Formal and Informal Groups
Formal Groups and Informal Groups
Formal Group: A formal group is the deliberate and systematic grouping of people in an organization so that organizational goals are better achieved.
Now any organization would have a certain formula. They are very essential for the efficient functioning of the organization.
What does an organization do?
The total no. of people working in an organization is divided into smaller groups (teams or sections or departments) and each group is responsible for fulfilling a task which would ultimately contribute to fulfilling the organization’s goal. This increases the efficiency of the organization.
Ex: If we take NITK as an example, we all know that we have a larger goal of training students for the engineering profession. But within this larger goal, we want students to be trained for computer engg, electrical, mech, etc. So this larger goal is divided into departments (example computer department), which is a formal group in this larger organization. So, all the departments together achieve the goal of efficiently training the students for engineering purpose.
Informal Group: Informal groups are the natural and spontaneous grouping of people whenever they work together over a period of time.
Whenever people interact and work together over a certain period of time, it’s very natural for them and it comes very spontaneously for them, that they form informal groups.
For example, we are officially assigned to the computer engineering department. But in the hostel, we live with friends from other branches. So when all of us live together for a 4 year period, it’s very natural for us to interact and build up groups informally with our friends from other branches.
So like this, any organization would have informal groups.
Let’s compare both Formal and Informal Groups:
| FORMAL GROUPS |INFORMAL GROUPS |
|Deliberately created.
Formal Group: A formal group is the deliberate and systematic grouping of people in an organization so that organizational goals are better achieved.
Now any organization would have a certain formula. They are very essential for the efficient functioning of the organization.
What does an organization do?
The total no. of people working in an organization is divided into smaller groups (teams or sections or departments) and each group is responsible for fulfilling a task which would ultimately contribute to fulfilling the organization’s goal. This increases the efficiency of the organization.
Ex: If we take NITK as an example, we all know that we have a larger goal of training students for the engineering profession. But within this larger goal, we want students to be trained for computer engg, electrical, mech, etc. So this larger goal is divided into departments (example computer department), which is a formal group in this larger organization. So, all the departments together achieve the goal of efficiently training the students for engineering purpose.
Informal Group: Informal groups are the natural and spontaneous grouping of people whenever they work together over a period of time.
Whenever people interact and work together over a certain period of time, it’s very natural for them and it comes very spontaneously for them, that they form informal groups.
For example, we are officially assigned to the computer engineering department. But in the hostel, we live with friends from other branches. So when all of us live together for a 4 year period, it’s very natural for us to interact and build up groups informally with our friends from other branches.
So like this, any organization would have informal groups.
Let’s compare both Formal and Informal Groups:
| FORMAL GROUPS |INFORMAL GROUPS |
|Deliberately created.