This assignment is intended to help you learn to do the following:
Distinguish performance improvement gaps.
Summarize process improvement concepts, principles, and strategies in a healthcare organization. (III.A.4.ii)
Critique performance management concepts, principles, and strategies in a healthcare organization. (III.A.4.i)
Recommend a performance improvement implementation plan and strategies.
Overview
This assignment represents Part 2 of a two-part project that you will complete for your ePortfolio. As you work on this assignment, you will be developing the following Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) competencies:
III.A.4 Critical Thinking, Analysis, & Problem Solving
Performance Management
Process Management
Action Items
Complete Exercise 7: Improving a Performance Gap in my Organization (p. 301) in your textbook. (attached below)
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The Impact of Teamwork on Employee Performance in Strategic Management and the Performance Improvement Department of Abu Dhabi Police, UAE
Abstract
The structures in the community are organized around the government, business, and non-profit organizations. The three sectors in any economy must correlate and work together for the welfare of the society. However, the environment today is changing and there is considerable concern about the effectiveness of the non-profitable organizations, which may lack the capacity and technical expertise to keep up with the change and there by contribute to an enriched and healthy quality of life. According to Sporeen & Holloway (2004), many non-profit making organizations are fragile and they are responsible for many responsibilities in the society. Many at times, they fail to meet their responsibilities because their financial and other resources are limited. As the environment changes, the demand for the community based services increases, more new needs are identified than there were before as new paradigms for exchange and interactions are identified. The organizations operating a non-profit are challenged by devising new modes of dealing with the specific challenges that come with the changing environment. According to Graen, (2003), the organizations can overcome these challenges if they formulate new corporate strategies to manage their employees, the strategies should involve all employees in the organizations. This calls for teamwork and capacity building.
The Impact of Teamwork on Employee Performance in Strategic Management and the Performance Improvement Department of Abu Dhabi Police, UAE
Critchley, Edwards and Fallon (2007) notes that the activities of organization are becoming complex daily with the advance in technology and there is need for participation of more than one individual. Many big organizations both profitable and non-profit making are increasing their training and teamwork activities in order to boost their performance. Many obstacles to teamwork have to be overcome for success and effective performance. Such obstacles emerge from the environment and the advancing technology. Also include are the conflicts among employees and the strategy formulation in organizations. Teamwork enables organization to overcome these obstacles through consultation and sharing of ideas. For success, the team participants must possess some skills and abilities that can enable them to perform their duties pertaining to the tasks of the group. Where such skills and abilities are limited, organizations have to train the employees and impart in them the specific needed skills. Teamwork is important to the organization because it helps the organization improve its performance through cooperation and participation.
Strategic management is another important aspect of the management that contributes to effective teamwork. Without proper strategies, the team will lack important tasks to execute hence the lag in the performance of the whole organization. Strategic management should treat teamwork as an independent strategy in ADP and therefore strengthen teamwork in all departments for the effective performance of the individual employees and the whole organization. This will involve strategic planning on how to improve teamwork in ADP through training and increased communication and interpersonal skills.
This study is important because it undertakes to study the effectiveness of teamwork as a strategy to increase the performance of employees in the Abu Dhabi Police as a nonprofit making organization. The study begins by the introduction, which highlights the aims and objectives of the study as well as the background to the study problem. It proceeds to the review of previous literatures on teamwork and performance, methodology, data analysis and findings and discussions of the study. The study ends by providing recommendation to ADP for effectiveness of teamwork for its employees and the whole organization.
The Abu Dhabi Police (ADP) is amongst the most challenged organizations in UAE. The police are also one of the most diverse forces where effectiveness, focus, and objective orientation are essential. Based on this, the Strategic management and Performance improvement (SM&PI) Department in ADP considers that the employees should have the capability as well as confidence to deal with critical issues that characterize their work. Most important, performance is crucial because any sloppiness could have adverse consequences on the community as a whole (Grant, 2004). The kind of work that police officers do requires them to work together in groups for them to be successful. Teamwork is so critical that in some cases it determines survival of the organization.
Teamwork in the organization has great significance for more than one reason. Organizations that have embraced this concept have reported increased problem solving, employee autonomy and increased performance in work production stimulating new growth. When managed well, this group project approach has increased input by improving employee morale. Teamwork is said to have benefits, which can make a positive impact in the organization. Changes in today’s business world have made teamwork a reality in organizations, as knowledge sharing is crucial for success. Employees, managers, as well as executives have to share information. In addition, because of the complexity of operations as well as proliferation of knowledge in various fields, it is essential for employees at all levels to have the opportunity work as teams and learn from each other for them to generate innovative solutions to organizational, efficiency and operational issues (Wilson, 2008).
Performance has to focus on team performance as it allows corporation more than competition. The performance of any organization is dependent on employees and how they work. This is in turn dependents on whether there is an organizational culture that promotes a high work performance culture particularly within the top and line management through teamwork. To understand the role of teamwork on employee performance, a case study will be conducted in which the researcher will assess the impact of teamwork on employee performance in the SM&PI department of ADP. Semi-structured interviews and unstructured questionnaires will be used to collect data, which will be analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings will be validated using multiple perspectives.
This study is not aimed at asserting the already written and existing literature on the impact of teamwork on employee performance in strategic management in non-profit-making organizations. Neither does it intent to set a new way that is right but it investigates the extent to teamwork affects positively the performance of employees in non-profit making organizations, especially the Abu Dhabi Police. The goal of the study is to establish the impact of teamwork on the Employees Performance in Strategic Management and Performance Improvement Department in Abu Dhabi Police in the UAE. In order to fulfill this goal, the study seeks to fulfill the following specific objectives of the study.
Objective 1 – To identify the kind of support and guidance that is required by teams from the organization’s management for effective team performance;
Objective 2 – To evaluate team effectiveness in terms of team autonomy, job satisfaction and performance.
Objective 3 – To identify the benefits of teamwork as well as problems suffered by teams as far as performance is concerned within the Strategic management department In ADP.
The objectives and the goal of the study will be attained is the study answers the following research questions:
What are the components of teamwork that are relevant in non-profit organizations such as ADP and specifically the strategic management department in the organization? How does it encourage teamwork as a strategy for employee performance in the strategic department in ADP?
Determine the link between teamwork as a strategic policy of the strategic department in ADP given the fact that it is a non-profit making organization.
Establish the effectiveness of teamwork on employee autonomy, job satisfaction and the performance of the employees in the strategic department in ADP.
This study is about the impact of teamwork as a strategic management tool in non-profit making organization on the performance of employees. The study seeks to fulfill the hypothesis that teamwork as a strategic management tool affects positively the performance of employees in non-profit making organizations such as the police (Adobor, & Daneshfar, 2006). The vital issues that this dissertation will consider will be centered on the impact of teamwork as a strategy in management to be employed by non-profit making organizations in order to improve employee performance. This will involve the analysis of teamwork as a strategy used in management in Abu Dhabi Police and its impacts on the performance of employees in the organization.
This study is important because it examines the impacts of The Impact of Teamwork on the Employees Performance in Strategic Management and Performance Improvement Department in Abu Dhabi Police in the UAE. Many non-profit making organizations usually operate with or without teamwork. However, the organizations know little of the importance of teamwork on the performance of employees in non-profit making organizations. As a form of strategic management, teamwork is an important strategy to use and apply in today’s modern flexible workforce because it can enable the organization improve the performance of the employees hence the overall performance of the organization. This study makes it clear as to why many profitable organizations encourage teamwork and why it is important for non-profit making organizations to emulate their profit making organization to achieve more.
This study seeks to use a case study as one of its methods in studying the study phenomena. The case study undertaken by the researcher is the Abu Dhabi Police as a non-profit making organization. This study is important to the organizations since it enables the organization understand the importance of teamwork as a strategy for strategic management and improving the performance of employees in non-profit making organizations such as the ADP. The research will help the strategic department in ADP to know the basic strategic management principles regarding teamwork and the employees’ performance.
Abu Dhabi Police was established in January 1957 late H.H. Shaikh Shakhbut Bin Sultan Al Nahayan , who was the first president of the State of Abu Dhabi and the elder brother of late H.H. Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahayan, the establisher of the United Arab Emirates. Shaikh Shakhbut aim was to build a strong dependent government that provides security and peace to the country. ADP was formulated with very humble techniques (Strategic Plans, 2010). The very beginning duties were to watch and guard some areas like Ruler’s Palace, markets, banks and the boats coming from other countries. There were two police officers assigned to each location. There were at that time around 80 police officers. Coast Guards Unit in ADP was established in 1960 and in 1962; the first batch of Patrols was established. The first Police Music Band was set in 1963. These are the main steps in the establishment dates of ADP.
Abu Dhabi Police mission is to work in a cooperative environment to provide a safe and secured society, contains no crimes or other types of law breaking. The society we are seeking is stable and insures to keep the public’s rights. Its vision is to set up a professional and effective police staff whose main goal is to keep the community safe and free if crimes and to spread confidence among people. They are also seeking to build an efficient organization, concerned with motivating and training. It supports learning and new technologies (Strategic Plans, 2010).
