Another factor that affects the communication between their employees is the span of control each employee has. The amount of time employees have to communicate with the people in their span of control depends on how wide their span of control is. For example, an Area Manager has a very large span of control, so they only have a restricted amount of time for communicating with each of the employees in their span of control.
On the other hand, within each store there is excellent communication inside the sections. The reason for this is the manager of the section, the section co-ordinator and the employees of that section work very closely together on a daily basis. So issues will be dealt with quickly and efficiently. So if, for example, an employee called Jim was offended by a racist comment that was aimed towards him from another employee called Charlie, he would be able to report it to the manager of his section so action could be taken immediately.
Also within each section in Marks and Spencer’s there is a Business Involvement Group (BIG). The BIG is a group that has meetings to decide certain things that happen to the business and they also decide about break times and things that only affect that store. They also organise surveys for the store. There is a BIG in every store and any member of staff from that store can join but they have to be elected on by all the other staff in that store. If you do get on to the BIG you can stay on for three years but then you have to be re-elected. Business involvement groups are there for the staff’s interests and improve communication because it means that the staff on it are all working together to resolve issues and problems. For instance, if a lot of the employee’s had been complaining about the length of their morning break time, the BIG could discuss the problem and resolve it by making the lunch break shorter and using that extra time for the morning break. On top of that they communicate better with the higher up people within M&S’ organisational structure as they are the first people in their stores to know what is happening in the business. Like if Marks and Spencer was going to do a huge promotion on their new range of organic food. The employees in the BIG would find out about it first and be able to discuss certain ideas that could help to promote the new range in their store.
The appropriateness of Marks and Spencer’s organisational structure for enabling employees to work together effectively
The organisational structure Marks and Spencer’s have is very large as it is a very large business. This could mean that the employees cannot all work together as effectively. However there is not a need for the employees in completely different areas to co-operate and work together. For example, a cashier for M&S in Birmingham would not need to co-operate with a store manager in Devon.
On the other hand, the employees that do have to work together; either because they all work in the same store or on a slightly larger scale because they all work in the same area are enabled to do so effectively. There is good communication in every store thanks to the Business Involvement Groups which means that they all work together to improve the working environment.
Also because there are set levels in the structure, it helps the employees to work together effectively. For the reason that any employee will be recognised by other employees by which level they are on. So in the chain of command, an M&S employee will know who is directly above and below them in the chain because there are clear levels in the structure. This means that the whole structure is effective because all employees in the chain can communicate and work together to improve the business.
But the organisational structure prevents the employees who are right at the top of the structure, the group board directors and the people working in the head office; from working well with the employees at the bottom of the structure, the store managers and store employees from working well together. So to get around this problem, any information that would help the lower down employees to work together is communicated down the structure through each of the levels and sections from the high up employees.
So in general, Marks and Spencer have a good organisational structure which is just as well as they are an international, multi-million company.
Effectiveness of the different working arrangements of the three identified employees
Mary works full time as a customer assistant in the clothing department at Marks and Spencer’s. She works eight hours every weekday, from nine until five, and every alternate Saturday she works from nine until twelve. She gets paid £6.40 per hour. Mary is a mother of two children who are ten and thirteen and during the school holidays she finds it hard to get somebody to look after them while she is at work. In the future, Marks and Spencer might consider more flexible working arrangements for employees in the same position around school half terms and especially summer holidays. Mary would be happy to work part time in the school holidays.
Jennifer is a Section Co-ordinator who works full time. She works the same hours as Mary but gets paid £7.00 per hour. She wants to start training to be a section manager, but the problem is she also wants to start working part-time as she has just got back from maternity leave. The training to be a section manager takes nine months, although if she was to work part-time, Jennifer would need longer to train. But after her baby is a year old, she would like to start working full-time again. In the future Marks and Spencer might consider making the length of training time more flexible so that all of its employees have the chance to work their way up the career path. For Jennifer, the ideal amount of time for training would be one year, because towards the end of the course, she would be able to start working full time again as her baby will be a year old.
James works full-time as a Trainee. He works seven hours a day, from ten till five, six days a week and is paid £5.50 an hour. He would like to earn more money by working more hours but is currently unable to as trainees can only work for a certain amount of hours per week. M&S might consider making the amount trainees can work more flexible in the future so that employees have the freedom to work more or less hours.
