Organizational Lines of Authority & Administrative Success
One of
the most important features for organizational success is making sure
that the lines of authority are well delineated. Organizational charts
within nursing facilities should be quite explicit and larger companies
should also make sure that this is clearly understood by those working
under the larger organizational umbrella. Unfortunately, all too
often, we see that there fails to be a clear delineation in the levels
of authority and who answers to whom. For any organization, including
long-term care organizations, their success depends on a clear
understanding of the authority structure within these organizations.
Understanding the
importance of line and staff authority functions is critical for the
success of long-term care facilities. Line personnel are those that
are directly involved in the daily operations of the nursing care
facility. Starting with the administrator, the director of nursing, to
the management nurses, down to the certified nurse assistants, these
individuals all hold important line functions for the daily operations
of the nursing care facility. Furthermore, this creates a hierarchy of
authority that needs to be explicitly understood for proper daily
operational functioning within the nursing care facility. Staff
authority provides advice and assistance for the facility or
organization. Staff members do not have authority over line
personnel. However, this is where many organizational problems often
start.
A major problem that I
have witnessed in many nursing homes is when many staff workers attempt
to get involved in the decisions related to the line staff.
Decision-making and levels of control have to be clear and
unambiguous. Each person plays a particular role and each individual
has to understand who they answer to in the organizational landscape.
As companies grow larger, there becomes a tendency for many of these
lines to become blurred. This is especially problematic since many
companies have many consultants within their company holding many staff
functions on an advisory level. As the company grows, and the number
of staff personnel increases, delineating clearly a line of authority
that needs to be followed, with a clear demarcation between those that
hold line versus staff functions is imperative.
One of the critical
problems that results from this nebulous distinction between
individuals that hold line and staff functions is that role ambiguity
results. Roles have to be clear to not only aid those that hold these
two different types of functions, but also to enhance their roles in
the respective areas that they are involved in to conduct their jobs
effectively and efficiently. For instance, a nurse or human resources
consultant, if they hold a consultant role, would typically be placed
under a staff function. However, if these individuals do hold some
level of line function, it needs to be clearly established in the
organization chart.
So one can see the need to
clearly distinguish between those that hold line and staff functions in
nursing care facilities. Although this may seem to be quite trivial,
in reality making this distinction is very important for a proper
functioning organizational environment. One of the biggest issues that
often happens in nursing care settings is worker confusion on what
roles certain individuals play and who they should answer to as it
relates to their position. As most individuals, especially those who
have been in management within a long-term care facility can attest
to, having workers being confused on the roles of others is very
common. Furthermore, the administrator has to further establish the
clarity that needs to exist and reinforce proper line and staff
distinctions when ambiguity is found to exist and be a problem.
The organizational
environment works best when authority functions are well known. This
helps to foster a clear understanding of the responsibility and
expectations for individuals that hold particular positions. Not only
is this important to the non-management personnel, but management
personnel also have to understand clearly the responsibilities and
expectations that are held for each individual in the organizational
environment. Is this a simple problem to rectify? It appears that it
would be, but in reality it continues to exist as a major problem in
most organizations.
Moreover, as long-term care organizations grow and
get larger, the organizational complexity often leads to this problem
being endemic in most long-term care environments. Therefore, in
reality, the organizational complexity that develops from the growth of
the organization itself not only makes this problem common, but more
difficult to eradicate then it may appear. With that said, the
managerial environment within a nursing care facility needs to continue
to make sure that clear delineations between levels of authority as
well as between line and staff functions exist. The managerial
optimization of organizational resources strongly depends on this
clarity.