The ADP has policies that are set up on finding problems in local policing and solving it. In fact, their policies are based on problem solving strategy, in order to continuously improve performance and quality service to achieve their main goal, which is insuring safety and security for community and diminish the crimes. Local policing is supporting decision-making and resources allocating, whereas Headquarters departments and sections are sustaining local policing through dedicated services and consultation. In addition, it emphasizes on community services through the improvement of their strategies, policies, and strategy’s standards and supervises the outcomes and performance progress.
In order to emphasize cooperation strategy, Abu Dhabi Police has established a service for reporting accidents and crimes occurrence. They had published their telephone numbers to make it easier for the people to find it. People can even report on missing things or people via Internet or newspaper. They have an advanced web site that enables citizens to interact with the police. Through this step, they are emphasizing people to cooperate with them and to trust them. Abu Dhabi Police also includes traffic and vehicle licensing. They are responsible for granting driving licenses and checking the state of the vehicles and its safety quality. Moreover, they provide instant help in case of car accidents or car break down, as there are many police patrols all over the city streets. A person can perform lot of services online, like registering new vehicle, apply for a new driving license or a replacement for a lost one, renewing the licenses, inquire about the fines or any other information, and pay the fines. Furthermore, they made special section for recruitment and applying for jobs. ADP has supplied toll free numbers for reporting or providing suggestions, in addition to the Call Back Service. They are well known to the Follow up System used.
After implementing new strategies and the amazing changes applied to the ADP management, the new approach focuses on involving the community with their processes. This style will develop security awareness among the people and therefore will encourage them to participate with the police to fight crimes and preventing them. With the assistance of the local community, the police’s duties become easier to perform since this cooperation aids them in dealing with the community and understand their needs and problems (Strategic Plans, 2010). Therefore, the police will be more capable of facing crimes and validating secured community. Continuous communication between ADP and his or her local community supports security awareness among the society and calls the attention that security is every person’s responsibility.
ADP has realized that in order to apply a good change strategy, the computer, and technology systems should be improved. Applying new techniques to the Police departments is essential to help in investigation services and problem solving. That is why they asked the aid of other developed police systems worldwide, like the British systems. ADP has installed advanced databases to keep their data organized and well managed to keep track of the data and the ease of getting them. Through researches, it has been found that a very famous innovation in police management field was the Compstat system, which is the computer comparison statistics that was applied in the New York City in the 1990s by former Commissioner William Bratton. Compstat is an interesting model of applying new techniques to the police systems. In order to realize its innovation strategies, the ADP receives technical tools and systems like uniform Criminal Information System, The Eye Scan System, The closed televised surveillance system, The Patrol Mechanical Information System and Mechanical Alarm System. Despite the employment of these important strategies, there is dire need for cooperation among the many employees of the organizations for effectiveness of the organization in achieving its set objectives. Therefore, the one important strategy missing is the management strategy to promote teamwork and cooperation among employees.
Chapter 1 introduction; this chapter introduces the research by giving the objectives of the study after establishing the background of the Strategic Management & performance improvement Department in ADP.
Chapter 2 Literature review; this chapter reviews the past literature concerning the teamwork, strategic management, and employee performance in non-profit making organizations. Both theoretical and empirical literature will be reviewed with findings on the study topic being provided.
Chapter 3 Research methodology; this chapter outlines the various methodologies that the study employs in collecting data and the analysis of the collected data. The study design, methodology, qualitative and sampling techniques are highlighted in addition to the validity, reliability, and limitations of the study.
Chapter 4 this chapter analyzes the data collected on the impact of teamwork as a strategy employed in strategic management on the performance of employees in non-profit making organizations. The responses to the questionnaire and interview questions are analyzed and discussed in this chapter. In addition, the findings regarding the performance of the employees in relation to teamwork are discussed.
Chapter 5 Conclusion; this is the last chapter of the study that concludes the research by making conclusions regarding the fulfillment of specific objectives of the study based on the findings of the study.
Chapter Six recommendations; the recommendations based on the findings of the research are related to strategies on how to improve the performance of employees basing on the application of teamwork to ADP. Moreover, recommendations on further research are provided and conclusion given basing on the findings of the study.
Teamwork: according to Jenner, Foote and Zhao (2010), several people have defined teamwork differently. However, though the views slightly differ, the organization of work using teamwork can be defined as a wide range of possibilities such as quality work, cross-functional teams, self-managing teams, or virtual teams. Many employers usually provide autonomy together with teamwork. A distinctive feature of teamwork is the successive work actions to assemble different parts of the product. In places where the aim is to improve the process of production, teamwork is more of complexity, increase in communication and integrative work. However, for the purposes of this study, a team will be used to mean Group(s) of employees who have at least some collective tasks and where the team members are authorized to regulate mutually the execution of these collective tasks’ (Critchley, Edwards & Fallon, 2007).
Strategic management: according to Graen (2003), strategic management refers to the process by which the decision making organ of an organization envisions the future of the organization and they develop the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that anticipated future.
Both profit and non-profit making organizations are finding teamwork very important in their operations and especially in employee performance and the overall performance of the organizations. Many organizations that have established the culture of teamwork do operate with high quality, speed and are more economical in their operations. According to Aichouni (2005), man is unable to live on his efforts alone and he therefore requires the help of a fellow man. Consequently, teamwork in many organizations is as important as the mutual interactions of man. A secure and friendly work environment is not a condition within itself for forming progressive teamwork. Politeness and respect are the first conditions for successful advancement of the team. However, they do not characterize teamwork (Thamhain, 2008). The important values of teamwork are communication, conflict resolution, and cooperation among employees.
Wilson, (2008) define a team as a group of people carrying out work collectively. Success in the work done is achieved if a good team is chosen. In course of executing duty, the individual members of a group that forms a team should have a common goal towards success. The qualities of a good team are capable, intelligent, communicative individual with a clear understanding of the problem at hand would like to cooperate in order to solve the problem as a team. The team should achieve the intended goal as a team and not as individual members of the team. According to Levy (2005), this is the right path to success. There is a connection between teamwork and looking for ideas such as problems and conflict solving ideas. These factors are interconnected and dependent on each other and therefore cannot be separated. In this regard, communication and cooperation are common and present everywhere. These can be depicted in figure 1 below.
Ideas in the teamwork: every member in the team is important. Ideas in the teamwork involve the collection of ideas from the team members in order to achieve the group goal. Ideas can be collected in the team through brainstorming sessions where participants state their ideas as they are noted down.
Teamwork and conflict resolution: teamwork is an effective means of solving conflicts in an organization. The conflict or problem at hand can be subjected to the views of the participants whose solutions to the problem differ. Conflicts are many and may arise from the steps towards achieving of the given a group goal or the members in the team can disagree on the goal itself. According to Russell (2005), there is no necessity of the team to solve the problems to be performed by a group of individuals. However, the synchronization of individuals, mutual adaptation and co-operation are necessary for solving problems. In addition, the main goal of teamwork is to solve problems. The diversity of the group members means that there are many different opinions concerning the solutions to the problems as the individuals. In order to arrive at the best solution, the team settles of the optimal solution to the problem at hand (Hesselbein & Shinseki, 2004).
According to Leedy and Ormrod (2005), conflicts regarding the given solution to the problem are important because it enable the team to come up with a better solution. A never-ending circle in the diagram means that whenever the group is trying to solve the problem, other problems come up.
Fog 1
Source: Rupar, B & Rupar, M (n.d), Importance of teamwork for non-profit organizations
For an optimal solution to be reached, the group should let go the conflicts and arrive at optimal solution to the problem.
Solving problems: this involves ideas that can solve a problem. The solution on the problem is obtained from the ideas obtained from the participants. For the success of teamwork, mutual-cooperation and communication among team members is very important. For participants to adjust, they need to communicate and cooperate. Schroeder & Lombardo (2004), argues that without communication and mutual cooperation, teamwork is unsuccessful. The communication used in teamwork can be either verbal or non-verbal. Through teamwork, the management of an organization can establish the goals of the organization regarding specific aspects with the help of teamwork. Graen (2003) add that effective teamwork can be achieved through motivation of the participants. Successful teamwork leads to quality work and better organizational operations with increased success at all levels of the organization (Linden, 2002).
Many organizations have adopted teamwork in their operations making it to be very valuable. According to Critchley, Edwards and Fallon (2007), teamwork is used in both profit as well as non-profit organizations. The failure of some companies to employed teamwork in their daily operations can be attributed to fear and mistrust of employees during the implementation of new methods of work in the organization. Teamwork is developed through five phases as indicated below.
Team development
Source: Rupar & Rupar, (n.d) Importance of teamwork for non-profit organizations
The first phase involves the formation of a group through the introduction f new members. The new members get to know each other about the problem at hand that united them. According to Boaden and Leaviss (2000), many ideas are put forth in this phase, in which based on adapting in the following phase must be adjusted. Consensus and the voice of the majority must be adhered to in the third phase. The participants must realize the common goal and therefore the idea for their membership. The third phase is the most demanding and the most important. As the realization phase approaches, the participants realize that they need to arrive at an optimal solution to the problem. King (2004) notes that the participants must be careful while negotiating the optimal solution so that they do not lose the support of other members because they will be of importance in the last phase of assuming responsibilities. According to Flick, et al. (2004), the working team should be maintained as a team for success and attainment of the necessary goals. Therefore, successful development of a team means a continuous process.
