Snooze Cottage Organisational Chart
This is an organisation chart of Snooze Cottage:
Hierarchical Structure
These kinds of organisations have people in many different levels of authority and responsibility. There is usually a Managing Director with departmental directors responsible for functional areas. Each functional would have a manager in charge, with workers, co-ordinators and supervisors reporting directly to him.
As you can see form the diagram above information within organisations travels in a number of ways, upwards, downwards, sideways and diagonally. The reason way the hierarchical structure is drawn as a pyramid is because there are normally more workers than bosses. The further down the pyramid you go the number of staff employed is increased. The jobs at the top of the structure usually carry more authority than the ones at the bottom.
Downward Communication
The diagram above shows communication travelling up and down within companies. If a decision is taken at the managing director level, the decision may be to start up a new marketing plan. The plan will be applied by instructing the relevant middle management (department heads or line managers) to then instruct there subordinates to carry out the new task. This is an example of downward communication with in companies.
Upward Communication
An example of upward communication within a company is if staff, offer comments to their superiors about working conditions, current jobs, staff matters.
Upward communications involve asking for authority from superiors, advice and complaints.
Horizontal communication
Horizontal communication within a hierarchical pyramid involves staff of the same status but usually between heads of department. Heads of department will usually have meetings regularly to discuss new plans or policies. If horizontal communication does not take place between the different departments serious damage can be done to the structure and the way the structure operates, because in all organisations each department is relent on each other.
Diagonal Communication
Diagonal communication is when staff at different levels within an organisation, communicate for example when a finance clerk may need personal bank details of a new employee, so the clerk will need to communicate with the head of Human resources. This is an example of diagonal communication.
Flat Structures
Flat structures have less levels of authority than the strictly hierarchical structure. Flatter structures generally have one or two levels of management. Communications in flatter structures are usually easier than in the hierarchical structure because there are less levels of authority. The only problem with having less levels of management is that the workload will increase at each level of the flatter structure.
Snooze Cottage Organisation
The organisation of Snooze Cottage is known as a flat or flatter structure. It only has three levels of authority. These are Richard and Patricia (owners) they are in control of all the staff employed and they have a wide span of control, Hazel (housekeeper) looks after the house by delegating jobs to Jean, Mal, David and Pauline, Pauline (cook) who delegates task to the kitchen assistant. Most small businesses have flat structures.
Flat structures present some problems like centralised authority, there are also few authority levels and management tend to have wide spans of control, for example in the Snooze Cottage organisation Richard and Patricia have wide spans of control.
Functional Areas of an organisation
Different areas of an organisation have different purposes. The main functional areas of an organisation are:
Financial department
Payroll department
Stock control department
Production department
Marketing
ICT Services
Financial department: The financial accounting department is responsible for keeping records of all financial transactions that take place in the day to day running of the business. These can include invoicing a customer or the sale of goods.
Payroll: The payroll department is responsible for paying employees and keeping the records of taxing company employees.
Stock control: Organisations, which keep stocks of raw materials, must have a stock control team which manage the amount of raw materials the company has to produce its product. If the company needs more stock then the stock control department will place an order and contact the finance department to get the money required and produce an invoice, this is what we call information flow.
Production: The Production department is responsible for making the raw materials into a finished product and if they require more raw materials then they will contact the stock control team. This again is relating to information, if a business has poor information then information will not get to the rite person/persons.
Marketing: The marketing team advertise the finished product. But even before they must analyse the market to see if the market is in need if a new product, then the product will be made.
ICT Services: ICT services can be broken down into many sections, general word processing, data communications, and computer systems. Most large firms these days will have a computer an ICT department.
Functional Areas of the Snooze Cottage Organisation
As you can see from the organisational chart of Snooze Cottage there are different areas of an organisation and each area has its own role or responsibility. Within Snooze Cottage there are six functional areas:
- Catering: Pauline is a cook and Jacqui responsible for the daily food preparation and kitchen chores.
