According to Mohammed and Quddus (2019), modern organisations tend to differ in terms of structure, products offered and/or services and clients relations.

Functional Organisational Structure

According to Fergus (2021), functional organisation structure is defined with employees who operate in different specialities.

For the reasons underpinning this structure, they include the project manager leveraging on less authority to guide implementation of job roles, resource input and job functions. For example, Starbucks operate a functional organisation structure as illustrated in figure 1;

Figure 1: Organisation Structure of Starbucks Company

The reason underpinning Starbucks use of this organisation structure is to ensure they run the organisation successfully to earn profits by categorising employees based on skillset and expert level. Further, by using this structure, clear flow of information with confusion eliminated.

Advantages

Immense productivity- According to Cimini et al. (2020), through functional structure, employees perform in optimum to achieve their assigned job roles. This imply providing an environment where the employees are in a position of executing their roles without limitations.

Continuous knowledge acquisition and skills development– For success of an entity, the functional structure ensure the employees gain knowledge and skills for progress of their units.

For their disadvantages, they are;

Hindering decisions making– According to Indeed.com (2021), functional structure is often not flexible and not creative which affect ability to make decisions. This limit efficiency and success in their operations. This by failing to fully demonstrate teams authority in making decisions.

Internal competition- Functional structure is defined by different departments competing to outdo each other. This affect ability of working in harmony in implementing the business strategy with terms and conditions required to be attained.

Hierarchy Organisation Structure

Based on my experience with Saudi Aramco, they adopt this structure. According to Padi et al. (2022) the underpinning rationale of using this is ensuring an elaborate chain of command is in place from senior management to executive teams and employees. Hence, through the application of hierarchical structure, only one leader is involved with multiple subordinates engaged in collaborative working. In Saudi Aramco, their structure is illustrated in figure 2;

Figure 2: Saudi Aramco Organisation Structure

The advantages include;

Appropriate succession plan– The use of hierarchical organisation structure lead to improving the ability of ascertaining chain of command and its relevance. This harness the capacity of recognition of the best approach for implementing career growth and succession planning.

Full control of operations– As evidenced in Xu et al. (2022), in hierarchical structure, managers and leaders leverage on a holistic control of operations. This is while supporting employees capacity to harness quality of offered services. Considering Saudi Aramco, they ensure they pursue two-way communication strategy to guarantee appropriateness of their practice for facilitation.

Specialist groups– By following a hierarchical organisation structure, in Saudi Aramco case, different departments are involved working in a specialist arrangement. These operate in onshore and offshore oil and gas processing.

Disadvantages are;

Costly to implement– Currently, with global financial crisis and post-pandemic economic challenges, organisations costs of operations remain a significant issue. Hierarchical structure is significantly bureaucratic hence costly implementing it. For instance, for Saudi Aramco, in every level engaging highly qualified specialists leads to incurring immense costs.

Slow decision making– Hierarchical structure include many job roles which affect capacity for decision making. Multiple parties are in place and actively included in decision making. According to Zhang et al. (2019), for Saudi Aramco, this issue of slow decision making is directly impacted in their onshore and offshore operations.

Miscommunication prevalent– According to Andersson (2022), often, hierarchical structure leads to increased miscommunication. This has an effect on how supervisors work in collaboration to implement their roles. Considering Saudi Aramco, supervisors are involved in a direct manner.

1.2 Connections of organisation strategy, products, services and customers

According to CIPD (2022), organisations strategy is defined as a dynamic roadmap applied in explaining the entire needs promoted by their evolving needs. This is important to achieve an organisation set objectives. As illustrated in figure 3, resources are also budgeted to specific roles in the strategy.

Figure 3: Explanation of Organisation Strategy

Products and Services– Saudi Aramco organisation strategy align with products and services offered. This is evident from the high-quality services they offer and their customers feedback. This is identified in Anshari et al. (2019) to include a strategy directly correlating with the provided products and services and in line with vision and mission of an organisation. The positive impact of this is to increase interactiveness and provision of products and services. Considering the hierarchical structure, it ensures that by following appropriate technology and innovation, products and services are provided.

Customers

In a functional organisation structure, clients are assured of an on-time support based on their interests and satisfaction. Considering particular departments serves specific clients, interests are assured and prioritised. This leads to their maximum satisfaction.

Further, in a hierarchical, the customers are effectively served. This is while the entire organisation working to achieve optimum customers satisfaction.

Question 2

1.3 External factors and trends; priorities arising from factors and trends

According to Priyanda and Amalia (2021), external factors and trends are core for recognising need to change organisation needs. This is important for people professionals to ensure they prioritise on measures to integrate business environment needs. Therefore, passion of ensuring employees satisfaction in their job roles.

