Current Trends in Organization and Job Design

BITS is a consulting firm offering software and systems administration services. The company allows employees to come in late or leave early at their discretion. Employees must still average 40 hours a week, but BITS only requires that employees be in the office from 10 am to 2 pm. Employees use this policy to avoid rush hour in Washington, DC. We can conclude that ________

BITS values productivity over face time (flexible work arrangements require that companies value productivity over time spent in the office)

Edward Jones is a national financial advisor firm. They have 14,000 advisors, most of whom run a one-person office. The advisors far outnumber the central staff. Edward Jones benefits from ________

a flat organization with more autonomy and faster communications

Freddie Mac, a financial services company in Virginia, allows job-sharing, which means two people share a job that is normally one full-time job. Each person works part-time, 3 days per week. Freddie Mac keeps specialist skills that are hard to replace, and the two employees keep their careers on track. What is this an example of?

a flexible work arrangement

The Ritz Carlton is a luxury hotel chain. The Ritz has calculated that the lifetime value of a customer is a quarter million dollars. To keep customers happy and coming back, they ________

empower employees to spend $2000 per incident to help out customers, without asking a manager

The traditional hierarchal structure uses rules and procedures to standardize decisions. Some companies decide to trust the employees and give them the authority to make decisions, even mistakes. This is called ________

empowering the employee

Nick works with a large team at a social media company. He has proposed and finished several projects which the company funded and completed. He has a great sense of pride in doing his job. He has worked with the company for 4 years but has yet to see a promotion. Nick works for a company with a:

flat hierarchy structure

________ include reduced workload (part time), compressed work weeks, and remote work (telework). For example, working from home can save employees 10 hours or more of commuting time each week.

flexible work arrangements (FWAs)

IBM's credit department reduced 4 positions to one and shortened the processing time for credit requests. This flatter organization structure resulted in ________

greater productivity

Edward Jones is a national financial advisor firm. They have 14,000 advisors, most of whom run a one-person office. The advisors have a great deal of autonomy to manage the customer relationship. This means ________

the organization benefits from greater productivity, innovation, and customer service