According to Creswell (2007), teamwork is essential to the success of any organization. Productive teamwork can energize the entire strategic department in ADP while the negative effects of teamwork can cripple the department hence entire organization. An organization can succeed if it knows how to select the right team that can work effectively well through cooperation and teamwork. Michalisin, Karau, and Tangpong (2004) adds that knowing how to select the right members of a team is important because no matter how hard a group might work together, without the right people on the job, the team will fail. Teamwork is important for every member of the team including the team leaders and individual members.
Every organization that looks forward to recruiting long-term effective team members should have a positive corporate culture that is open and invigorating. The members of a team can thrive well in an environment of creative work and challenges. According to Rouse & Boff (2005), destructive organizational climate that is characterized by high turnover, distrust, negative attitudes, and negative attitudes usually lead to high employee turnover in such organizations or they make their employees products of destructive organizational culture. Despite being the responsibility of every group member in the organization, the positive corporate culture should come from top management of the department down to the small groups of individuals in the organization.
It is the responsibility of the management to apply teamwork as part of the strategic management in the organization. According to Creswell (2007), a management can foster good corporate culture in several ways such as ensuring that the team has clear expectations, provisions of authority to team members on execution of decisions as required and supporting and backing up the decisions made by the team members.
2.2.2.2 Recognition
This is an important part of the success of a team. The team members usually search for recognition. Delarue and De Prins (2004) argue that the department of strategic management should positively recognize the members of the various teams in the department. Positive recognition entails recognizing outstanding performance, continued performance, and improved performance.
2.2.2.3 Positive feedback
The results of a team are measured against the feedback received. Therefore, without feedback, the team is unable to measure the results of its efforts. With no feedback, confusion will characterize the activities of a team and make them miss their expectations as they produce so many disappointments. The growth of a team depends on the frequency of feedback concerning the performance of the team. According to U.S. Army (2010), feedback should be provided on a regular basis. In addition to the above, there is also the provision of opportunities for employees.
Strategic management was first used in the 1970s to mean the strategic planners or strategic programs of an organization. However, as time passed on, the business environment changed forcing the strategic management also to change. In the 1990s, the strategic plan and strategic management of an organization were much different from before. Strategic management is the process by which an organization through its management drafts, implements and evaluates cross-functional decisions that enable the organization to achieve its long-term objectives. It entails the process of specifying the mission, its vision, objectives, and the development of the various strategies to achieve the objectives of the organization. In addition to that, policies and plans to achieve that are designed to achieve the specified firm objectives (Thompson, & Thompson, 2009). Also included in the strategic management process are the implementation process and the evaluation of the success of the strategies used. The evaluation on the performance of the organization usually involves the use of tools like a balanced scored card and benchmarking. In this case, the evaluation process analyzes the financial records of the strategic department and the strategies used. After successful evaluation, the department will know whether to change its strategies, mission, and objectives or not (Thompson, & Thompson, 2009).
According to Levi (2007), strategic planning is a prelude of strategic management and it follows that for strategic planning to be effective, it must be followed by deployment and implementation of the plan and the evaluation of the action plan. Strategic management is a system’s approach to identifying and making the necessary changes while measuring the performance of an organization towards the attainment of the desired goal. Strategic management goes beyond the development of the strategic plan. It involves the deployment and the implementation of the strategic plan of an organization (Jenner, Foote & Zhao, 2010). Deployment means the completion of the strategic plan and making it known to every member of the organization. The implementation of the strategic plan involves the resourcing the plan and putting it to action as well as managing the actions. The monitoring and evaluation of the plan involves tracking down the implementation of the plan and assessing how well the department is changing due to the implemented plan and using the information obtained to update the plan while avoiding deviations from the normal (Russell & Ryan, 2009).
Strategic management is comprised of five facets that include goal setting, analysis, strategy implementation, and strategy monitoring. These facets are the basic elements of the strategic management and when they are applied, they distinguish strategic management from less comprehensive approaches such as operational management or long term planning.
Source: Scribner, S 2010, Introduction to strategic management
Goal setting: this element of strategic management enables the department to articulate its vision. Through its execution, the department can identify what needs to be accomplished, define the objectives of the department in the short term and in the long term, and relate the objectives to what is to be done in the strategic department. It this section the department also provides its mission statement summarizing its purpose and goals.
Analysis: this guides the department to collect and consider information it fully understands. The analysis part can enable the ADP to assess its external environment and internal environment and identify its weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats that the department faces as it tries to meet its goals. Through such an analysis, the department can opt to capitalize on its strengths and available opportunities in the environment to meet its goals and objectives.
Strategy formation: according to Ruiz and Bianey (2004), the department can determine and develop a strategy by reflecting and prioritizing options. After its development, the department needs to make the right decisions and review the analysis as it reviews also the issues to be addressed while prioritizing them in terms of urgency and magnitude. The results obtained should help the department to design an alternative strategy while addressing key strategy issues.
Strategy implementation: for the implementation of the strategy, there is need of the department to assemble the required resources and apply them in the implementation process. The plan that is carefully chosen should be put into practice. Moreover, the necessary commitment should also be used as the strategic department taps into excess capacity or build new capacity and seek to achieve better and higher results as per the goals (Valle & Witt, 2001).
Strategy monitoring: this allows the strategic department to check the progress made towards attaining the goals set while assessing whether any changes in the environment necessitate alterations to the strategy. Plans and actions should be modified to adjust the strategy to the impacts of the changes in the environment. When monitoring is effective, the strategic department is able to react and anticipate. According to Pfaff and Huddeleston (2003), monitoring provides feedback to management for the analysis, strategy design, and implementation they conducted.
According to Daniels & Macdonald (2005), strategic planning and strategic management are a set of tools used by the management. They constitute a mindset of, an approach to look at the internal and external changes in an organization that can help the strategic department to achieve its goals and objectives. The use of planning and management tools strategically involves thinking essentially, mental framework and analytic tools. Strategic management requires the management have strategic mentality for success. Daniels & Macdonald (2005) adds that strategic mentality has four main elements that include:
Strategic approach is future oriented. It considers environmental change. The use of this approach enables managers to focus on a specific period in future, thus have going concern. The strategic focus has also an external emphasis. According to Cruz et al. (2009), there are several components found in the external environment that strategic approach takes into account such a politics, technology, economics and social aspects. Strategic thinking by management considers that these components are important while making business decisions. Politics for example determines the policies to be implemented, economics the organization’s level; of resources to be employed in projects while social factors can determine the benefactors of the products of the organization. Managers consider these external factors while making strategies to meet long term and short-term goals of the strategic department (Leedy & Ormrod, 2005).
Strategic approach also concentrates on assuring good fit between the environment and the strategic department while attempting to anticipate the required and assure continued fit. Lastly, the strategic approach is a continuous process that recognizes the need to be open to the changing goals of the department based on the changing factors in the business environment. The process requires monitoring and frequent reviews for feedback on progress.
Strategic management focuses on the both short term and long-term objectives of an organization. Following the future forecast of the position of an organization, the management can formulate goals for the organization. The goals and objectives set will also lead to formulation of specific strategies to achieve the objectives. The management formulates the strategies while the employees implements the strategies formulated by the organization. According to Lavon (2005), the employees also monitor and evaluate the strategies while making the necessary adjustments in case of a change in the working environment.
According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007), the effectiveness of the strategies of the strategic department depends on the employees of the organization. The success of the strategies formulated of the organization will depend on the teamwork exhibited by the employees while executing the various tasks related to the objectives of the strategic management department in ADP. Boaden and Leaviss (2000) notes that the employees working as a team would lead to the success of the organization. Teamwork will give employees morale and motivation to work and achieves the given strategies. Moreover, Rouse & Boff (2005) adds that through teamwork, the employees’ conflicts accompanying the workplace and the issues standing in the way of objective achievement can be effectively solved without difficulties. As Lavon (2005) argued, the labor force today is divers and flexible. The diversity and flexibility of the employees is exploited by big organizations. The employees are involved in decision-making discussions with the management. This is usually made possible through brainstorming sessions where the employees discuss the issues facing them and the organization, hence coming out with perfect solutions to problems and issues. This is only possible with teamwork.
Bacon and Blyton (2006) argue that the success of teamwork in an organization also depends on the organizational culture created by the management. The organizational culture of interpersonal communication and training encourages sharing amongst employees. Such a culture encourages teamwork as compared to conservative cultures where employees are not encouraged to share their experiences and skills. Jenner, Foote and Zhao (2010), warn that for the department to succeed, it must also take teamwork important strategies that can enable it achieve its formulated strategies. When teamwork is taken as a strategy in itself, the strategic department is able to set up mechanisms of cultivating teamwork. It can also set aside resources for training on important teamwork skills.
