A strategic approach to organisational design in a provincial government department

Abstract

The Provincial Government Department is facing serious challenges with its current organisational design process. The department has experienced, among others, unusual delays in realigning its organisational structure to its strategy, which has adverse effects on its ability to deliver on its mandate. Furthermore, the existing organisational structure of the department was not fully implemented due to budgetary constraints. The study sought to analyse the effectiveness of the organisational design process in the Provincial Government Department. This was undertaken to explore alternative organisational design approaches to enhance the process in view of the budgetary constraints facing the department.

A qualitative research design was utilised to conduct the study and data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The results of the study indicate that the department considers its strategic plan when reviewing the organisational structure. However, several challenges related to the Provincial Government Department’s organisational design process were highlighted. Firstly, the study found that the department is not well capacitated to deliver on its mandates due to, among others, challenges such as staff shortages and unfunded posts in the current organisational structure. Secondly, the study revealed shortcomings that render the process of designing the organisational structure ineffective, including abnormal delays and lack of analysis of business processes. Lasty, the study found that the decision-making process regarding the funding of posts is unclear.

Recommendations were made to improve the effectiveness of the department’s organisational design process, such as the synchronous analysis and design of both the business processes and the organisational structure as the key elements of organisational design. Other elements that were identified as necessary for ensuring an effective organisational design process in the department include managing the service delivery model, hierarchy, the creation of posts, criteria for funding posts, and the duration of designing the organisational structure.