The different trends are summarised in figure 4;

Figure 4: Summary of Priorities

For the purpose of evaluating the factors and trends, PESTLE Analysis is relevant (CIPD, 2022a). As illustrated in appendix 1, this is used to evaluate the impact level and achievement of organisation goals.

Hence, the different factors impacting Saudi Aramco organisation in Saudi Arabia are;

Political– Since Saudi Aramco is mandated with oil and gas production locally in KSA and internationally, political factors have a significant implication. According to Alotaibi (2019), the Saudisation policy by KSA government has affected how Saudi Aramco engages suppliers and employees in different regions. Further, the recent attack on Saudi Aramco oil and gas wells has similarly directly impacted their operations both onshore and offshore.

Economical– In the findings presented in Amirat and Zaidi (2020), it is evident that KSA economy could surge to 10% in 2022 and would stabilise at 12% and 15% in years 2023 and 2024. Saudi Aramco operations is positively impacted by the increased global demand for oil and gas. In the past, when COVID-19 pandemic emerged, investments by the Saudi Arabia government has significantly lowered. Besides, this situation is significantly improving and as such increasing the capacity of Saudi Aramco succeeding in its practices. In COVID-19 pandemic, Feng et al. (2021) argue that investing in manufacturing has reduced with 8%.

For the trends, they include;

COVID-19 Pandemic– In Saudi Aramco, since they operate in oil and gas industry, they have initiated programs intended to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic prevalence. According to Liulov et al. (2020), the measures put in place are expected to ensure they manage future likely pandemic from occurring. The Saudi Aramco measures include appropriate people practice functions which guarantee success in their practice.

Green Policy– This is noted in Alwakid et al. (2021), to include a process intended to harness climate change. Being the most appropriate strategy, in Saudi Aramco, they put in place policies for ensuring they manage climate damage in onshore and offshore oil and gas industry operations. Also, they have managed to lead in sustainable practices. For KSA, the country has been in a position of putting in place relevant measures in their business operations for future-based environment management.

Demographic Changes– As evidenced in WorldoMeter (2022), in Saudi Arabia, male population account for 21 million which entail 60% of overall population while 40% represent the female population. Also, the millennials entail 35% of the entire population with their interest being primarily on gig economy. This is while being ambitious in career and entrepreneurship opportunities for their international dominance. Considering Saudi Aramco, by investing in innovativeness and being creative, they are in a position of integrating stakeholders interests in their operations.

Question 3

1.4 Scale of technology within organisations and how it impacts work

As evidenced in Adnan Bataineh (2019) productivity issues, work-life balance, engaging employees and wellbeing significantly impact introducing technologies in contemporary workplace. In particular, increased digitisation and technologies introduced in workplace. The various technology entail;

Electronic monitoring System (EMS)– According to Ullah et al. (2020), this tool is popular amongst the management harnessing the capability of consistent evaluation and performance measurement of staff. By using the strategy, there is a possibility of identifying the employees performance and evaluation of measures for successful organisation. Considering Saudi Aramco, the success of strategy is to improve performance, ease process of appraisals, corporate policies and a return on investment. On the other hand, disadvantages entail employees assumption of a feel of privacy being interfered with hence impacting success in monitoring of staff.

Artificial Intelligence– According to CIPD (2022b), this include a strategy of using Artificial Intelligence in saving of time and increasing performance with positive employees experience initiated. To organisations, innovation in HR and technologies has increased significantly. Being the most appropriate strategy, Saudi Aramco ensure they are matching HR data by revie of the likelihood of agreeing to a job offer, performance outcomes and to estimate tenure. This is identified by Arakawa (2019) as leading to an increase in quality of job functions and staff wellbeing with an increase in job quality and wellbeing issues managed. The negative impact of this is immense costs incurred to implement them and contributing to unemployment cases.

Robotics– According to CIPD (2022c), this is a process followed in automating repetitive job roles in an entity. Being the most appropriate strategy, for Saudi Aramco, working in oil and gas sector has ensured the organisation successfully pursue and improve accuracy of different tools use.

The technologies impact the following;

Work– The different technologies directly impact work. This is by the different roles pursued and holistically implemented. This is in line with CIPD (2022b) which identify approximately 60% of all job functions are supposed to include employees having appropriate technological skills. By year 2030, 80% of overall job functions could be influenced by technologies where COVID-19 pandemic has affected the situation.

Working Practices– As a result of technology increase and innovation embrace, working practices influence success of different stakeholders relations and communication. For Saudi Aramco, technologies improve the possibility of gaining an exponential growth and performance increase with dominance in the industry. This is supported by Dwivedi et al. (2020) which identify technology as contributing to 4.5% increase in revenues hence performance and profits acquisition increasing with 85%.

Question 4

2.1 Theory of organisational culture and Model of human behaviour

Collegial Model (Organisation Culture)…….

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