How to eliminate mundane steps that hurt operations

Workers at an EPZ factory in Athi River, near Nairobi. A culture of poor organisation leads to talent flight when workers are frustrated by bureaucracy and unnecessary checks and supervision. Photo/FILE 

By Scott Bellows

In Summary

• Over-organised situations lead to lower organisational performance by decreasing employee motivation, stifling innovation, and lowering output through time wastage.
• Like over-organised situations, the under-organised lead to lower staff motivation, chaos, and ineffective time wastage that lowers profits.

Chebet braved her morning commute to arrive at her parastatal on the outskirts of the Nairobi Central Business District. She arrived energetic and ready to face her day.

However, by 10am, she needed to print a document in preparation for a later afternoon meeting. While printing, her department-allocated paper ran out. She then inquired from colleagues about where to obtain more printing paper.

The answers Ms Chebet received ranged from comical to insane. First, she needed to draft a two-page requisition justifying why she needed more paper. Since she had no paper, a colleague printed her typed up justification. Then, Ms Chebet obtained her immediate supervisors approval on the requisition.

The request proceeded to the departmental manager who proposed several changes. After making the changes, Ms Chebet then resubmitted it to her supervisor for re-approval and then to the manager. Her requisition then reached the finance team then to purchasing then to logistics officers.

Ms Chebet missed her meeting. She got the papers two weeks later. Furious Chebet posted her CV online to look for another job.

Do you ever burn with frustration from intense operational constraints in your office? Do you sometimes feel that even obtaining a property mortgage is actually easier than pushing through simple processes at your firm? How much time do you waste each day on bureaucracy? Have you ever switched jobs over frustration from field constraints?

Today Business Talk embarks on a new series showcasing organisational development. A simple definition of organisational development involves enabling entities to solve problems and achieve goals.

The discipline achieves objectives through expanding the knowledge and effectiveness of people and affecting organisational change.

Clearly, the parastatal where Ms Chebet worked urgently needs organisational development to institute change. An organisational behaviour expert would come in and assess the degree of organisation within the firm. The degree of organisation entails the extent of entity policies and procedures existent in the institution.

Research shows that organisations pass through three phases on their way to large dominant status. First, a firm or NGO begins as a grassroots effort. Perhaps a group of women in a village outside Karatina desires come together and find a solution for lack of clean water. They pool resources and bring water onto their farms.

Later, the women expand and supply water to neighbouring villages. They develop processes and procedures from everything including client acquisition to collection of water usage fees. The women also begin to hire professionals to run the business instead of their initial community committee.

Finally, the water company might serve an entire county. The large scale hints that the organisation now operates in the institutional phase of growth.

How might you identify whether your firm operates in an over-organised environment? Look for signs of highly mechanistic processes. To perform tasks, must you follow a procedure that seems to go against natural organic flows? If so, your firm prefers mechanistic approaches.

Next, like in Ms Chebet’s example, does your firm’s bureaucracy defy logic and create too many levels of approval that hinder you accomplishing tasks quickly and efficiently?

As a way to prevent corruption, theft, or simply as a way to control employees, firms often implement rigid and overly defined structures, leadership styles, job designs, and policies.