Organizational Structure of Walt Disney World free essay sample

Organizational Structure Throughout the last three to four decades, since Walt Disney World opened its theme park in 1971, the park has undergone an incredible transformation. When the park originally opened only three rides were available and now after adding new rides, attractions, and other developments, there is over forty seven square miles of space. Not only is there the actual theme parks themselves, but Disney also branches out into resorts, hotels, golf courses, campgrounds, water parks, restaurants, entertaining events, and theme shows. The Disney Company has grown to over 60,000 employees who busily keep Walt Disney World operating and running smoothly (Haworth, 2008). Disney offers a wide variety of training for their employees at the Disney Institute, which was developed in 1986, and the benefits employees acquire supplement the organizational culture of the company. There is great thought that goes into the creation of training that benefit’s the massive number of employees throughout the Disney Company. We will write a custom essay sample on Organizational Structure of Walt Disney World or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The intense focus that Disney puts into each employee is easily paid back by great customer satisfaction that Disney maintains throughout the year. Training offers organizational behavior concepts such as: decision-making, motivation, group behavior, communication, organizational culture, organizational structure, and human resource practices (Waltz, 2007). Disney strives in employee happiness and satisfaction and how they feel management is doing. One way Disney determines if employees are happy is by a 120-question survey about managements overall performance. Communication is key to a successful business and imperative that management and employees are doing so on a regular basis. After completion of the survey (about three weeks) a staff meeting is held and all staff concerns are addressed so that any problems can be resolved. Disney’s focus is to keep their employees satisfied, which will in turn keep their visitors satisfied (Waltz, 2007). Disney’s organizational structure is built upon innovation, quality, community, storytelling, optimism, and decency. Innovation is crucial to the Disney Company because without having innovative ideas, the company would not be as successful as it is today (Waltz, 2007). Disney’s institute offers a variety of classes for employees including Disney’s approach to people management, quality service, creative leadership, orientation, HR management, customer loyalty, and other business related classes based on the needs of the employees. Disney’s HR practices in the beginning were not as diversified as they are today. Disney realized it’s mistakes and took action with initializing a union (Waltz, 2007). Disney’s Board of Directors are strong with a balanced blend of skills and experience in order to offer guidance in core areas important to Disney. There are twelve internal members on the board consisting of both men and women. Disney’s Management team consists of ten Senior Corporate Officers and seven members of Management who specialize in Principal Businesses (Corporate Disney. com). Centralization generally takes place at Disney because top managers make most decisions and lower-level management carries out top managements directives. There are times when decentralization takes place, which is when decision making is pushed down to the lower-level managers simply because they are closest to the action. Disney is constantly restructuring in order to revamp new ideas, keep up with the economy, and to continuously provide magical memories for new visitors or those returning. There are occasional conflicts at Disney, but management does a great job with acknowledging them and taking action. The members that are at conflict are often brought together to discuss issues in order to work them out. Open communication is key to running a smooth business and providing happiness for both employees and visitors. Employees of Disney often do not feel resistance to change because a great deal of the training they receive at Disney’s Institute helps encourage that change is good within the organization. Change means that things get bigger and better all the time at Disney and means that Disney is growing from within. Staff meetings are held on a regular basis to communicate upcoming changes to employees (Corporate Disney. com). The relationship between organizational structure, control systems, and operations is the following: Organizational structure is mostly a hierarchical concept of subordination of entities that collaborate and contribute to serve one common aim. Control systems is a device or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or systems. Operations are concepts, methods, and techniques that will enable them to define an operation system development plan. All three are closely related because they are working with itself and aiming for the end result.