responsible for marketing the company and interviewing with prospective clients, and she handles the finances. On occasion, she will ask one of the other employees to do specific tasks on her behalf, or a property manager will go to her with a question, but in general, she does not have many dealings with them.
The following chart illustrates the organizational structure:
This organizational structure works for CAM for several reasons, including the fact that similar functions report to a single manager, and Lewis and Munroe have divided their duties according to their strengths (Munroe prefers to stay out of the day-to-day business, and Lewis prefers not to work directly with community association boards).
When CAM first approached me about opening a second office, they assumed that Munroe would oversee one office and Lewis the other. After speaking with them and observing their operation, I concluded that a functional organization was more appropriate for their company. However, it becomes cumbersome for Lewis to have so many direct reports, so I suggested that he promote (or bring in someone from the outside) a senior property manager to oversee those functions in either office. Although CAM is interested in the idea of using the Web for connecting their two offices remotely, they prefer to have duplicate staffs at each location so that customers can come into or call the office near their community and have their questions answered. Also, because Munroe is already handling the financial side of the business, the accounting function will shift and report to her (providing greater continuity).
My proposed structure is illustrated in the following chart:
As I gathered information about the organizational structure, I also interviewed the various employees about what functions they performed as part of their jobs. Although there was much repetition among the various property managers, I interviewed each of them to l...