"Corporations and other businesses should try to eliminate the many ranks and salary grades that classify employees according to their experience and expertise. A 'flat' organizational structure is more likely to encourage collegiality and cooperation among employees".
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
The issue in the opinion stated above is controversial one. The elimination of many ranks and salary grades that classify employees according to their experience and expertise can create congenial working environment by removing hesitation in communication and developing cooperation among employees. While at the same time, it may be viewed as injustice to some employees who really deserve high rank and pay for applying their business acuity for organizational success. In my view, a 'flat' organizational structure does not necessarily encourage collegiality and cooperation among employees.
Every employee of an organization enter business world and corporations with their own personal goal that is different from others in organization. They give their effort to attain overall goal of organization because it will ultimately lead to achievement of their own personal goal in some form of rewards such as salary increment, fringe and benefits, high rank and position, or something that differentiate them from other employees in organization. A flat organizational structure hardly aid in satisfying the employees who give priority to high prestige, pride and honor resulting from their outstanding performance in organization. In fact, the impact of flat organizational structure could be counterproductive. The highly skilled employees may not be willing to exert their best effort and apply their expertise due to the knowledge that their extraordinary performance is not likely to produce high salary grade and position that will give him recognition different from his colleague. On the other hand, there is no actuation for mediocre employees to improve their performance if they are already counted in the same ranks and salary grades with superior employees.
Also, it is unfair to give no heed to experience and expertise which is gained by employees after their long time period of commitment and devotion to work. The industrious employees rather get vexed from their work which offers no scope in terms of ascending status and pay grade in organization. Another matter of concern is decision making on a particular issue, where there is high probability of conflict among employees in flat organizational structure as employees belong to same rank and share equal authority. The problem will be exacerbated in case the organization consists of large number of employees. Yes, the advantage of flat organizational structure is limited to organizations that have fewer employees and requires uninterrupted regular flow of information to conduct the business work of organization. For example, IT organizations require continuous exchange of information which is it's sole business and consist of fewer employees than that of manufacturing organizations. The tasks of IT organizations are broadly classified that ask for same qualifications and skills from it's employees to accomplish those tasks. In manufacturing organizations hierarchy is essential to make employees accountable for their respective job.
Hence, it can be concluded that flat organizational structure cannot always boost up cooperation among employees. The nature and type of organization, size and business of organization, nature of it's employees are the factors that need to be considered to adopt the particular type of organizational structure in order to reap it's benefits.