The senior leaders of the strategic department are charged with strategic management of improving teamwork in the organization. Strategic management should be continuous in the strategic department and not only for a period in time. Moreover, the organization’s management should always think strategically as they constantly change the culture of the organization. The leaders of the strategic department are to facilitate, coach and be consensus builders as well as consultants regarding the strategic planning and strategic management. Transformational leadership, which is described by Jennings (2002, p. 79). as the superior leadership performance that occurs “when leaders broaden and elevate the interests of their employees, when they generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond their own self interest for the good of the group.”
There is a relationship between teamwork and autonomy of employees in non-governmental organizations. According to Salas, Gpoodwin & Burke, (2008), teamwork increases the level of autonomy of employees in making decisions about their work. Team autonomy is understood as the possibility of the group to participate in the decision-making process in relation to tasks, working methods, organization of working time and assessing the quality of their own work. Various types of teamwork generally differentiate according to the autonomy of individual members within the team and the autonomy of the team as a whole, including its participation in the decision-making process within the strategic management department in ADP. Working in a team is closely associated with an environment typified by the possibility to learn new things and perform complex tasks. Team workers are more likely to learn new things in their work than those not working in teams are.
Teamwork involves the involvement of workers working in a team and as a group. Working as a team has its own challenges and benefits. Employees experience all these. However, Donovan, (2004) note that there is a relationship between teamwork and job satisfaction. If teams work well, have a common goal, are autonomous in their decision-making, and have responsibility and support, teamwork becomes a valuable experience for the workers involved. ‘Working in a team empowers people and helps them develop autonomy, which is a source of profound job satisfaction and reduces stress.’ (Hayes, 2005, p. 172). Therefore, Working in a team contributes to job satisfaction. According to this model, two classes of factors influence job satisfaction. The first class of factors leading to job satisfaction corresponds to the employee’s need to further his or her qualifications and career and, by extension, to develop his or her personality.
The second category of factors that influence job satisfaction form the basis on which the first factors are formed and compromises working conditions in a broad sense while encompassing the wages of employees, the management styles employed and the organization. The initial class of factors is often denoted as motivators or satisfactory while the second class of factors is the dissatisfactory. Thus, they are often referred to as the factors serving to prevent dissatisfaction, but with little influence on positive attitudes to work. Satisfaction is important for team and employee performance. If teamwork increases employee’s job satisfaction, then the productivity of the employee will improve (Salas, Gpoodwin & Burke, 2008).
Teamwork is important in every person’s daily lives, though of particular importance if the relevance of the teamwork to businesses and organizations. Many activities of any organization are becoming complex daily due to advanced technology and it therefore calls for teamwork. Not all work employee teams produce good results (Lavon, 2005). Teamwork helps employees to overcome the many obstacles of coordination, role ambiguity, personal conflicts, and free riders among many other problems in an organization. According to Pfaff and Huddleston (2003), there is need for teamwork in all types of organizations including non-profit making organizations. Non-profit making organizations should form groups for teamwork. The teams should be taught how to improve their performance through improved skills. In addition, through teamwork, employees obtain the necessary skills for better individual performance. Chen et al., 2004; Ellis et al., 2005; Lavon, 2005) argue that the skills of a team do not have to be innate. It is possible for team participants to learn the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for working adequately in a team (Fröbel & Marchington, 2005).
There are enough reasons for adoption of teamwork in non-profit making organizations especially regarding performance. According to Gill & Johnson (2006), organizations that have embraced teamwork have recorded increased performance in productivity at work, issues, and problem solving at work and stimulation of new growth in the organization. Group work can increased the morale of employees in the strategic department and make work even harder while affecting the output of the organization positively. Thompson and Thompson (2009) notes that many companies use the self-directed format of teamwork to perform better. In this format, the group leader is either assigned by the management or elected by the members. The leader must be effective for performance and completion of the project at hand.
The success of a team will also depend o the abilities that the individual members have in relation to working in a team. The important skills and abilities for successful group work are ability to a team player and posses the skills and knowledge necessary to complete the assigns tasks. The completion of a task earlier should enable individual members of a team help other teams finish. This calls for a team spirit in the entire workforce of an organization. Where these attributes lack, teamwork flounders and the management must now engage training for the employees to gain the necessary skills and abilities. Despite these few issues, teamwork works perfectly for all types of organizations.
Despite the importance of teamwork in relation to performance, Daniels & Macdonald (2005) admits that it is not easy to teach individuals on how to work in a team. This is because teaching individuals to work in a team goes beyond the limits of any traditionally based training as it involves the training of only the skills that can facilitate teamwork and the internal working of individuals. Teaching teamwork to individuals therefore involves innovative didactic techniques similar to techniques of experimental learning. For delivery of the required results in relation to performance of a team, there is need to specific skills necessary for working in a team (Walburg, 2006). Where such skills are deficient, the employees should be trained on how they can perform better as a team and therefore enable the department meet its set strategic objectives. In particular, Bacon and Blyton (2006) propose the teaching of the self-management team and the interpersonal team skills. These important skills enhance communication and interpersonal relationship in teams while enhancing teamwork and performance. The self-management team skills enable a team to manage its own activities and resources while working within the limits of the organization’s duties (Letts, Ryan & Grossman, 1999).
Despite all the positive importance of teamwork, there are possible negative impacts that can affect the team, employees, their performance, and the organization’s overall performance. This can include the possibility of an increased pace of work and the resulting higher workload and greater risk of health problems. However, the effects lie in the higher demand for performance and corresponding extended responsibilities and autonomy in work teams. The high demand of work with no scope of control for teams and decision making on how the high demand can be met can lead to employees experiencing high levels of stress and work pressure. The experts are divided into two groups with the first group advocating for teamwork for positive impacts in organizations on employees such as reducing the rate of work injuries, fewer absences from work and increased work productivity.
The other group advises against the use of teamwork in organizations arguing that teamwork may have detrimental effects on workers by increasing work-related health problems and the risk of occupational hazards’ (Askenazy, 2001; Brenner, Fairris and Ruser, 2004). The pace of work in the department can be increased though job rotation and greater responsibility of employees for quality of the services offered. The rotation of employees o their jobs and rapid organizational changes that are facilitated by production processes that are flexible can reduce the chances of workers to improve their safety through work routines and learning on the job. According to Donovan (2004), the introduction of new forms of work organization, including teamwork, led to an increased workload and an increase in time pressure caused by a staff shortage and technical problems. The study further note that the introduction of teamwork in organizations is followed by intensified work.
The high intensity of work can cause problems to the strategic department if the enlarged job is not accompanied by a great possibility for control over one’s work. According to Salas, Gpoodwin & Burke, (2008), there is a conflict between the practices in organizations that lead to high performance of employees and work life balance policies. Working as a team in groups plays a larger role in high work demands. People who work in teams think about their work in their free time often than those not working in groups. Therefore, teamwork is not very good for employees’ social life. Basing on these findings, it is important that the strategic department analyses the effects of teamwork both to the strategic department and to the individual employees before adopting teamwork as a strategy for achieving organizational goals.
Teamwork is important in every sector in an organization. Teamwork can enable all types of organizations (both profit and non-profit making) to increase their performance. Through teamwork, employees of non-profit making organizations and the strategic management department can gain morale to work hard and better yielding better performance for the team, the department and the organization. Teamwork can be adopted as a strategy in non-profit making organization to increase the performance of the individual employees and the organization. Effective teamwork should be cultivated in such strategic department through better organizational culture that encourages cooperation and participation. In non-profit organizations without teamwork, employees can be trained to obtain the necessary interpersonal skills for teamwork. It is important that all organizations encourage teamwork because employees cannot work alone in the environment that is full of obstacles and issues. The next chapter will discuss the methodology undertaken by this study.
This research will take a deductive approach that will entail the researcher working from a known hypothesis that teamwork affects positively the employee performance in the strategic management department in ADP. Thus, the study takes a top down approach as compared to the inductive approach that takes an up down strategy. This is illustrated by the figure below.
Fig 3.1
To realize the use deductive approach, quantitative tools of collective and analyzing data like questionnaires and interviews were used. Quantitative tools were preferred as compared to qualitative tools because they enable the researcher to come up with facts like a hypothesis that teamwork can improve the performance of employees in the strategic department of ADP and thereafter testing and confirming the hypothesis. This is unlike qualitative tools that first come up with an abstract idea that is followed by creation of theories and concepts about the idea. Lastly, data in quantitative research is hard and reliable as compared with qualitative research where data that is just rich and deep (Quinn, 2002).
In addition to the above, this study takes a positivism kind of philosophy towards the impact of teamwork o employee performance in strategic management department in ADP. A positivism approach will make us understand more the impact of teamwork on not only employees but also overall organization.
There are two ways to approach any study, either, qualitative or quantitative. However, a study can combine the two approaches by employing both qualitative and quantitative methods. The distinction between these two methods arises in how data is collected, treated, and analyzed.
A study that is quantitative usually makes an emphasis on transforming the data quantities and the models of statistics for purposes of measuring and analyzing data. The research topics in which researchers use this method have clear idea of what they look or search for and tools like questionnaires are used to collect data. Quantitative approach has its focus on the preciseness of data that is seen in terms of measuring data. Quantitative approach to a research involves using statistical data analyses to obtain information about the study simply because the approach is based on measuring the quantity or amount.
