Case D Buckman Report

The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein, P.C. have named Meghan Buckwalter the new managing attorney in their matrimonial and family law department.

The tradeoffs between specialized and broad tasks assignments include comparative advantages, costs, and incentive issues. Specialized tasking allows matching employees with jobs based on their skills, reducing the need for training and producing a higher output. (Brickley, Smith, & Zimmerman, 2009). Broad task assignment employees are completing more than one job function, costing more money to train and hire, but allowing coverage if employees call in sick. Bagby would benefit in bringing in specialized employees for hiring requirements, as well. Bagby could hire different levels of education based on job requirement; if the tasks are bundled Bagby

Labor Specialization is a practice of splitting a job into task and assigning the task to specific workers. It is one of the main ideas in our modern economic system. This enables a factory to produce goods at an increased rate. In modern factories the use of technology and multiple workers will create a product each specializing in one aspect of the production involved in the manufacturing of the product. In some factories the use of technology has replaced the human labor with machines. An employee may only need to learn about a machine and how to use it in their job function in a modern

Functional Specialization – As the divison of jobs is done into simpler parts keeping the level of professionalism in mind. This scientific or functional specialization provides higher degree of job specialization. The workers perform simple, specific and repetitive tasks. From the farmers, bee keepers, employees to the management all are aware of the nature of their job.

Centralization refers to the degree in which the decision-making is centralized. Departmentalization can be classified as functional structures where groups are classed together based on their functional similarity. They also define functional structures to be very efficient with minimal redundancy, and appropriate in stable and predictable environments.

Companies often divide up work as a way to improve efficiency, but specialization can lead to negative consequences. DrainFlow is a company that has effectively used specialization to reduce costs relative to its competitors’ costs for years, but rising customer complaints suggest the firm’s strong position may be slipping. After reading the case, you will suggest some ways it can create more interesting work for employees. You’ll also tackle the problem of finding people qualified and ready to perform the multiple responsibilities required in these jobs.

Then managers have decided to fill the skill gap between each employee by implementing a training session so all the employee can involve in the project through analysis of the data. This practise would approach to get the full benefits in both short and long term because after getting some experience by playing around the new system, would refine and acquire precise employee’s skills.

Companies often divide up work as a way to improve efficiency, but specialization can lead to negative consequences. DrainFlow is a company that has effectively used specialization to reduce costs relative to its competitors’ costs for years, but rising customer complaints suggest the firm’s strong position may be slipping. After reading the case, you will suggest some ways it can create more interesting work for employees. You’ll also tackle the problem of finding people qualified and ready to perform the multiple responsibilities required in these jobs.

Every organization works for its ultimate goal of attaining profit and to enjoying a good name in the society. Organizational success depends upon how the organization manages the information and process for attaining the target. For that the organization should have its own strategies and technologies for adequate knowledge management. Due to the drastic changes which has happened in our organizational working climate, career management intervention has to be given due importance for the performance of the workers. Human resource is considered as the most important asset of an organization but it is a true fact that no human being is complete. Solving of problems happens through sharing of experiences and knowledge among the individuals. However, individual career

Effective organizational structures define how job tasks are subdivided, grouped, coordinated, and managed. Six key components of organizational structures include division of labor, departmentalization, chain of command, span of control, centralization, and formalization (Remme, Jones, Van der Heijden, & De Bono, 2008, p. 79). Each element influence how employees interact with each other to reach organizational goals. Different structures are common in similar organizations among high performing organizations (Reimann, 1974, p. 707). The most appropriate structure will depend on the unique needs and culture of the organization.

To develop the knowledge infrastructure, McKinsey made a major commitment to build a common database of knowledge accumulated from client work and hired a full time practice coordinator who acted as an "intelligent switch". They also expanded its hiring practices and promotion policies to create a career path for deep functional specialist whose narrow expertise would make them more I-shaped than the normal profile of a T-shaped consultant. They also created computerized data bases such as Firm Practice Information System, Practice Development Network and a manual Knowledge Resource Directory.

According to the management text book Williams & McWilliams, 2010, job specialisation reflects the degree to which tasks get broken down and divided into smaller tasks. Benefits include worker proficiency, decreased time between task transfer and the ability to develop specialized equipment for a specific function. So why do organisations employ such a technique? It’s

In every industry experts are needed to teach others certain skills, give advice, and use strategies to solve problems. Individuals can attain expertise by focusing on a particular skill to improve. It is said that “experts are made and not born,” so expertise is not attained in one day, but takes practice and time and individuals also attain expertise at different rates performance levels. Experts develop cognitive processes that result in their high levels of performance, “Extensive practice can develop expertise in high level skill (Anderson, 2010). Acquired knowledge and skills are needed to attain expertise. This material will discuss

The knowledge network is “who knows what” in organization. Knowledge is defined as different categories that are relevant to particular organization. For example, if we are collecting the data about organizational simulation group we may have the information like software development, organizational theory and statistics. The knowledge network is simply who possess what level of expertise in that particular field.

Interdepartmental communication is the communication between different departments in an organization. Each company is set up in specific ways to accomplish their mission and goal, therefore the organizational structure differs for each company. “Organizational structure is the way or methods by which organizational activities are divided, organized and harmonized” (Hadi Shafiee, 2016). The organizational structure determines how information is flow from one level to another within a company. Specific structure is required in an organization in order to have good performance. Organizational structures can either be centralized or decentralized. There are about four different types of organizational structures which are functional structure, divisional structure, matrix structure, line and staff structure and project structure. No matter what organizational structure the company is using, there will be multiple departments and it is important to have an effective communication amongst all departments in order for the operation of the organization to run smoothly.