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Structured Freedom: Organizational Structure and Employee Independence

Over the years, much has been said and done regarding creating organizational structure, developing chains of command, standardizing jobs, and eliminating unnecessary thinking from daily job tasks. In particular, successful companies in the business world preach the value of well-defined organizational structure, with organizational charts often being referenced during times of evaluation and change. While the aforementioned concepts can definitely be good, is there a point where too much structure is bad, supervising requirements are excessive, job standardization is demoralizing, and employee thinking becomes devalued?

In developing a sound organizational structure and organizational culture, more should be said about the concept of "structured freedom". From an organizational standpoint, structure needs to be present, as it helps define workers' roles and shapes various group decision-making processes. While structure gets continuously recognized for its value in business, freedom too often gets overlooked. That is, freedom is more often seen as a value of individual employees, as a number of psychological theories such as Maslow's Hiearchy of Needs illustrate. Yet, freedom not only carries value for individual employees but also brings returns for employers/organizations as a whole.

From a managerial perspective, it is more productive to have employees that can work independently and without supervision than it is to have employees heavily dependent on constant managerial supervision, hand-holding trainers, and a help desk/troubleshooting team that never takes breaks. In having more independence on the the workfloor, individual employees consume fewer company resources--in particular, the time of fellow employees. In turn, the managers, trainers, and troubleshooters gain more time to attend to other important matters, as expert consultants such as Stephen Covey would likely agree. Rather than downsizing operations--as a number of companies use as a primary means to counteract against downtime and economic/financial concerns--organizations can increase employee efficiency and possibly add employees to the workforce.

Freedom as a value of individual employees--who are said by Maslow to be seeking self-esteem and self-actualization--circulates back to the employer not only through short-term performance, but also through longer-term employee retention. Movements such as the Enlightenment, the Civil Rights Movement, the mass reduction of corporal punishment, the mass increase in attendance of college, and society's increasing value of achieving hopes and dreams have made freedom a long-term career goal for a myriad of employees and, even moreso nowadays, a daily work environment expectation of a large working contingent. Freedom oftentimes is interpreted by employees as trust from their managers and employers.

On the other hand, a lack of trust may indicate the lack of a long-term future for employees. Such an effect can be quite demoralizing. Due to feelings of worry, concern, and discomfort, dissatisfied employees will likely opt to pursue alternate employment opportunities with other employers that may grant more independence in their daily work and more freedom overall in their employer's organizational structure. The high turnover results in rising new hire/employee training costs--which often get overlooked by companies in their evaluations of organizational structure and culture as well as financial stability. Instead of acknowledging and diagnosing systematic and structural problems, employers fight the symptoms of short-term declining profits. In particular for a company with numerous shareholders, the most commonly used remedy for the symptoms of declining profitability is to lay off employees in order to [supposedly] reduce company expenses and maximize the company's bottom line.

In making these observations, it is time for companies to challenge what have become arguably complacent business standards. That is, companies need to stop settling on heavy supervision, job standardization, and high employee turnover as a way of life and survival. Instead, companies need to consider how to build more freedom into their systems. Company leaders need to evaluate opportunities to empower employees--increasing job satisfaction for individual employees, increasing short-term productivity and efficiency of the organization, and reducing employee turnover (i.e. retaining more talent) in the long term. With that said, it is time to mark the era of "structured freedom".

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