Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

esponsibilities and have indicated that main normative documents regulating their functions are
orders of the chief executive approving the descriptions of responsibilities. To avoid that kind of
misunderstanding the questionnaire itself should be accompanied with the detailed description how
to fill it in.
Usually, local administrations have various internal documents and regulations more or less
defining the division of responsibilities and authority. These documents should be examined at the
overview stage of the audit.
During the interviews the auditor shall review the information collected during the overview stage
and make final specifications.
The auditor should examine which decisions every employee can take. In some linguistic contexts
it should be made clear that not only written documents are understood as decisions. If the
employee only prepares decisions, which are taken (approved) by other employees, the auditor
should examine the decision making procedure. It should be clear what the “approval” means:
• Is it formal (only because the signature of a higher officer is needed according to the
legislation or internal procedures);
• Is it needed only to inform the chiefs about the activities of the employee/subdivision;
• Does it mean that the person who approves the decision is fully responsible for it;
• Is it needed for any other purposes?
Another related issue, which should be examined by the auditor, is the scheme of subordination.
Preliminary, the auditor might see the subordination relationships from the formal administrative
chart. However, this administrative chart should be revised and the actual picture examined, as
discussed in section “Structural subdivisions” above.
The audit of the actual scheme of subordination is based on interviews with the employees (Form
Nr.7). Questions about the subordination should be formulated in a way, which assures that the
interviewee is talking about the factual and not only officially defined relationships. The auditor
should not be focussed on what the interviewee “thinks” or “believes” (although it might be
important for other reasons), but on what evidence could support the opinion of the interviewee
(i.e. written guidelines, decision making process, the way how documents should be agreed,
specific situations, where the traditional subordination was changed etc.) Otherwise, when the
auditor is not looking for supporting evidence, he risks that the auditee may not understand the
question or objectives of the audit and will present the casual or wrong answer.
I.e. when asked about the direct chief, many lower level managers and specialists have answered,
that their direct chief is the mayor (and named him by name and family name), however when
asked what issues do they solve with the mayor directly or indirectly, it was found that they rarely
see the mayor and do not solve any issues with him. After the reformulation of the question it was
clear that the interviewees did not understand the initial question and thought that they were asked
about the head of the whole organisation.
Or, an employee claims that he is subordinated to one of the departmental heads; however when
he performs his functions he follows the instructions of the head of the other department, who
formulates the objectives in this area and whom the employee directly reports.
Or, the employee indicates his direct chief, but the auditor finds out that, because of the specific
nature of the services, he is subordinated only nominally, there are no relationships of
subordination, the top management just did not know whom to make that employee subordinated,
“because everybody should be subordinated to somebody”.
To avoid this kind of problems, it is useful to formulate questions in the following way:
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