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. Organizational Structure for Companies with Examples and Benefits – This article explains how organizational structures determine roles and responsibilities to achieve organizational goals, highlighting how each role fits into the broader system. It also describes the benefits of different types of organizational structures.
2. Guide and Toolkit on Organisational Design – This is a practical instrument to provide support in designing, implementing, and maintaining organizational structures in the public sector.
3. Staff structure – This article provides guidance on how to develop organograms to define roles and the chain of command within an organization. This can also assist in identifying skills gaps and improving efficiency.
4. Staffing and How To Create a Staffing Plan in 9 Steps (With Benefits) – These articles provide staffing strategies to help identify the right people for roles, as well as to fill any skills gaps and fulfil organizational objectives.

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.