Category: Organizational structure

A Time to Thank Our Team

Last week, we reached the first phase of reopening. Getting there was not easy, and COVID-19 challenged us a company in a way we had never been tested in the past. The pandemic is not over, but we have returned to our buildings and are continuing construction and serving our customers. None of this would have been possible without our fantastic team. Today, I want to thank them.

We all had to juggle personal challenges with our work during our time of shelter-in-place. In a day, we had to move our work from our offices to our homes. We had to adapt with whatever we had available at home, from dining tables to children’s bedrooms, to create new office spaces where none were ever meant to go initially. I know it was not easy, especially for parents, yet everyone managed to adapt to their new physical environment and new work rhythms.

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Islands in Your Company: How to Identify Them

At Celaque, we are organized by function. We have six different departments that are structured according to the work that needs to be executed. As we strengthen the organization, we continue to place each role and responsibility within the different departments. We make sure that every operation within the company is within the purview of one of the departments and is part of that group’s systems and processes. Because each department has its own processes and uses the same company-wide systems, it makes adding one more item more efficient.

As we move forward, I have been finding islands of roles/responsibilities that have been operating independently of the departments. Inevitably, in these islands parallel processes have also been developed that don’t fall within each of the department’s main processes. The extra procedures entail an additional effort because they fall outside of the system.

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The Structure of Your Business Can Define Your Success: This Is How

There are several ways to organize a company; you may choose to organize by function, by business unit, which is common in larger organizations, or by using a flatter structure. Whatever model works best for your company, it’s important that the structure be intentionally designed and not just a haphazard arrangement of functions that have been organized just to get the work distributed. Every role and function in a company should be included, and nothing should be left out.

That an organization should be meticulously crafted might seem obvious to a professional who works in a well-ordered corporate structure. However, for a growing company, the complexity is immense as workloads increase. What should go where? Who should do what? These are the types of questions that a newer company is constantly confronting to make sure all the work is done well and efficiently. Often, these questions are asked when it’s too late, and a problem has arisen, such as an activity that should have been completed and wasn’t or something that wasn’t finished on time.

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How to Build a Growing Company’s Structure and Organization

Building an organizational structure is one of the hardest things I’ve worked on as an entrepreneur. It requires many hours of work and design, and the efforts must be constantly adjusted as the context and the way the company operates changes. The organizational structure is the skeleton over which all company responsibilities are built. When it is clear what team is responsible for what and how each role fits into the grand scheme of the company, work is more efficient, and the probability that an important task will get lost is greatly diminished.

How a company is organized depends on its industry, but I’ve found some overarching concepts that I’ve applied to Celaque. These ideas have held ever since I implemented them and have only become more relevant with time.

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