The Organizational Layer

An organization’s structure and its teams, roles, and reporting lines are critical to enabling the attainment of its strategic goals. Human resourcing decisions determine who fills these roles and whether they come from inside or outside the organization. Staff have responsibilities aligned with the organizational goals.

An effective organizational structure requires clarity on roles and responsibilities, the extent of collaboration between staff, and the underlying human resources management processes that support operations and staff. These aspects are influenced by the organization’s management culture. When functioning optimally, organizational and staffing structures promote collaboration and communication among individuals and organizational levels, as well as facilitating the streamlining of operations. They also enhance productivity and engagement, foster a positive work environment, and ultimately contribute to achieving the organization’s mission.

Explore these essential resources to see how organizational structures and staffing support EMIS design and implementation:

1. Education Management Information System: A Short Case Study of Ghana – This case study highlights how Ghana’s EMIS has evolved to address organizational structure and staffing challenges, taking a new approach that enhances ownership and accountability.
2. Education Management Information System: What is it and why do we not have more of it? – This resource highlights internal challenges often faced by ministries, including outdated organizational structures, unresponsive hierarchies, and slow information transfer.

Steps to facilitate effective EMIS implementation through organizational structures and staffing:

• Create an organogram that represents specific roles and responsibilities: Effective EMIS implementation requires human resourcing at the national, provincial/district, and institutional levels. Staff roles and responsibilities should be represented in an organogram outlining an organizational structure that facilitates EMIS implementation.
• Internal staffing:
  • At the national level, internal human resourcing includes staff with expertise in EMIS architecture (the design of systems that enable EMIS implementation), management capacity to oversee implementation, project managers to implement specific projects, and monitoring and evaluation staff.
  • At the provincial/district level, internal human resourcing includes human resource management staff, ICT support, and EMIS system and capacity trainers.
  • At the institutional level, human resourcing includes administrators, data capturers, and ICT support.
• External staffing depends on the needs of the ecosystem within the country context. At the national and provincial/district levels, external human resourcing may include consultants, sub-contractors, and service providers contracted for specific responsibilities for which internal capacity is not available, feasible, or affordable.