Features of bureaucracy:
Impersonal Order: The authority is inherent in the post and not the individual who performs the official role. An official is supposed to have a detached approach, free from personal considerations.
Rules and Regulations: Organisations are to function within the framework of rules and regulations. Rules must be followed meticulously. Functions are clearly spelled out in rules. "The 'objective' discharge of business primarily means a discharge of business according to calculable rules and without regard for persons."
Hierarchy: The organisation of offices follows hierarchy, that is the lower offices are under the control of the higher ones.
Contract: Officials are appointed through contract on the basis of professional qualifications. They are entitled to salary and pension rights. There is a career structure.
Control: There are necessary checks, unified control and disciplinary system.
Division of Work Leading to Specialisation: The activities of the organisation are distributed as fixed official duties. This leads to specialisation.
Efficiency: Weber's ideas on efficiency and rationality are closely related to his ideal type of bureaucracy. "The decisive reason for the advance of bureaucratic organisation has always been its purely technical superiority over any other form of organisation. The developed bureaucratic mechanism compares with other organisations exactly as does the machine with the non-mechanical modes of production.”