argued by Bacon and Storey (2000), decentralized organizations are able to respond to
an emergency in a faster or more efficient manner as management costs are considerably reduced
for such an organization. Such an organization is one that follows what may be termed as bottom
up approach where communication is passed from the staff members of the organization right to
the people who are holding positions of authority in that organization. Restructuring in an
organization occurs through the process of downsizing. This process is something that is
implemented at a mid-managerial level at a time when the middle managers are not performing
their duties and responsibilities in the manner that is desired. Managerial costs are reduced and
span of control is considerably widened. Because of decentralization, as argued by Bacon and
Storey, a paradoxical impact can be felt as power is transferred on the one hand from the

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management to another division of the management, creating in the process, a lot of troubles and
issues in the area of bureaucracy.
Instructive foundations of an organization can be established today only if the structure of
the organization is appropriate. Business colleges today for instance are seen to be confronting a
wide range of issues in order to keep up with scholastic models that otherwise form a vital
component of their business structure. As per the results revealed by a study, which was
conducted by the Carnegie Foundation ( Silva and White 2015), some of the focal issues that are
seen to confront the process of board training is the fact that scholastic guidelines are those that
need to be expanded physically. Business organizations are those that tend to prefer and focus on
bureaucratic organization for the most part instead of engaging in the implementation of
innovative exercises or encouraging diversity within the organization. Raj Raghavan ((Rajiv
2011), a man who heads the operations conducted by the HR division of Amazon in India states
that when the process of an organization undergoes a change or a transformation, this in turn has
an impact on the mental health of the people who are labouring for that organization (Rajiv 2011.).
The people who are working for the organization are influenced in a positive or a negative way
and mentally at that by the transformations, which are taking place in the organization. Some of
the employees of the organization are not willing to accept changes that are taking place within
the organizational instances while in other instances, the employees of the organization are
unsure about how to deal with the transformation, and as a consequence feel a bit out of place in
the organization.
The connection that exists between execution and hierarchical structure is a subject that
has been studied upon by Hao et al. (2012). According to them, this is a relationship that is
dependent on specific types of confirmation via the process of authoritative learning as well as

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development. The investigation that has been carried out on the part of the researchers is
something that has in turn triggered three very important discoveries. Firstly, authoritative
structure is something that is seen to impact hierarchical adapting in a far more effective and
direct way than the process of advancement, and in a round-about way, the process of
authoritative adapting has an influence on execution through development. Secondly,
organizations which are slanted innovatively, are impacted in quite a significant way by
hierarchical learning as well as advancement, while capital intensive organizations have an
influence on the process of authoritative execution through development (Delery and Doty 1996).
Thirdly, it has been discovered that new organizations or organizations which are quite youthful
in their nature and scope, the process of learning as well as understanding the structure of the
organization appears to be far more progressively significant compared to advancement (Stare
2011).
Relationship between Organizational Structures and HR practices:
Organization structure implies the best possible course of action of individuals working
for the organization with the goal that the organization accomplishes certain objectives. The
structure of connections is framed among individuals and the organization. Various sorts of
organization are available, for example, Line, Functional or matrix framework as discussed
earlier. The situation of the HR division in the complete organization arrangement is to a great
extent subject to whether a specific unit is little or enormous. In little organizations, there
probably won't be a different HR division and the human asset capacities may be directed with

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the assistance of an office administrator. Nevertheless, this is not the situation in greater
organizations (Paauwe and Boon 2018).
In an organization, HR authoritative structure assumes a significant job as the system and
other adjusting assets are characterized as a major aspect of the business methodology expressing
the organization’s way of life (Browning 1991). The structure straightforwardly influences the
organization's capacity to pull in and hold legitimate HR ability. Thus, practices constructed by
the HR impacts the achievement of the organization later on as well. Its impact is inside and
outside the extent of the HR work also.
A powerful hierarchical structure has its foundations in the formation of a positive effect
on the business and that is the reason it is constantly lined up with an appropriate business
methodology. It is structured in a way to draw in their high performing individuals and make
positions with the goal that the development and advancement openings are likewise affected.
The present looking into patterns help us to discover the requirements of the business with the
goal that significant commitments can be made to the business.( Sahoo, Deshpande, Gupta,
Chandrashekhar, Moitra, Martinez and D’Souza Bhowmick et al. 2012)
HR practices has three significant assignments that is related with the hierarchical structure in
the business:
1. As showed by various writers in scholastic composing it has been held that framing an
organization is called work showcase in which wages are given to the employees. The activities
of the business and different elements of the organization are chosen by the HR
supervisor. (Hartmann and Schwieger 2016)

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2. To activate the organization it is not adequate that employees are qualified. The HR
administrators set up the arrangement in a business, giving legitimate abilities and preparing to
the employees. The HR division of an organization leads the preparation, enlistment and the
board of occupation positions and they utilize every one of the way to give legitimate capabilities
to the employees of the organization. (Chung 2008)
3. HR Practices likewise remembers the board of guideline of organizations for an
appropriate way. The disappointments of the organization ought to be uncovered in an ordinary
way and the organizations ought to forestall articulation of their disappointment in a specific
issue.
Influence of organizational structure on HR practices:
Organizational structure is greatly related with the HR practices. The above discussions
show that the scholars have stressed the factor that the workings of the HR Practices needs to be
aligned with the organizational structure, not only to form the integration, but at the same time
project their brand more effectively to the employees as well as to the world. Thus, it is
inevitable that the structure of the organization will also impact the HR practices (Rousseau and
Greller 1994). However, in order to understand the extent of influences, it is essential to know
about the roles that the HR will play in the organizational structure of the company and to what
extent those roles contribute to the organization:
HR's jobs and duties in authoritative structure ought to incorporate the accompanying:
 Giving pioneers an auxiliary finding by distinguishing the main drivers of authoritative
presentation issues.
 Helping pioneers assess a scope of clear structure alternatives.