Organisational Structures (AQA GCSE Business)

Park Designs Ltd (PDL) is a family business that makes high quality wooden furniture to order. The Park family owns all the shares.

As part of its commitment to training, PDL run an annual team building day for all 72 employees which is good for staff motivation. The factory is closed for the day and the staff go off-site for the day. Group challenges are run which help develop team skills and improve communication.

“I loved the team building day, we had great fun and it was better than being at work for the day. However I am not sure how useful it was to my job in the admin department?” Sue, Admin department.

Park Designs Ltd (PDL) is a family business that makes high quality wooden furniture to order. The Park family owns all the shares.

As part of its commitment to training, PDL run an annual team building day for all 72 employees which is good for staff motivation. The factory is closed for the day and the staff go off-site for the day. Group challenges are run which help develop team skills and improve communication.

“I loved the team building day, we had great fun and it was better than being at work for the day. However I am not sure how useful it was to my job in the admin department?” Sue, Admin department.

The production manager will retire soon. Like him, many of the production staff have worked at PDL for many years. They enjoy their work and most stay until they retire. Consequently, there are several possible candidates to take over as production manager, but none have management experience.

Customer reviews say that the furniture is made to a very high standard, however, they also suggest that the administration staff do not always deliver a good service. Complaints show that order processing is not always accurate. Recently, some customers have asked about the negative reviews when enquiring about possible purchases.

Doorsteps is a sandwich bar that sells take-away sandwiches and wraps. The manager is very careful to list all allergens in bold type on the price list, and vegetarian and vegan items are listed separately. Staff are highly trained on all aspects of serving food.

JCC Shoes has a tall organisational structure. At Head Office, different departments employ specialist staff. The company’s human resource (HR) employees have extensive knowledge of employment law. The HR department deals with the recruitment of employees, designs job advertisements, and interviews employees at the level of store manager or above.

JCC Shoes has 200 stores in the UK; each store has a manager. In addition, the business employs 20 area managers who line-manage, on average, 10 stores each. The area managers are loyal staff who have been promoted from within the business.

Extract of area managers’ job description

• Pass on information from the stores to Head Office

• Hold fortnightly meetings on sales with store managers

• Recruit and train store sales assistants

• Attend a monthly meeting at Head Office

At times, area managers have been so busy travelling that there are delays in passing on messages to Head Office. Store managers do not directly contact Head Office. Recently this has resulted in a store being without a manager for four weeks.

JCC Shoes’ profit has been falling. However, dividend payments have been high, and the share price has increased by 10% in the last year.

Jameel has been running his business JAA Toys for two years. The toys have become popular and the business is now receiving larger orders from many toy shops. To help meet this increasing demand Jameel has rented a small business workshop, purchased more machinery and plans to recruit staff.

Jameel wants to recruit four people; three to make the toys and one for administration. He has decided that he will not recruit a manager because he wants to keep control over the production of the toys. Instead he will manage the employees himself and communicate his new designs to staff. This means his business will have a flat organisational structure. Jameel will spend a lot of his time visiting toy shops in the North of England to get orders. He also has plans to visit exhibitions to gain ideas for new designs.

Jameel is concerned about rising costs due to the expansion, so he wants to keep the cost of wages down. There are some weeks when production will be low because there are very few orders. The business will be very busy at other times, such as before Christmas. Jameel is aware he needs to recruit skilled production staff to make high-quality toys to his unique designs. This is important to maintain the unique selling point (USP) of JAA Toys.

JCP is a large business that operates across the UK making glass components for furniture such as coffee tables and cabinets. Although it is profitable, it has struggled to manage rising costs in recent years. It has 585 employees and 8 levels of hierarchy, from factory operatives right up to Managing Director, Jennie. Most of the business decisions are made in meetings that have all senior staff present, however with each member of the senior team travelling around the UK frequently, there is often a manager missing, and the decisions cannot be made.

Once the decision has been made, it is communicated in team meetings down through the levels of hierarchy.

Customers of JCP have complained that communication and decision making is slow and they often have to wait weeks for a response. When a decision is made, it often contains inaccuracies.