How does informal groups work?

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How is the functioning of informal groups?

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Informal groups are created because of the limitations of the formal organisation. In particular following factors are responsible for the creation of informal groups.
(1) Desire to socialise with others-Personnel like of socialise in order to overcome the psychological fatigue and boredom of the job because it allows them to satisfy their social needs on the job. The need for relationships with others is one of the most important human needs. Physical nearness may stimulate interaction among employees placed together in an organisation. Man is a social being. He wants to belong, to associate with others rather to work in isolated loneliness. Thus informal groups arise form man's quest for social satisfaction.
(2) Identification—Employees get more identified in smaller groups and so smaller groups tend to enjoy higher morale. In large departments where every employee does the same job, employees find it hard to form stable social groupings and so they have low morale.
(3) Job-specialisation—Personnel concentrate on a single or a few simple tasks that lead to boredom on the job. Greater the degree of specialisation, greater is the degree of routine work, and the greater the degree of boredom. Consequently, greater is the degree of informal groups. Employees have little sense of accomplishment, autonomy or inidentification with work. In such a situation, many of their higher order needs are not satisfied and they resort to informal interaction as an outlet for releasing such tension.
(4) Protection-Groups help protect their members from outside pressures. Therefore personnel join one group or another.
(5) Hierarchical control and communication-In a hierarchical structure, there is a natural tendency of exercise of control by superiors. In a rigid control, subordinates try to find the outcome where there is no such control. Moreover if the communication downward does not carry message, meaningful from the point of subordinates, they resort to seek such information from informal sources. Greater the degree of bottleneck in hierarchical communication, greater is the chance for horizontal and informal communication.
Working of Informal Groups
There is no prescription in the case of informal group. Processes in informal group take place in a most unstructured way. They may affect or may be affected by formal processes. In particular, following elements are very important in the working of informal organisation:
(1) Authority-informal group is the consequence of innumerable personnel and social relationships which arise spontaneously. The network of relationships in an informal organisation is not required by the formal authority. Authority in informal organisation is personal and not positional. Hence informal organisaition is not subject to management control.
(2) Membership in the Group—Membership in the group is a selective process in which individuals are granted membership primarily on the basis of commonality of interests and willingness to be cooperative and to conforms to the group norms. Individuals may have overlapping memberships in a number of informal groups.
(3) Emergent Leadership —Every group has a leader. The leader is accepted by the group members and emerges from within. He is followed and obeyed. He is selected on the basis of his ability to perform for the informal group and he is granted authority by the members to take decision. An informal leader guides and directs by persuasion and influence.
(4) Communication—All groups have a certain degree of formal organisation. Messages are communicated to the members of the group through their informal leaders. Informal group is only device where the existing formal communication channel is inadequate.
(5) Some activity or task—A group does something which may be related to its job or unconnected with it. For example, it may go on a picnic or movie or simply engage in a gossip session. It undertakes these tasks to serve some ends in purpose. It may provide them with information and further social ties or satisfy their social and affiliation needs or bring them protection against some type of threatening.
(6) Interaction—All people interact with one another. When such interaction takes place, there is a social transaction in which one person responds to another. There are two types of group interaction. One exists when people are discussing ideas and is generally called a meeting. The other exists when people perform tasks together and is called a team.
(7) Group Norms—Each informal group establishes group behaviour norms, traditions and attitudes to which it expects its members to conform. These norms are designed to achieve the goals of the group and to protect and preserve its value. The norms set by the group are accepted by its members. This brings about cohesiveness in the group.
(8) Member Satisfaction—The end result of group membership is satisfaction of members.