On the contrary, a qualitative approach to research makes the researcher to switch his focus to gaining a better understanding of the problem of the research by giving detailed information about the main theme of the study topic. The major goal of a qualitative study is to have a complete and detailed description of the study phenomenon by applying reasoning. Qualitative research involves the use of interviews and observations to collect data and there are no formal measurements involved. Qualitative approach makes the researcher understand the phenomenon under study and be in a position to describe the whole situation as it is. The approach consists of descriptions, quotes, observations, and excerpts from books and other documents (Quinn, p. 2002, p. 308).
This study would like the researcher and the reader to gain a better understanding the adoption of teamwork as a management strategy in the strategic department of ADP. The study will provide a detailed explanation of teamwork, its use, and application in the strategic department of ADP. In order to measure the impacts and importance of teamwork on employee performance and the performance of non-profit making organizations, a quantitative approach to research will applied by the study. This will involve gathering information about teamwork and the performance of individual employees in the strategic management department, the performance of the department and the performance of the whole ADP organization. This approach allows the researcher to use statistical data to analyze the impact of Teamwork on employee performance in the strategic department in ADP.
This study would get to the deeper understanding and knowledge of the impacts of teamwork on employee performance in the strategic management department of ADP. The study also involves investigating the teamwork as a strategy for human resource management in non-profit making organizations.
A case study is a strategy for the research that involves the researcher collecting and making an analysis of data from a given case. In this study, the researcher will use the strategic management department in ADP as the case study for teamwork and employee performance. A case study is relevant as well as useful to the study in all situations that will give rise to different but relevant interpretations to the topic of study. This study only analyzes one mom-profit making strategic department (ADP) as a case for study although there can be many cases. According to Yin (2003, p. 78), a case is a study that is empirical in nature and seeks to investigate the unclear phenomenon. This study will employ an embedded single case study that gives an attention to a single case study for analysis. There could be more chances of comparing several cases but due to time constraints, the researcher will study the impact of teamwork on employee performance in strategic management strategy in ADP (Jankowicz, 2005, p. 234).
A survey is another design that the research uses. A survey is good for this study because it can be administered from any location and large sample are feasible with many questions being asked about the impact of teamwork on employee performance in Strategic department in ADP. In addition to that, the use of surveys makes the researcher employ standard questions that result in uniform definitions and responses from the respondents.
It is important for the researcher to choose relevant data collection methods for the study because they will help him in successful completion of the study. The method that is selected by the researcher will determine how data is collected in the course of research. The various methods of collecting data will vary depending on the approach that the study is using. This study will employ interviews and questionnaires to collects data (Mcneill & Chapman, 2005).
There are also primary and secondary methods of collecting data. Primary are the methods that collect data for the first time while secondary methods are those where the researcher uses data collected by other people. According to Quinn (2002, p. 10), secondary data collection methods refer to the ability of the researcher to carry out an analysis of the data that other researchers have already prepared. This research will use both primary and secondary methods to collect data for the study. The primary sources of data will come from the questionnaires and interviews conducted by the researcher. The secondary sources will include a review of both published and unpublished literature related to the suitability of teamwork for employee performance in non-profit organizations. Primary sources will include the review of the findings from the interviews and responses from respondents from the strategic management department department in ADP (Jain, 2006, p. 376).
The population of the study will comprise of the various people in charge of strategic management department in ADP. It is important that all members of the study population be studied to ascertain the findings of the study. However, due to constraints experienced by the researcher during the study, only 30% of the study population will be studied. Mcneill, and Chapman, (2005, p. 226) argues that the process of sampling involves selecting elements from the study population so that by carrying a study of the sample and having an understanding of the properties of the characteristics of the subjects of the sample, it will be possible to generalize the properties to specific elements in the population.
Sampling techniques that can be used in any research are many and the researcher can choose depending on the goals and objectives of the study. The use of these sampling techniques allows a researcher to choose the sample population from a subset of a large population rather than the whole population reducing the cost of the study. Concerning this study, Stratified random sampling was chosen because it is a probability method that gives every member of the population equal chance of being selected as a sample.
The questions that are commonly used in surveys and questionnaires are usually open ended, closed-ended questions and likert scales. Open ended questions do not always give answers that a respondent can choose from but allow participants to answer freely. On the other hand, closed ended questions provide answers for the respondent to choose from. Likert scale questions requests respondents to respond to the question along a given continuum from the given responses. The questionnaire and questions for interviews that were used in this study, contained question that had the above three structures. The development of the questionnaire considered questions that will give rise to information that is relevant to the importance of teamwork on employee performance in non-profit making organizations.
Responses to the interviews and questionnaires will be analyzed using thematic analysis. This tool is considered to be highly inductive, as themes are not imposed on data by the researcher but rather emerge from the data itself. In this method, data from different people is compared and contrasted, similarities and differences identified in a process that continues until the researcher is satisfied that no more new issues or themes are arising (Flick, et al. 2004). Thematic analysis was chosen because it allows rich, in-depth, and detailed meaning to be derived from the collected data. It involves coding of data according to the emerging themes (Mcneill & Chapman, 2005). Thematic analysis analyses the descriptions line by line, allowing rich in-depth data to be derived from the responses (Russell & Gery, 2009). This tool categorizes the findings and conclusions from various sources according to the emerging themes, making it possible to identify similarities in the meanings and explanations from the various respondents. The researcher is also able to highlight the main issues emerging from the responses. Line by line analysis allows the researcher to highlight matching patterns in the text from the different responses allowing quantification of data (Salkind, 2008).
The performance of any research tool is usually measured in terms of reliability, validity and sensitivity as well as specificity. These concepts will also be applied in this study by the researcher to ascertain the reliability of the study. According to Waliman (2005), reliability is the ability by which a study is able to produce results that are consistent and stable over a given period of time and given similar circumstances (Waliman, 2005). Various types of validities exist that include internal validity and external validity. Internal validity relates to the correlation between items when measured on a scale. Whenever a study provides the same results after the application of two different measures, the outcome is said to be equivalent.
Validity is the extent to which a given instrument is designed to measure. The validity of a study can vary in different samples used. In one situation, a study can be valid while in other scenarios, it may not. The validity of a study is measured by what the study claims to and the availability of logical errors in the conclusions drawn from the study. According to Crotty (2003), internal validity is the extent to which it is possible to make independent reference from the findings of a study especially if the independent variable influences the dependent variable. On the other hand, external validity is the general application of the findings of a study to other settings.
The measurement of the theoretical construct of a study is measured using construct validity while convergent validity makes comparison between the scores that are obtained from different instruments that are used in the study. Unlike convergent validity, divergent validity compares the instruments used in the study that measure concepts that are opposite. Given the above validity and reliability, the study is valid ad reliable for use by any person or strategic department (Waliman, 2005)
This part analyzes the responses from the questions that were used in the questionnaires and interviews. The researcher used these two methods to gather data about the suitability of teamwork as a strategic human resource management tool that can be employed in the strategic human resource management department in ADP. These were used to improve employee performance and the performance of the strategic management department as a nonprofit making organization. To achieve the objectives of the study, the reliability, and validity of data collected was measured. The strategic management department in ADP has six sections with a total population of about 5oo employees. Four managers at the top position of the strategic management department lead the employees in the department. By use of stratified sampling, the researcher selected thirty percent of the employees in the department including the four managers leading the department. The four managers are influential in the strategic management department and are mostly involved in decision making in the strategic department in ADP (Dimmock, 1998). However, a lot of care was taken to ensure that there was proper representation to avoid bias. The researcher interviewed the four managers and ten more employees while the rest of the respondents were sent questionnaires to fill through the research assistants in the field. The researcher did the distribution of the questionnaires to his representatives on the ground to ensure that the research is completed in time (Heart, et al., 2001). Therefore, only 14 interviews were conducted with the rest of the 136 respondents filling the questionnaires and returning them to the respondent.
Out of the 136 questionnaires that were distributed to the respondents, only 118 were returned to the researcher. When added to the 14 interviews conducted by the researcher, it sums up to 132 responses, which represent 88%. The questionnaires that were used had both open-ended questions and likert scale questions. All questions were analyzed except those questions that were poorly or wrongly answered. All responses from all types of questions will be analyzed beginning with responses from likert scale questions. The eight likert-scale questions were rated using a likert scale of 1-5. The analysis that was done was based on the objectives of the study.
#
Question
SA
A
Ave
D
SD
Total
5
4
3
2
1
Q1
How would you rate the level of your organization’s teamwork?
43
28
23
27
15
136
Q2
Do you cooperate with or do your colleagues cooperate with you while on duty? To what extent?
52
18
22
20
25
136
Q3
In order to encourage teamwork and cooperation, there is need for communication. How do you rate the level of communication within ADP? Are you able to directly communicate to your boss in case of difficulty or any other issue in the organization?
27
37
36
19
17
136
Q4
How would you rate the degree of resource commitment in relation to the development and encouragement of teamwork in ADP?
24
18
19
33
42
136
Q5
What was the role of formulating teamwork strategy and methods of Strategic management in relation to employee performance?
