Work in Organizations: QH2

Recognize the Domain

Work is psychosocial and so can looked at in two ways: 

ReviewThe Essence of Work

Work that involves many people requires explicit management. Frameworks focusing on management commence here with a basic need of all societies: production of concrete or tangible goods, products or services, through the use of tangible resources.

In THEE, this is the domain of formal organizations-QH2.
See the taxonomic path.

Work is Hard to Describe

Work within organizations is difficult to describe. The primary problem is a preference to focus on the kind of work (e.g. marketing, auditing, training, designing) or components of work (e.g. communicating, leading, relating, reporting) rather than the complexity of work (i.e. level). Conceptually:

Unless you are a systems thinker, you may not pay much attention to context. But it's intuitive—e.g. when you use a computer-mouse, that is what the right button is for.

It turns out there is a natural succession of contexts of ever greater scope in organizations: i.e. contexts become content. These are the levels of management.

Management covers a variety of contextual concerns around handling people, organisation, programs and techniques, which apply at many or all levels.
This has led to unsatisfactory, confusing or misleading names for managing.
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Work at any particular level shows important similarities whoever does it and whatever the field. As the levels are ascended, there is a broadening and deepening in both the scale and complexity of what is to be achieved and the range of environmental circumstances to be taken into account.

Work levels can be socially defined by needs-to-be-met and responses-to-be-made. The same kinds of work and the same components of work can be performed at many levels according to these different needs-responses.

For example, the issue of who (or which role) is «responsible for equipment safety» cannot be answered because that responsibility (so stated) applies at many levels. If this is not immediately obvious to you ...
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It is possible to create a matrix of work to show how standard components of work and management must be handled at each level. The work levels are rows and components of work are columns.

Needs to
be Met
Responses
to be Made
Work
Level
Cost
Control
Innovation Information Handling Quality Standards &c
    WL7          
    WL6          
    WL5          
    WL4          
    WL3          
    WL2          
    WL1          

Rows: A complete row defines a coherent and viable mission or role. Allowing incoherent fudges predictably leads to staff discontent, management conflict, and work disruption.

Columns: Each column defines exactly how an organizational system must be set up to ensure that this particular aspect of work is handled. Omitting the contribution of any level inevitably disrupts managers and harms performance.


Next Steps

Originally posted:5-Nov-2013