Business Organisational Structures

Flat Structure

• A flat organisation will have relatively few layers or just one layer of management. This means that the “Chain of Command” from top to bottom is short and the “span of control is wide”.
  
• Span of control refers to the number of employees that each manager is responsible for. If a manager has lots of employees reporting to them, their span of control is said to be wide. A manager with a small number of direct reports has a narrow span of control.
  
• Due to the small number of management layers, flat organisations are often small organisations.

advantages -

• Greater communication between management and workers.
• Better team sprit as fewer management layers increase interraction between employees on different levels (layers).
• Less bureaucracy and easier decision making.
• Fewer management layers may reduce costs as managers cost more than non managers. Also employees at higher levels in the organisation expect to be paid more than those on lower levels.

disadvantages -

• Employees may have more than one manager as there are a number of managers at the same level in the organisation.
• May hinder the growth of the organisation especially if managers have wide spans of control.
• May hinder the growth of the organisation especially if managers have wide spans of control.
• Lack of…