Staff type planned or bound to lead to conflicts? A commentary on the organisational form “staff.”

Depending on the industry, products and customers involved, companies are organising themselves into different organisational structures. Among them, the staff-line organisation has turned out to be very popular, for staff functions, which can be implemented virtually at all hierarchy levels, are meant to discharge management bodies, e.g. by taking on detailed works or specialist counselling.

The idea of staff organisations emerged a long time ago: the Roman Catholic Church provided the pope with advisors, and during the Thirty Years’ War, staff functions were established in order to save officers their scouting activities – that’s why we are talking about “general-staff type” planning.

So much about the good idea and theory, but when does the organisational form “staff” really work and what may endanger its success? Having not defined it as separate target group, HR development responsibles often forget such employee group.

Staff employees work in the background and have normally no managerial authority. This fits in well with the origin of the word “staff,” which has the meaning of “supporter” but also of „stiff maker.” Staff employees are restricted and have no direct say, which of course involves the danger of potential frustrations, since most of them possess well founded expertise and expert knowledge. Strictly speaking, staff function only refers to a management assistance office. This is certainly one of the reasons why only very few staff employees officially bear the title “staff employee,” whereas terms like referent/subject specialist, assistant, advisor, representative, research assistant, expert, etc. are frequently used.

The consequence of strongly varying tasks and responsibilities is that staff members can assume different roles corresponding to their personality and relationship with the management body. Ideally, they will become a “catalytic converter,” “analyst,” “architect” and “planner” of the subject areas and projects. Sometimes they are also acting as “watch dogs” or “bulldozers” or “poison barrier” for their principals. There is no question that this represents a potential for conflict.

In practice, the success of staff employees depends to a considerable degree on role definitions and constellations towards their management bodies. If the relationship network is consistent with shared values, a staff employee can be very profitable. The establishment of a staff function can make a lot of sense, however, the personnel is supposed to be selected and developed by means of systematic competence management.

We are an experienced partner for selection and qualification, management und personnel audits with regard to the personnel group “staff.” Please do not hesitate to contact us.