The Covid-19 pandemic arrival affected all types of organizations. Some companies got favours from the situation because they sell essential products or services without which we cannot live. For instance, casinos could offer 50 free spins no deposit and other bonuses to attract millions of internet users. Organizations that had bureaucratic organizational structures were the worst hit. Bureaucracy is rigid and makes adaptation difficult.
But due to Covid-19, rigid organizational structures had to give way to change. It is difficult to make decisions in a bureaucratic setup because of the many power levels. But the pandemic forced organizations to make quick decisions and boost productivity and efficiency by using technology and data in new ways. They had to increase their scale of innovation faster than ever before. Thus, the Covid-19 situation reduced bureaucracy because organizations had to respond in the following ways:
- Restructure the workforce – Organizations had to shift some workers to another department that needed more pairs of hands. Redeploying workers also meant training them to fit in their new positions. Some organizations did that work in less than a month and succeeded.
- Adopting new business models – Bureaucratic organizations are too rigid to have reliable disaster preparedness procedures. Their older business models could not help them sail through the pandemic wave. So, they had to loosen out and get automated systems to speed up their operations in a few weeks.
- Introducing a hybrid work system – Bureaucratic organizations expect workers to come to the office every day and go home after 4 or 5 in the evening. These organizations could not survive the Covid-19 crisis because they were inflexible. For the first time, they had to introduce a hybrid working method. So, they had to allow some of their workers to work remotely. Now, this is a trend that will affect the labour market for many years from now. After tasting the benefits of remote work, some workers no longer want to commute every morning. As a result, even the most rigid organizations will have to cope soon.
- Making new products – To adapt to the crisis, some organizations decided to try new production niches. Some made ventilators and other items necessary to curb the transmission of the virus. And a few of them designed new things within a week or two. In a bureaucratic organization, new production ideas take ages to turn into finished products.
In all the above points, you can notice that organizations acted fast but accurately. To do that, they had to do away with all the boundaries that bureaucracy creates. They had to streamline and fasten their decisions and processes. Some companies have not gone back to their slow-moving organizational hierarchies again. Those long power-point presentations are no longer necessary to make even the simplest decisions.
Organizations do not have to worry about making mistakes that do not threaten their business in the future. Organizations trust their teams of thinkers more by letting them solve the hardest issues. If they cannot solve some problems, managers quickly dismiss those issues to attend to something more urgent. Leadership teams have now embraced automated workflows and reduced sitting in less constructive meetings.
Final Word
We will see leaner and flattened organizational structures in workplaces after the pandemic. A flatter and leaner organizational chart encourage workers to act now to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities. With fewer mid-level managers and supervisors, organizations can have more workers willing to work more and talk less.
About Carson Derrow
