Organizational design is a formal process of integrating people, information, and technology. Using this definition and the Learning Resources (below), identify and describe People First San Diego's organization design.

Explain how the design supports People First San Diego's mission.

Explain the importance and function of organizational charts. Then, explain what the People First San Diego organizational chart tells you about the company.

People First San Diego

https://cdn-media.waldenu.edu/2dett4d/Walden/SOCW/6070/FSD/index.html

Organizational Design and Structure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gscyaGUjOcw

Read the "Organization Structure" section and the organization chart in this excerpt below.

2.Toinitiate, by September 2021, an after-school program in three different schools, serving twenty teens per site, which offers recreational activities, instruction regarding birth control and family planning, and counseling ser vices, as appropriate and indicated

These objectives specify what will happen, within what time frame, and where. They can be further refined to include the parties responsible for implementa tion. Attainment of these objectives can be observed and measured. However, such measurement will not tell us about the quality of the survey or the after-school program. Measuring the outcome of services is explored in later chapters.

Although the organization has primary responsibility for defining its mission and the program goals and objectives by which the mission will be carried out, many external forces affect the exact way in which programs and services are articulated and operationalized. The precise nature of programs, for example, may be influenced by the demands of political groups, funders, and community mem bers (Netting et al., 2016). Ideally, a broadly stated organizational mission allows for some adaptability and flexibility in regard to how it is achieved. However, the demands made on the organization by external sources may stretch the boundar ies of the original mission and thus impede the capacity of the agency to achieve its purposes.

Direct service social workers, in their interactions with administrators, influ ence the mission as well as the implementation of the mission into goals and objectives. For instance, social workers working in an agency in Texas that served primarily African Americans noted that the values and the culture of the commu nity were not well integrated into the structure of the programs. Agency admin istrators responded to this critique by holding community forums, which enabled them to incrementally change the mission and objectives of the agency. As this example illustrates, agency norms and structures may be created in a reciprocal and collaborative fashion by various stakeholders.

Organizational Structure

All organizations have formal structures through which to carry out their work and achieve their purposes (Netting et al., 2016). Skidmore (1990) definesstruc turesas the "actual arrangements and levels of an organization in regard to power, authority, responsibilities, and mechanisms for carrying out [organizational] functions and practices" (p. 97).

An organizational chart is the best descriptor of the structure of an organi zation and shows its lines of authority, relationships, and substructures (which may be called departments, units, or divisions). Each organization structures itself somewhat differently, a reflection of the particular programs it sponsors,

Organizational Structure45

462 DISTINGUISHINGFEATURES OFORGANIZATIONS

its financial resources, its system of governance, management philosophy, and agency traditions. An example of an organizational chart is provided in Figure 2.1. The organizational diagram tells us many things about the organization. First, the chain of command-who reports to whom-is specified. Second, it provides some idea of the size and complexity of the organization. The programs are delineated. The number and type of staff assigned to each program may be fea tured. In short, the organizational chart is a blueprint of the agency's structural

relationships.

SUBSTRUCTURES

Organizations, once created, seek to establish systems to carry out their work and, further, to ensure their own survival and growth. The development of formal sub structures affects how and how well the work is carried out. Formal substructures include the divisions, departments, or units needed to do the agency's work, staff ing patterns, the pattern of governance, including the appointment or election of board and committee members, and board-administration-staff arrangements.

The structure of the organization includes its physical location and space. Some organizations occupy one location; others may have a main headquarters and one or more satellite offices. The Legal Aid Society of New York, for example, serves its clients through a complex, city-wide network of twenty-six borough, neighbor hood, and courthouse offices (Legal Aid Society, n.d.).

The Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services (2016) offers programs in seventy-five locations throughout the five boroughs of New York and in the suburb of Westchester County. Its scope of program offerings is vast and includes health care coordination, outpatient treatment programs, early childhood programs, and domestic violence shelters and transitional housing. Some programs are residen tial, others are outpatient only, and still others are for short-term interventions. Each program has its own administrator, such as the director of services for the developmentally disabled or the director of group treatment. Not all programs are available in all locations. For example, therapeutic nursery school services are provided at one specific location. Counseling services, on the other hand, may be housed in many locations. The dispersion of the target population served may require multiservice sites to provide accessibility to clients. These satellite service centers constitute a decentralized subsystem for the local implementation of ser vices. Given the breadth of the population served by the organization, the use of multiple sites is essential to accomplish program goals.

Public human service agencies, too, are often structured on a county-by-county basis, with varying degrees of control from the umbrella state organization. The size of the organization, number of clients served, and range of programs offered are also important variables in determining the need for decentralized sites.

Size is an important determinant of the overall structure of an organization and the nature and breadth of its substructures. Large public bureaucracies, for Figure2.1 Example of an organizational chart.