While this may visually represent the structure of an organisation, organisational design is a far more complex and strategic discipline that can help to shape an organisation’s culture and the experiences of its employees.

At its core, organisational design is about aligning structure with strategy and defining roles, responsibilities and reporting relationships while ensuring that the right resources are in place to support business objectives. However, it can be an even more effective tool when combined with optimising practices, processes and behaviours that guide how employees collaborate, communicate and perform their work.

Employee engagement

In today’s competitive job market, organisations need to offer more than a solid salary – employees want to feel engaged, valued and supported by their organisation and their leaders. They also want flexibility to balance work and personal commitments, whether that be caring for others or ‘life admin’ or self-care.

By thinking outside the traditional 9-5 model and taking a more innovative and flexible approach to organisational design, businesses can attract and retain top talent.

Leadership development

At Azuhr, we often hear from leaders who feel too overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks to focus on coaching and developing their teams. It is essential for organisations to design roles that give leaders the time and space to lead effectively, set performance goals, and support their staff.

Providing more space for leaders also allows them to make improvements to keep up with a rapidly changing environment. Having responsibility for too many roles or very diverse roles can create overload for a supervisor. This has flow-on effects in terms of succession planning as potential successors are not attracted to leadership positions and may not get the support they need to develop.

Culture

One barrier to an effective organisational culture is overly bureaucratic decision-making. A good organisational design can very quickly become undone when accountabilities and authority are not clear and well considered. Pushing decision making down to the lowest possible level often creates more autonomy and satisfaction and can stop bottle-necks that typically occur when decisions have to be made at higher levels.

When leaders are empowered to make decisions within their areas of responsibility, it fosters confidence and enables positive change. Autonomy encourages leaders to take ownership of their decisions and actions, which strengthens their ability to manage teams effectively and adapt to new challenges.

Psychosocial health

Psychosocial hazards are aspects of the work environment that can cause psychological harm, often resulting from the way work is organised, managed and executed. These hazards include excessive workload, lack of control, poor workplace relationships, and role ambiguity, all of which can lead to issues like burnout, anxiety, and depression.

Organisational design has a direct impact on how employees experience their work and whether they feel supported. Organisations that design roles with manageable workloads, clear responsibilities, and appropriate autonomy can help improve the psychosocial health of their employees.

Poor workplace relationships are a common factor in poor psychosocial health. Organisations need to spend time supporting employees to understand appropriate behaviours in the workplace and mechanisms available to them to resolve issues. It’s not enough to just build teams on paper – they need to function in a way that encourages positive, productive interactions.

So…

Organisational design is much more than the simple act of moving boxes around on a page. When approached strategically, it becomes a powerful tool for improving employee engagement and wellbeing, and organisational culture and performance.

Contact us at Azuhr.com or on 1300 909 819 to discuss how we can assist your organisational design project.

Elissa Castelli
Senior Consultant
Azuhr