In the corporate world majority of organizations work based on hierarchies or positions but few companies adopt a flat organization structure in their companies. Flat organization refers to that organization where there are minimum levels of management and top management is a lot more closer to its customers as well as lower-level employees resulting in the elimination of the gap between the employees at various levels and hence employees working in the company feel that they all are equal and are not divided due to various levels of management. In order to get a better idea about this concept, one should look at some of the important features of flat organization –
Flat Organization Characteristics
Decentralized Structure
The first and foremost feature of the flat organization is that decision making in this type of organization is decentralized in the sense that while top management decides the broad strategy of the company while the routine decision making is delegated to lower levels so that top management can focus more on the bigger picture that is broad policies of the company and does not confine itself to day to day activities of the company.
No Middle Level of Management
In the case of flat organizations, there is no scope of middle-level management as top-level management interacts directly with lower-level management which in turn ensures that there are no unnecessary delays due to following of long chain of command which tends to happen when there are too many levels of management.
Focus on Teams
Another important aspect of a flat organization is that this type of organization focuses more on team formation and teamwork rather than putting the entire responsibility on any one individual which in turn ensures that the whole team is accountable as well as responsible for the completion of the task or goal entrusted by the company to the team.
Quicker Decision Making
Due to the decentralized nature of working in a flat organization, the decision-making is quick and flexible which in turn ensures that no project or work gets delayed due to bureaucratic bottlenecks and hence helps the company in completing the task quickly and efficiently. In simple words just like speed breakers on highways can cause a significant reduction in speed of vehicles in the same way too many levels of management can cause problems as far as working of the organization is concerned.
Controlling
Flat organization structure has many practical problems like in case of big companies where there are many employees because in that case the chances of losing control over the employees are more as you need someone to control a large number of workers and that is where middle-level management comes in handy as in the absence of proper control chances of employees getting complacent and not working efficiently increases.
Lack of Motivation
In the case of a flat organization, all employees are considered equal and hence there is no motivation on the part of the employees to work hard as they know that even if they work hard they will not get the required recognition and promotion due to the structure of the organization which sometimes can lead to good employees leaving the company in search of better opportunities thus creating a gap in the company which is difficult to fill.
As one can see from the above that a flat organization has its unique characteristics and that is the reason why any company thinking of adopting this structure into their organization should carefully read the above points and then only should take any decision regarding the implementation of this structure into their company.