The Guardian

London

Why is it that in some offices, you can confidently take a minibreak to Paris at short notice without upsetting the boss whereas at others, you would have to seek official approval for your leave weeks in advance? Workplaces now seem to be neatly divided between those with a flat, more relaxed management style and those that maintain a traditional hierarchical management system where everything has to go through the boss first.

Responsibility, unlike tasks, cannot be delegated. A chief executive has to be confident that the ability of his or her staff and the systems the firm has in place will safeguard against any area being overlooked. Following rigid procedures when decision-making is involved is a common security measure taken by companies, particularly those with shareholders or an external board of directors. It’s the system that is typified when employees copy colleagues in on emails — it provides back-up and reassurance and helps diffuse a degree of the ‘blame’.

“You have to have accountability to guarantee the quality of a product. Management tiers are in place to safeguard against faulty goods reaching the customer,” explains John Webster, of Mark Webster Furniture. “If there is a problem in the first stages of production and it keeps escalating unnoticed through the manufacturing chain, you need to locate where it happened. This could mean tracing the mistake back through quality control and line managers, right the way back to the material cutters. Once it’s been established how it occurred and why it wasn’t spotted, you can tighten procedures to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The Enron scandal brought white-collar workforce structures under scrutiny. Had the firm operated a more strictly supervised environment, perhaps its downfall would have been avoided. Does this mean that stringent administering is an answer to effective management?

“Hierarchy allows a greater degree of control,” says Professor Nigel Nicholson, author of Managing the Human Animal, “and is suitable for anything where a predictable degree of quality is required.” However, authoritative methods aren’t always the answer. “Hierarchies have negative effects on the human spirit,” he continues, “and can encourage bureaucratic behaviour and office politics. We need the human spirit to be creative, communicative and co-operative.”

This could be a reason why flatter structures came into vogue back in the 90s. Flatter-style management regimes were initially adopted to quicken the decision process time. The taller the structure (as opposed to flatter), the longer the chain of management through which approval has to be sought. By removing, or flattening the tiers, the chain is effectively shortened, saving time and, in doing so, negating the need for many middle-management staff and subsequently reducing overheads. The rise in popularity of flatter structures wasn’t only their capacity to save time and cut costs but because they promoted a more relaxed, creative and less questioning environment.

“Flat structures are decentralised and work where there are a group of diversified suppliers,” explains Clive Allen, chairman of Newfire Network, a consulting firm. “Companies running special projects, for example, will often bring in a group of consultants who are qualified across a number of different competencies, to form a team in which everyone is at the same level.”

Establishing how many levels of hierarchy should be built into any organisation is particular to the employees it hires, the type of work they carry out and the image they want to portray. Getting it right is

crucial to business, and a number of factors have to be considered. “Environmental, cultural, and behavioural shifts need to be evaluated,” says Allen.

Keeping an eye on trends is important; not necessarily to mimic them — the

dotcom boom is open testament to that — but to adopt and adapt initiatives which can enhance employee performance, bottom-line sales, brand identity and so on. In fact, the type of structure a company operates is often used to attract new recruits.

“We find flatter structures exist in

newer organisations and younger industries where attitudes to employment are often perceived to be more liberal, relying on attracting the stronger, more self-reliant workers,” says Alison Smith of Badenoch and Clark, a professional services recruitment firm.

“A flat management structure allows us to form flexible, dynamic, interdisciplinary teams to meet the customer’s requirements,” says a spokesperson

from Raytheon, a developer of defence technologies.

“With highly specialised requirements and long programme life cycles in the defence industry we need to be able adapt the teams to evolve with the programme. However, it does mean you need to work harder at the flow of communications from the centre.” Stumbling blocks are likely to occur whichever style of management is employed.

However, with a reduction in supervision comes a greater dependence on the employee, and how they react to this can directly affect business. “I moved from a company where everything was so rigid, you’d expect a severe rap on the knuckles if you used the wrong font on a letter,” says Sarah Baillie, an account executive in an advertising firm.

“The pettiness was infuriating. When I changed jobs, my new manager gave me free rein to do my work as I saw fit. He respected me and my judgment. His approach was so refreshing that not only were the results I achieved better, but they were produced much more quickly.” The bureaucracy of rigidly run organisations may leave employees feeling stifled, and the pressure to excel can be too much, particularly in firms where ‘up and out’ cultures exist.

For those with solid career aspirations, rigid tiers of management can provide a clear map for progression and with each move comes better remuneration. In contrast, employees working within more flatly tiered organisations may struggle to find avenues upwards and where there is a lack of promotional opportunity, there often follows a greater turnover in staff.

“Reward should be about adding value to the business rather than just another level in the hierarchy,” says Kevin Delany, a partner in the Human Resource Services practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, “and there are an increasing number of industry examples of particular specialists or high performers being rewarded at levels significantly higher than their line managers.”

So, is there a definitive right or wrong to management structure, or does it depend upon the type, size and level of decentralisation within a given firm? “The best way,” says Sarah Thomas, regional manager of Office Team, “is probably a combination of the two.

Strict hierarchical structures which encourage the following of orders, tend

to stunt initiative, which can’t be good from a personal development point of view and can discourage the easy flow of information.

Flat structures encourage initiative but can sometimes be too flat. Employees still like to feel that they have some sort of “leadership” — and someone to run to when things aren’t going to plan.”

In truth, perhaps the answer lies in the management itself.

After all, says Delany, “good leaders can operate well in either structure, but that structure itself is no guarantee of good and effective leadership.”