- General Maintenance of the Hotel Grounds: David is the handy Man and Mal is the grounds Keeper, his responsibilities are to maintain the hotels Half acre grounds.
- House keeping: Hazel is the hotels House Keeper and ensures the guest house runs smoothly. Jean the Chambermaid is employed on a part time basis to ensure all the laundry and room preparation is complete for new guests.
- Bookings: I think Richard should take bookings because he has worked behind a bakery counter and hence has probably developed good customer relations.
- Management: Richard and Patricia take care of the day to day running and management of the B&B.
Looking at the organisation chart of Snooze Cottage and considering Richard and Patricia are considering purchasing a new property I would recommend hiring some new staff for the new premises.
These are the staff I would recommend hiring:
1 Chef
2 Kitchen Assistants
1 Handy Man
1 House Keeper
2 Chambermaids
1 Gardener
1 General Manager
This is my Suggested organisation Chart for the new property. I have recommended
these new staff because there are 18 rooms in the new lodge and because ultimately there will be more customers, so therefore they will need more staff to cope with the customers needs.
Functional Areas of the new organisation
I believe to manage and run second premises and to make it success I think Richard and Patricia should hire a general manager to take care of the day to day running of the business. The House keeper will report to the general manager and the accountant will work along side the manager. The gardener will also report directly to the manager.
Management: I think Richard and Patricia should employ a general manager to take care of running the Victorian lodge. The general manager would also be in charge of taking bookings.
Maintenance: I have suggested that Richard and Patricia employ a handy man and a gardener, to take care of general maintenance and keeping the gardens around the property clean and tidy.
Housekeeping: I have suggested employing 1 Housekeeper to over look the housekeeping and two chambermaids to clean laundry and rooms.
Catering: One chef should be employed as well as two kitchen assistants. To take care of the food preparation.
Accounting: I’ve suggested contracting an accountant to look after the financial issues of both properties.
Information flow
For any company, information flow is vital! If information does not flow properly then people within the internal structure will not receive the information and will not be able to act on it.
This is an example of an information flow diagram.
This information flow diagram shows different parts of a company all communicating to produce and sell a product.
Purchasing must first request the raw materials from the warehouse, these materials will then be taken to the factory for production. Sales will then ask for a product, the product will be despatched to sales. Sales then tell accounting they have received the product, accounting send a delivery note to despatch. Sales will sell the finished product. Accounting will invoice the end user and the end user will send the monies to be paid to accounting.
Organisational Structure of combined Organisations
This is a combined organisational structure of the organisations.
Key
Contracted Worker
Actual examples of organisational structures
This is part of an organisational chart of a well known German bank called DEUTSCHE BANK it used to be known as BANKERS TRUST. This organisation has many levels of authority so it represents a hierarchical structure.
This organisation has a very flat structure with few levels of authority. This means more work for the heads and brokers, than if there was some middle management put into the internal structure.
Data Handling and processing methods
There are three main processing methods:
- Batch
- On line
- Distributed and centralised
These processing methods are used to process different types of data or perform tasks. The computers will need the correct software to run the different types of processing methods.
Batch
Batch processing is the processing of large amounts of data which are usually the same. An example of a batch processing system is a payroll system or a stock control system. For a processing system to work certain data types are needed depending on the type of processing system. Examples of batch processing systems are monthly payroll details or raw materials orders. The types of data you would need to start a payroll system; would be pay date, personal bank details, days of worked. This system can then produce payslips for all employees.
Online
Online processing can be broken down into two.
Real Time: A real time system is system that updates itself in real time automatically. For example Microsoft Excel automatically updates itself when the user inputs data. It could be a formulae or just a number.
An example of a real time system in a hotel would be some kind of hotel booking system, so when I customer rings up to book a room; the system automatically updates itself to show that a room has been booked.
