What are the pros and cons of a matrix organisational structure?

Approaching your organizational redesign with people and systems in mind can help drive success. In this case, too many cooks in the kitchen doesn’t result in an overload of pepper in the soup.

Workers can feel torn between their “regular” duties and the jobs assigned to them by the matrix. Both issues create a conflict in loyalty that can lead to issues of worker retention over time. The matrix organizational structure creates enough flexibility within the employee pool to create more moments of downtime when correctly managed. Instead of forcing people into roles that require them to improve their talents or skills to be productive, each person can focus on their strengths instead. That means the quality of the work naturally improves while the time spent on each project can do down. When the matrix organizational structure gets implemented in the modern organization, then communication is simplified.

Less downtime with internal resources

The creation of functional managers as well as different organization bodies leads to an increase in cost . This is because the functional managers will need an increase in pay as they are of different levels from the other employees. Additionally, the establishment of the different functional organization bodies will lead to duplication of resources.

• This division is critical because the functional manager may not recognize where to allocate more resources and this can lead to failure of the project.
• However, they also hold project budgets and timelines and make decisions about projects.
• Although multitasking does bring with it certain disadvantages, you won’t have workers twiddling their thumbs is there is a slow day of work with their primary job responsibilities.
• Instead of one job in one department, multiple projects and tasks are going to be on the line.

There are two chains of command, so an employee reports to two managers. This way, you can get the best team for your project from within the organization. This is an ideal example of a matrix structure where authority is flowing vertically as well as horizontally. Each project has a manufacturing unit, sales unit, the finance unit, and human resource unit.

Improved Communication

For example, one manager may deliberately keep an employee busy in unimportant work to prevent him from working for the other manager. The figure above displays the fundamentals of a matrix organizational structure.

This is because it gives employees opportunities to specialize within their functional areas only. This person would manage multiple projects for several different Matrix Organization: The Advantages And The Disadvantages supervisors, even though none of them may be their direct supervisor. But where it is relevant, it can become an important part of an effective managerial process.

The advantages of matrix organizational structure

A matrix organizational structure may also be helpful when an organization wants to establish economies of scale. In a perfect world, the matrix organizational structure would always put the best people into the places where they are needed the most. In reality, managers keep their best people within a fenced ring to prevent their experience from benefitting other teams. That means the people who are pulled to work on other projects https://online-accounting.net/ have fewer skills and experience, which eventually degrades the quality of the products or services produced. Each one provides a small contribution to the customer service experience. In a hierarchal structure, the company might decide to hire three employees to cover these issues – one for each department. That saves the company money because they’re able to reduce waste, eliminate duplication, and streamline job functions.

• This multidirectional approach to communication ensures information is openly shared, not siloed.
• For example, organizations with production operations don’t typically require changes to their processes, so they should adopt a functional structure.
• This type of structure encourages employee contribution and places a higher value on work.
• Similarly, as more managers gain experience operating in matrix organizations, they are bound to spread this experience as some of them move, as they inevitably will, into other organizations.
• As long as each group or dimension in an organization tries to maximize its own advantage vis-à-vis others, there will be a continual balancing struggle for dominant power.
• Complexity is the main disadvantage of this structure, leaving employees confused about their roles and responsibilities.

Like any new method it may develop serious bugs, but the experiences that many companies are acquiring with this organization form can now help others realize its benefits and avoid its pitfalls. This impossible clearing procedure represented, in our view, a failure of delegation, not of the matrix.

When using the matrix organizational structure, the goal is to have two or more managerial sets focus on a specific area of the business. That approach eliminates the need to multitask, but it doesn’t always result in greater efficiencies. The separate chains of command can sometimes have differing managerial directives that come into conflict with each other. Although the spirit of cooperation is the desired result, the competitive nature of each person and team can come into play. Some of the disadvantages of matrix organizational structure include lack of clarity, a higher organizational complexity, and risks of conflict. Additionally, the dual-reporting nature of a matrix organizational structure might be confusing for employees. Confusion might arise about a worker’s performance if more than one boss oversees the workforce.