Position management requires balancing a variety of external and internal factors that can influence organizational structure and employee performance. By evaluating duty assignment patterns and aligning decisions with the unit’s mission, leaders can structure work to optimize efficiency and meet operational goals.
Key Insights
- External forces such as budget constraints, salary levels, legal requirements, and workforce availability must be considered when managing positions and structuring units.
- Three common duty assignment patterns, specialist, generalist, and team, each affect workflow and should be assessed based on how they support the organization's mission.
- Changes in position structures have cascading effects on other roles, making it essential to evaluate the broader impact before implementing adjustments.
This lesson is a preview from our Federal Position Management Course and Certified Federal HR Business Partner (cFHRBP) Level III Certificate Program. Enroll in a course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.
The next topic we'll discuss is balancing outside forces. Position management is often referred to as the micro approach because it addresses the daily operations of a unit. Some of the outside forces could be budget limitations, shifting missions, and priority requirements.
However, there are some not-so-clear outside forces. These things also must be considered. Innovations and work methods.
Salary levels. Ratio of supervisors to subordinates. Excessive use of deputies and assistants.
Career opportunities. Morale impact of decisions. Candidates and skill levels available in the workforce.
Workflow considerations. Contracting out requirements. Availability of space, materials, equipment, and supplies.
Impact of absenteeism. Ease of performance monitoring. Required training.
And legal and regulatory constraints, such as hiring freezes, classification, and merit promotion procedures. When you're looking at an organizational structure, you want to be able to ensure that you have a good grasp on the balancing act and the trade-offs that are made. And so an example would be, while it may be economical to reduce salary costs, having the lowest possible salary costs may mean that you cannot attract and retain capable employees.
That is why it's essential to know your organization's mission so that decisions will be consistent with and support the mission of the unit. All right. And so now we're going to look at common patterns of assigning duties.
And so there is a chart in your participant guide that displays and gives a definition to some of those things that must be balanced when designing a position. And so the most common patterns of assigning duties include a specialist. A specialist performs only one of the tasks and then passes the materials, products, or information on to someone else to add another piece or to assemble it.
The generalist pattern, all tasks in the process are assigned to all positions, so that each employee completes the product or process individually. The team pattern: you have a team that performs the task. Each employee has one specialty, but works as part of a team in turning out that product.
And so each pattern should be evaluated against what it would contribute to according to the unit's mission. Whether you are restructuring the entire unit or reviewing an individual position, remember that the duty patterns in one position affect other positions in the unit. Always consider the impact of a change on other positions.
And so you want to ask yourself, what is the best structure for this organization or for this position? And so it lists in the chart the common duty patterns, the specialist, the generalist, and the team. And it gives you areas where you can determine what each segment of assessing those patterns will give you. All right, and so look at that chart and make sure you familiarize yourself with that information.
All right, now I want you to go to exercise 2-1. Exercise 2-1 gives you a scenario of an organization, and you're to answer two questions. The first one defines the type of organizational structure currently evident in this scenario and the common patterns of duty assignments of the staff.
Then consider the organizational structures we discussed and identify which structure or structures are best to handle additional claims processing work, as well as the other HR work being assigned. And so question two, how can you make the best use of the people who are available and still keep up with the increased number of claims?