Some kind of room booking system could be introduced into Snooze Cottage so Richard and Patricia can see how many rooms they have available, what rooms need to be cleaned for arriving customers. Other data could also be stored like:
- Date of Arrival
- Date of departure
- How many people
- Name
This data could then be processed on a weekly basis and be printed off to give to chambermaids so they can prepare the rooms and the number of beds etc. This would have to be a batch processing system because the computer would be processing large amounts of data on a regular basis.
Time Share: A time share system will have multiply tasks to complete, so the CPU will allocate an amount of time to each of the tasks. This will allow users to use the system without overloading the CPU.
Data Handling
Data handling can be broken down into three main parts; I will use the example of a hotel booking system.
An Input/Inputs: Date of arrival, Date of departure, Number of people, Name.
Manipulation of data: Check dates against all the rooms available and the capacity of rooms (number of beds).
An Output: Report, whether or not rooms are available and an option to book a room.
This is an example of a real time system because it must update itself automatically.
A batch system could also be introduced into Snooze Cottage to process the amount of rooms which need to be cleaned. This could be done on a weekly basis and then the report could be passed onto Hazel to delegate to the chambermaids.
The booking system could be linked in some way to the cleaning system as the systems would have to share some of their data like date of arrivals and departures and rooms to be cleaned on these dates.
An example of a data handling program for a small company like Snooze Cottage would be Excel or Access.
Bigger companies would maybe use programs like Sage or SQL to perform large data handling tasks and processing.
Sage is an accounting program
SQL is a database program for large custom databases.
Examples of information within Snooze Cottage
Example Scenario
A wedding party has been booked they have requested the use of the garden for a party and need all 10 rooms of the cottage.
1. Richard and Patricia take booking
2. They tell the housekeeper to clean and prepare 10 rooms for the party
3. The housekeeper will tell the maids to clean the rooms
4. Richard and Patricia will notify the cook to prepare the food for the wedding party
5. The cook will tell the kitchen assistant to order the food
6. The food arrives; the cook and assistant prepare the food
7. Richard and Patricia notify the gardener to tidy up the garden.
Recommend computer system and software for Snooze Cottage
2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4
1024 Mb of RAM
120 Gb Hard Drive
128 Mb 3D Graphics Card
USB Keyboard and Mouse
Laser Jet Printer
USB Scanner
Tower Case
GIGABYTE Mother Board with built in sound
Software
Microsoft Office
Ensuite 1.0: Hotel Running Package available from
Microsoft Money
Antivirus and firewall software
Health and Safety when operating computers
When operating a computer a comfortable workstation is very important.
This means the chair must be easy to adjust, it should be able to adjust its height and back rest.
When working at a computer you fore arms must be parallel to your thighs and your back should be straight.
Your wrist should sit comfortable on the edge of the Keyboard.
To avoid glare and reflection of your VDU the screen should tilt 5 degrees upwards.
You should rest your hands from typing every 10 or so minutes.
Computers do give off some radiation but it is not considered to cause health risks.
Companies should provide eye tests for all employees using computers.
Data protection act
Information should be regarded as being held for specific purpose and should not be used, without appropriate authorisation, for other purposes.
Access to information should be confined to those authorised to have it for the purpose for which it was supplied.
The amount of information collected and held should be the minimum necessary for the achievement of a specified purpose.
In computerised systems which handle information for statistical purposes, adequate provision should be made in their design for separating identities from the rest of the data.
There should be arrangements where by a subject could be told about the information held concerning him or her.
The level of security to be achieved by a system should be specified in advanced by the user and should include precautions against the deliberate abuse or miss use of information.
A monitoring system should be provided to detect violation of the security system.
In the design of information systems, periods should be specified beyond which information should not be retained.
Data held should be accurate. There should be machinery for the correction of inaccuracy and updating of information.
Care should be taken in coding value judgements.
Conclusions
More staff will be needed to run the new business.
There will be a bigger organisational structure.
The cost of buying and renovating will cost £330 000.
Some kind of computer system could be used to process payroll information and some kind of booking system could be introduced.
Recommendations
