Office organization | Meaning | Characteristics | Steps involved

Introduction to Office Organization

As size of the office is either small or large, it becomes necessary to organize the works or activities in order to achieve the specified objective effectively with minimum cost. Hence, the entire activities of the concern should be divided into many operations or functions (called departments). A proper arrangement of an organization along with office appliances will facilitate a speedy performance of office work. In this way, office organization is based on the organized routine and procedures and continuous flow of work.

Meaning of Office Organization

Office organization is a process of defining and grouping of office activities into main heads of functions, select suitable personnel, assign jobs to them and delegate authority to them for performing the jobs, coordinate the activities of different individuals and provide necessary facilities like forms, stationery, equipment, machines and suitable working environment to enable the persons to perform their work efficiently.

Definition of Office Organization

Office organization is defined as a process of defining and grouping the office activities and establishing the authority relationship among the employees who are working in an office so that they can be executed assigned activities effectively and economically.

Characteristics of Office Organization

The characteristics of an office organization are listed below:

1. Fixing of responsibility on each office employee.

2. Assigning of work on the basis of competency of an office employee.

3. Avoiding the delay in doing the office work.

4. Completion of work as per the predetermined system and procedure.

5. Proper and adequate delegation of authority for doing work.

6. Providing adequate supervision for each work.

7. Exercise proper control over the office employees.

8. Proper supply of necessary forms and stationery for doing the work.

9. Effective utilization of available equipment and machines in an office.

10. Creating suitable working environment.

Steps involved in Office Organization

The following steps are involved in an office organization.

1. The first step is that an identification of office activities which are to be performed in order to achieve main objectives of the business organization.

2 Such identified activities are classified for facilitate the grouping of activities.

3. Then, all the identified activities are grouped on any one of the basis. The selection of basis is based on the nature of business organization. If the activities are grouped on functional basis, the departments or divisions are created on functional basis. For example, Production, Sales, Finance, Accounts, Personnel and the like.

4. The grouped activities are assigned to an individual or a group. Generally, production activities are assigned to production manager and production department. In this way, other grouped activities are assigned to each individual and a department. The responsibility is fixed at each level of all the departments.

5. Whenever, responsibility is fixed, there is a need of authority to perform the work. Hence, adequate authority is delegated to every manager for their respective department.

6. A proper organization structure is created in order to facilitate effective coordination of grouped activities both horizontally and vertically. Moreover, structural relationship is also clearly defined.