45
37
23
15
16
136
Q6
Please rate the importance of teamwork on employee performance
41
48
20
16
11
136
Q7
On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 represents ‘extremely satisfied’ and 4 represents ‘extremely dissatisfied’ How would you rate your level of overall satisfaction with teamwork and cooperation within ADP?
20
23
46
27
20
136
Q8
How likely are you to recommend teamwork strategy as a strategic management strategy to a friendly non-profit making organization in another industry? Do you think the chances are?
This research was conducted on the basis that the adoption of teamwork in the strategic management department of ADP will affect positively the performance of the employees in the department and the ADP as a nonprofit making organization. This hypothesis can be tested using the response to the questions asked in the questionnaire and interviews conducted by the researcher (Gorelick, Milton & April, 2004). The means of the values for each response was obtained from the rating that corresponded to that of the likert scale. The mean weights (were ranging from 1-5) were multiplied to give rise to percentages. The weighted averages were used to test the study hypothesis that the adoption of teamwork in the department of strategic human resource management in ADP would transform the performance of the department positively. This is illustrated below.
#
Question
SA
A
Ave
D
SD
average
5
4
3
2
1
Q1
How would you rate the level of your organization’s teamwork?
34%
20%
16%
19%
11%
2.9
Q2
Do you cooperate with or do your colleagues cooperate with you while on duty? To what extent?
38%
13%
16%
15%
18%
2.8
Q3
In order to encourage teamwork and cooperation, there is need for communication. How do you rate the level of communication within ADP? Are you able to directly communicate to your boss in case of difficulty or any other issue in the organization?
19%
28%
14%
12%
27%
3.0
Q4
How would you rate the degree of resource commitment in relation to the development and encouragement of teamwork in ADP?
18%
13%
14%
24%
31%
2.9
Q5
What was the role of formulating teamwork strategy and methods of Strategic management in relation to employee performance?
33%
27%
17%
11%
12%
3.1
Q6
Please rate the importance of teamwork on employee performance.
30%
35%
15%
12%
8%
3.0
Q7
On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 represents ‘extremely satisfied’ and 4 represents ‘extremely dissatisfied’ How would you rate your level of overall satisfaction with teamwork and cooperation within ADP?
15%
17%
34%
19%
15%
2.8
Q8
How likely are you to recommend teamwork strategy as a strategic management strategy to a friendly non-profit making organization in another industry? Do you think the chances are?
30%
35%
15%
11%
9%
The discussion of the findings of this study will be conducted in the next section.
This question requested respondents to indicate whether there are good employee relations in strategic management department with full mutual respect and cooperation among employees and managers. Many respondents indicated that there were good employee relations in the organization. The employee relationship enjoyed was because of better communication and sharing in the department. This has encouraged sharing and consultation, while increasing the learning environment in the department. The end result if teamwork. The few respondents who argued that the employee relations were not goods was because the sectors they worked did not involve much consultations and therefore less teamwork. Moreover, they noted that teamwork increases the pace of work leading to higher workload with less autonomy on how the work is to be performed. Thus, the discussion on how work is to be performed is limited reducing the employee relations.
This part of the study concerns the incidence of teamwork on employee autonomy. The questions inquired whether teamwork increases the autonomy of employees in decision making concerning their work. According to De Vita and Fleming (2001), team autonomy is the possibility of a team to participate in the decision-making process in relation to their work, methods of work, work time organization (Schedules) and assessment of work done quality. However, this study focused on the autonomy of the individual rather than that of the team. Various types of teamwork generally differentiate according to the autonomy of individual members within the team and the autonomy of the team as a whole, including its participation in the decision-making process within the strategic department in ADP ’s organizational structure (Dackert, Lööv & Mårtensson, 2004).
Lean production emphasizes on the advantages of running production with the lowest possible level of inventories, very low defects and limited vertical integration. The respondents indicated that the teams could be homogenously composed, as different jobs do not require extensive formal training and employees can be exchanged relatively easily. Teams can also be organized in relation to socio-technical principles such as an autonomous group. A socio-technical team is a group of employees with 4-20 persons, responsible for a complete part of the production process and entitled to take certain decisions autonomously (Gorelick, Milton & April, 2004). The respondents pointed out that they decided the roles and responsibilities to suit the task and individual needs.
The respondents noted that they are able to choose their tasks depending on the team they are placed. The different teams perform different functions and it is the reason as to the ability to choose tasks depending in the team. Therefore, the use of teamwork increases autonomy in the employee decisions concerning the work. Though the impact of teamwork on autonomy is positive, Flin and Maran (2004) argues that the autonomy of the team or work group may conflict with the autonomy of the individual worker. The control of quality, planning, and the delegation of responsibilities does not automatically increase the autonomy of employees. The organization of a team can lead to increased workload while intensifying the work without the control of employees over their work (Stanton, 2005).
According to Pedler et al (1989), a learning organization is an organization that ‘facilitates and promotes the education of all its members and systematically transforms itself. It has always been assumed that teamwork creates an environment for shared responsibility, knowledge, and both continuous professional and personal development of employees. The learning environment aided by teamwork was measured by the question, Over the past 12 months, have you undergone training paid for or provided by your employer to improve your skills or not? Does your main paid job involve, or not, learning new things? The analysis of data from the respondents confirmed that working in a team is associated with an environment typified by the possibility to learn new things and perform complex tasks.
Basing on the above figure, the employees who work in a team are more likely to learn new things than those working as individuals on their own. This was confirmed at the level of both the managers of ADP and the employees in the Strategic management department in ADP. The above figure also shows that the management is 13% points more likely to learn new things at work than those not working in teams. Similarly, in the employees, the difference between team workers learning new things and non-team workers learning new things reaches 15 percentage points (‘Teamwork,’ 2007.)
This section seeks to clarify the relationship between teamwork and job satisfaction as found out from the study. It examines whether workers are satisfied with a team-based way of working, the association between overall job satisfaction and teamwork, and whether teamwork increases overall job satisfaction. As noted in the literature review, teamwork theorists have a belief that working together as a team with a common goal, autonomy in their decision-making and responsibility and support makes teamwork becomes a valuable experience for the workers involved. The hypothesis tested is that working in a team increases job satisfaction. The question asked to test this hypothesis is that On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 represents ‘extremely satisfied’ and 4 represents ‘extremely dissatisfied’ How would you rate your level of overall satisfaction with teamwork and cooperation within ADP?
According to Kapucu, Maria-Elena and Krause (2007), for employees to be satisfied with the job they perform, there must be two factors that are fully fulfilled. They are the satisfactory and the dissatisfactory. All these are described in the literature review. The job satisfaction min this study is with regard to dissatisfactory. The figure below shows the satisfaction of work and the working conditions.
34% of the respondents pointed out that they were satisfied with their jobs with the dissatisfied group forming 49% of the study outcome. The satisfied respondents pointed out that it is through teamwork that they were able to get motivated on performing of their duties. In addition, they indicated that teamwork helps them learn new skills pertaining their jobs as well as being able to consult when facing difficulties in performing their tasks. This has made work not only easier but also enjoyable. Contrary, those who indicated that they were not satisfied by their work were mainly employees of the department who worked as individuals and not in any team. The usually worked on their own with no or little consultation (Scroggs, 2000). This makes their work harder because it is not easy to consult or even talk to their managers for help due to bureaucracy.
The satisfaction measured in this study was in terms of the work itself, the relations between employees and their managers, the salaries and promotions options. Many employees pointed out that the channels to promotions are high if the work of employees is satisfactory. The salary is in accordance with the job group of the employee while there are bonuses and appreciations for exemplary work done by an employee.
These section discuses the findings on the challenges of teamwork as experienced by employees in the department of strategic management in ADP. Teamwork increases increase the pace at which employees are to work. The consequence is that the workload on employees is increased. Other problems are higher demands on performance and corresponding extended responsibilities and autonomy in teams. The increased demand on teams does not allow the team participants to have a scope of control and decision making on how work should be done in order to meet the high demands. The outcome of this is increased stress and work related pressure (Cullingworth, 2001, Martocchio & Frink, 1994).
These findings are in accordance with the findings in a case study conducted in Austria in 1994 in which new forms of organization was introduced. The findings from the case study were that the introduction of new forms of work organization, including teamwork, could lead to an increased workload and an increase in time pressure caused by a staff shortage and technical problems (Sala, Druskat & Mount, 2006). Despite the challenges pointed out by the respondents, mainly employees, the management maintained that the distribution of work tasks between members of a team does not contribute to the subjective feeling that there is insufficient time to do the work, nor does it help to improve this situation (Rupar & Rupar, n.d). This is responsible for the 11% of the respondents in the figure below.
It is not easy for teamwork to exist alone. It must be accompanied by other values and culture of the organization. The encouragement of teamwork in an organization requires adequate communication. In this regard, the study sought to find out the level of communication in Strategic department in ADP. The respondents responded by noting that while strategic management department encourages dialogue, there are some sectors that communication is not common. In such sectors, the level of teamwork is minimal as compared to other areas in the department. Consequently, the sectors whose employees do work as a team do not have improved employee performance. This can be shown in the figure below where 27% respondents pointed out that they were not satisfied with the level of communication in the department since their sectors were not working as a team. This is a small margin as compared to the 73% of respondents who indicated that they were satisfied with the level of communication and teamwork in the department.
The department has a wornderful culture that encourrges teamwork. The managers pointed out that teamwork is encourages through appreciations, promotions, training programs and jpob rotation.
This section sought to find out the impact of teamwork on employee performance hence the performance of employees. The performance of employees is measured in terms of the work done and completed by an employee satisfactorily. In addition, the performance of non-profit organizations is measured in financial performance of the organizations and effective service delivery to the public. ADP is a non-profit organization that provides services to the community. The performance of employees in the strategic management department is measured by the effective service delivery both top the public ad to fellow employees in the entire organization.
Respondents noted that the teamwork is effective on their performance. Their managers who noted that teamwork encourages employees to work together as a team acknowledged their responses. The discouraged employees are encouraged by their colleagues while consultation and learning in teams enables those who do not know how to perform group tasks perfect on their skills. In addition, conflicts are resolved without many problems. The result is improved employees performance in terms of service delivery to the public and to the whole ADP organization. The managers of the strategic management department in the strategic department pointed out that the improvement in the performance of employees in the department significantly affected the delivery of services of the organization to the public (Anheier, 2000). Since the department realized that teamwork improves the employee performance, they influenced other departments in ADP to adopt teamwork in order to improve service delivery. This has significantly improved the services delivery of ADP as noted by the managers.
The figure above indicates that only 20% of the respondents indicated that their performance had not improved due to teamwork. It should however be known that the respondents were working in sub-sectors if the department in which employees work individually and they therefore did not realize the importance of teamwork.
The study analyzed the importance of teamwork as a strategic management strategy in the strategic management department in ADP on employee performance. Strategic management department is charged with making strategic decisions regarding the performance of the ADP as a non-profit making organization. The department makes strategic decisions for the organization. The study sought to find out the importance of teamwork as one of the strategies to be employed by the department by asking the overall satisfaction with teamwork and whether other departments in the organization and other non-profit organizations should employ it as well.
The respondents were quick to acknowledge the importance of teamwork to the service delivery of the strategic management department and the ADP. Only 20% o the respondents did not acknowledge the importance of teamwork as a strategy to be adopted in the department and organization in order to improve employee performance. They attributed their refusal to the challenges that come with teamwork like increased work, work related stress and reduced autonomy. Moreover, most of the most of those respondents who refused were form sectors in the departments where teamwork was not practiced. The rest of the respondents indicated the importance of teamwork to their performance in terms of service delivery, the department, and the organization.
This study has reviewed the literature on the importance of teamwork as an important strategy to be employed in the strategic management department in ADP. Teamwork involves grouping employees and assigning them specific tasks. The effect is improved quality of output, though there are some few negative consequences such as increased work pace, workload, and pressure to meet deadlines. However, the major objective of improving employee performance is already met. This chapter provides a conclusion of the findings of the study and the conclusion.
Teamwork, as an important instrument of new forms of work organization, is essentially a specific organizational measure that may display many different features in all organizations including non-profit organizations. The incidence of teamwork as recorded by the subjective reporting of employees and managers in strategic management department in ADP can be predicted. One factor indicating the incidence of teamwork is the historical context of the introduction of new forms of work organization. The organization of teamwork is particularly characteristic for the service sector especially in non-profit making organizations that provide services to the public such as the ADP. Teamwork is also dominant in many large organizations with many employees (Thamhain, 2008).
According to most experts, teamwork should contribute to a better quality of working life for employees, as well as improving not only their productivity, but also the productivity if the organization. Employee autonomy is considered an important attribute of the quality of work. However, the results of this study identify decisive findings in this regard. Data analysis did reveal a clear-cut positive correlation between the presence of teamwork and increased autonomy. The responses from the respondents of the study indicated that the employees in the strategic management who were working in teams were able to choose their own working methods to accomplish the tasks assigned. It is clear that the level of teamwork in the department directly influences the degree of employee autonomy. It could be presumed that team workers will be more autonomous workers due to their higher concentration on their professions like accountants, senior officials and managers (Hvenegaard, Jessen & Hasle, 2003). The analysis of data shows that employees in most subsectors in the strategic department display greater autonomy though there are some employees still in the department that do not show any autonomy since there is no teamwork.
5.2.2 Objective 2
An examination of the data reveals that, in the case of the opportunity for choosing work methods and pace of work, team workers in the strategic department of ADP have a significantly higher autonomy than employees choose in the same department not working as a team. The possibility of learning new things in one’s job also improves the quality of working life and therefore the quality of output. In this case, it can be stated categorically that teamwork contributes to employees’ personal and professional growth. In the Strategic department in ADP under study, team workers have a greater chance of learning new things and taking part in training paid for by the employer than employees not working in teams have. Teamwork is thus clearly positive in this respect and contributes to the learning environment in an organization. The learning received by employees in turn contributes the quality of work done and the employee performance.
Satisfaction with working conditions is another indicator of the quality of working life. Team workers display greater satisfaction than employees not working in teams do in the strategic department in ADP. Employees not working in teams are not satisfied. Besides positive impacts on the individual’s working life, such as a more developed learning environment, teamwork also has positive aspects. The need to boost productivity and performance, which is usually the primary objective of any organization when introducing new forms of work organization, often demands increased pace of work and greater work intensity. Working in a team generally means a higher pace of work and working to tight deadlines in the Strategic department. Most respondents argued that increased work intensity and work pressure have a negative impact on employees’ health and private social life. In conclusion, the findings from the study point out that teamwork can take the form of improved employee performance and organizational performance since quality products are manufactured.
5.2.3 Objective 3
The increased pace of work, work increased autonomy teamwork affects the quality of output for individual employees positively. The employees will deliver services effectively to the public and the ADP organization. Increased employee quality also improves the performance of the strategic department and the ADP organization. The strategic department acts as a good practice for teamwork with greater autonomy for employees, better access to training and learning new things pertaining the work (Sewell, 2005). In addition, employees in the strategic department in ADP were more satisfied with their work as they worked as a team as well as working conditions. These factors also contribute to improved employee efficiency in non-profit making organization like the ADP and specifically to the strategic department in the organization. Despite the positive impacts of teamwork on employees, many respondents indicated that teamwork affected their social and private life negatively as well as their health. This is because of increased pace of work and workload that comes with stress to meet deadlines in the delivery of services. However, the management emphasizes that teamwork is effective in improving the performance of employees and should be adopted in other departments of ADP, despite the negative effects on employees as pointed above.
This study has been evaluating the success of teamwork on the improvement of employee performance in the strategic management department in ADP. The study has established that teamwork is important and it affects the performance of employees positively. The performance of employees is positively affected because of the learning environment created by teamwork. Employees are able to increase their skills and ability to perform tasks. The increased skills can increase the quality of work performed by the employees. In addition, teamwork increases the pace of work thus making employee to do more work leading to increased output. Despite the increased level of quality work performed by employees, there are negative effects such as increased workload and work related pressure resulting from pressure to meet deadlines. This section provides the following recommend in additions to the strategic management department in ADP on how it can effectively improve on the effects of teamwork on the performance of employees. The following recommendations are good to be implemented.
6.1 Recommendation 1
The strategic management department is in the ADP organization, which mainly provides services to the public. The department requires improving its service provision to the public. This can be achieved through teamwork in the organization. Therefore, this study proposes the improvement of teamwork in the strategic department in ADP and thereafter the adoption of teamwork to the ADP organization to improve the employee performance and organization’s performance in service delivery. The strategic department should advise the management in ADP to employ the teamwork as a strategy to improve the performance of employees.
6.2 Recommendation 2
Teamwork as employed in the department of strategic management is effective in improving employee performance through the increase of pace of work in teams and the learning environment. However, it has some negative effects that respondents complained of including increased workload and work related stress resulting from increased pace of work, work, and pressure to meet deadlines. To reduce the pressure on meeting deadlines, the management should include training sessions to increase learning and modes of performing the various tasks. With experience, the employees will get used to working in a team yet performing well.
6.3 Recommendation 3
Few respondents indicated that teamwork was not improving their performance. Many of the respondents were not working as a team since there was little consultation. This study recommends that the management of the strategic department ensure that teamwork is employed in all sectors of the department for effective outcome.
To improve the outcome of teamwork and eliminate the negative comments, the management in the strategic department should initiate the reward system to the exemplary teams. Recognition of efforts will not only motivate the team participants, but it will also create a sense of competitiveness in the department making every member active. The overall effect is the improved performance of the employees and the department. Though the organization is a non-profit making organization, there should be some funds set aside specifically to motivate the employees in various teams in the strategic department in ADP (Jessen & Hvenegaard, 2000). 6.4 Recommendation 4
Communications is very important in the success of teamwork. The organization culture in the ADP and specifically the strategic management department should encourage communication among managers and employees. Communication will enhance the learning environment while strengthening the relations between employees and the management. Effective communication encourages consultations as a crisis and problem solving. In addition, employees will actively participate in brainstorming debates that will yield to better strategic decisions in the department and in the ADPO organization.
6.5 Recommendation 5
In addition to brainstorming debates, effective communication in the organization will ensure that the management obtains the feedback on every issue in the department and in the organization on service delivery. The availability of feedback will enable the management to know the level of satisfaction with service delivery and therefore develop the necessary strategies to improve where they have failed (Benton, 2005).
6.6 Recommendation 6
The outstanding members of teams in the department should be provided with new opportunities in the department or in the organization. This is done in order to keep the most effective team members. This can be through undertaking long terms planning of the employees’ future career plans. Each individual employee should be shown how their career goals could help the department and the organization (ADP) in the achievement of its long-term goals. Moreover, the management should create an organizational environment that is rich in creativity, openness, and energy.
6.7 Conclusion
These recommendations will no doubt steer the increased and improved performance of the strategic department in ADP and the overall performance of the organization in service delivery.
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“The gold standard for defining quality measurement remains Donabedian’s three-element model of structure, process, and outcome” (Varkey, p. 30).
Although this model of quality measurement may apply to all kinds of clinical care facilities, you will focus on hospitals for this assignment so that you can make use of data on the CMS’s “Hospital Compare” Web site. Using this Web site, you will examine quality information for a particular hospital, and conduct some basic benchmarking analysis.
◦Click on the links at the right titled “learn about the new organization of our Hospital Compare Measures” and review them briefly.
On the top left there is another tap titled “About Hospital Compare Data” that Shows information on Process of Care Measures, Outcome of Care Measures, and Outpatient Imaging Efficiency Measures.
As you consider this information, bring to mind the six dimensions of quality: Safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity. Search…through step 3.
For the purposes of this assignment, go back to the 1st page and select a hospital by either entering the zip code for the hospital or the name of the hospital. When you’ve done that and clicked on Show Hospitals, you should have hospitals that you can compare. Follow the directions to review Patient Survey Results (HCAHPS survey results), Timely and Effective Care or Readmissions, Complications and Deaths.
Consider which organizations are most appropriate to compare for benchmarking purposes. Use the Hospital Compare website and compare your primary hospital’s data with data from another hospital – either one in the same area or one across the country, as you think appropriate.
After comparing the data, assess which measures you think are of the greatest concern and in need of improvement in your primary/original hospital. What is your rationale for this assessment? Select two or three measures to focus on for this assignment. Consider which dimensions of quality they relate to (safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and/or equity).
Review this week’s Learning Resources, new the hospital’s Web site, and consider what other steps you would take to get a clearer picture of these quality issues.
The Assignment Write a paper on the following (Make sure keep the heading as bold and write the information under the heading)
Write a 1- to 2-page paper that addresses the following:
Identify the primary hospital you have selected.
Identify the measures you have chosen to focus on (those that are most in need of improvement or that otherwise warrant attention). Compare and contrast the characteristics of structure, process, and outcome measures, and explain which category or categories your chosen measure relates to. Also, indicate the dimensions of quality with which these measures are associated.
Briefly summarize the data, including your benchmarking analysis.
Analyze the benefits and challenges of externally reported measures for health care providers and for patients. Also, explain why benchmarking can be useful for identifying areas for improvement.
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Review the performance dashboard for a health care organization, as well as relevant local, state, and federal laws and policies. Then, write a report for senior leaders in the organization that communicates your analysis and evaluation of the current state of organizational performance, including a recommended metric to target for improvement.IntroductionNote: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.In the era of health care reform, many of the laws and policies set by government at the local, state, and federal levels have specific performance benchmarks related to care delivery outcomes that organizations must achieve. It is critical for organizational success that the interprofessional care team is able to understand reports and dashboards that display the metrics related to performance and compliance benchmarks.Maintaining standards and promoting quality in modern health care are crucial, not only for the care of patients, but also for the continuing success and financial viability of health care organizations. In the era of health care reform, health care leaders must understand what quality care entails and how quality in health care connects to the standards set by relevant federal, state, and local laws and policies. An understanding of relevant benchmarks that result from these laws and policies, and how they relate to quality care and regulatory standards, is also vitally important.Health care is a dynamic, complex, and heavily regulated industry. For this reason, you will be expected to constantly scan the external environment for emerging laws, new regulations, and changing industry standards. You may discover that as new policies are enacted into law, ambiguity in interpretation of various facets of the law may occur. Sometimes, new laws conflict with preexisting laws and regulations, or unexpected implementation issues arise, which may warrant further clarification from lawmakers. Adding partisan politics and social media to the mix can further complicate understanding of the process and buy in from stakeholders.How many health care laws can you name that affect your practice in your current or future workplace? How do they impact your daily work? How many regulatory agencies oversee the types of services your health care organization provides? Which regulatory agencies apply to your workplace setting? Are you familiar with the process of complying with those agencies in order to maintain certification? You might be overwhelmed as you consider these broad questions.Demonstration of ProficiencyBy successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:Competency 1: Analyze the effects of health care policies, laws, and regulations on organizations, interprofessional teams, and personal practice.Analyze challenges that meeting prescribed benchmarks can pose for a heath care organization or an interprofessional team.Competency 3: Lead the development and implementation of ethical and culturally sensitive policies that improve health outcomes for individuals, organizations, and populations.Advocate for ethical action in addressing a benchmark underperformance, directed toward an appropriate group of stakeholders.Competency 4: Evaluate relevant indicators of performance, such as benchmarks, research, and best practices, for health care policies and law for patients, organizations, and populations.Evaluate dashboard metrics with regard to benchmarks set by local, state, or federal health care policies or laws.Evaluate a benchmark underperformance in a heath care organization or an interprofessional team that has the potential for greatly improving overall quality or performance.Competency 6: Apply various methods of communicating with policy makers, stakeholders, colleagues, and patients to ensure that communication in a given situation is professional, clear, efficient, and effective.Communicate evaluation and analysis in a professional and effective manner, writing content clearly and logically, with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.Integrate relevant sources to support arguments, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style.PreparationFor this assessment, you may choose one of the following three options for a performance dashboard to use as the basis for your benchmark evaluation.Option 1: Dashboard and Health Care Benchmark Evaluation SimulationYou may use the data presented in the Dashboard and Health Care Benchmark Evaluation media piece as the basis for your assessment submission.If you decide to use the simulation dashboard for your evaluation, review the dashboard, as well as relevant local, state, and federal laws and policies. Consider the metrics within the dashboard that are falling short of the prescribed benchmarks.Option 2: Actual Dashboard From a Professional Practice SettingIf you choose an actual dashboard from a professional practice setting for your evaluation, be sure to add a brief description of the organization and setting that includes:The size of the facility that the dashboard is reporting on.The specific type of care delivery.The population diversity and ethnicity demographics.The socioeconomic level of the population served by the organization.Note: Ensure that your data is Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant. Do not use any easily identifiable organization or patient information.Option 3: Hypothetical Dashboard Based on a Professional Practice SettingIf you have a sophisticated understanding of dashboards that are relevant to your own practice, you may also construct a hypothetical dashboard for your evaluation, based on that setting. Your hypothetical dashboard must present at least four different metrics, at least two of which must be underperforming the relevant benchmark set forth by a federal, state, or local laws or policies. In addition, be sure to add a brief description of the organization and setting that includes:The size of the facility that the dashboard is reporting on.The specific type of care delivery.The population diversity and ethnicity demographics.The socioeconomic level of the population served by the organization.Note: Ensure that your data is HIPAA compliant. Do not use any easily identifiable organization or patient information.InstructionsStructure your report in such a way that it would be easy for a colleague or supervisor to locate the information they need. Be sure to cite relevant local, state, or federal health care laws or policies when evaluating metric performance against prescribed benchmarks. Cite an additional 2–4 credible sources to support your analysis and evaluation of the challenges in meeting the benchmarks, the potential for performance improvement, and your advocacy for ethical action.You may wish to review the Dashboard Benchmark Evaluation Example [DOC] for additional support in planning and developing your submission for this assessment.Note: The tasks outlined below correspond to grading criteria in the scoring guide.In your report, be sure to:Evaluate dashboard metrics against the benchmarks set by local, state, or federal health care laws or policies.Which metrics are below the mandated benchmarks in the organization? Evaluate weaknesses within the entire set of benchmarks.What are the local, state, or federal health care laws or policies that set these benchmarks?Analyze challenges that meeting prescribed benchmarks can pose for the organization or for an interprofessional team.What are the specific challenges or opportunities that the organization or interprofessional team might have in meeting the benchmarks? For example, consider:The strategic direction of the organization.The organization’s mission.Available resources:Staffing.Operational and capital funding.Physical space.Support services (any ancillary department that supports a specific care unit in the organization, such as a pharmacy, cleaning services, and dietary services).Cultural diversity in the organization.Cultural diversity in the community.Organizational processes and procedures.How might these challenges be contributing to benchmark underperformance?Evaluate a benchmark underperformance in the organization or interprofessional team that has the potential for greatly improving overall quality or performance.Which metric is underperforming its benchmark by the greatest degree?Which benchmark underperformance is the most widespread throughout the organization or interprofessional team?Which benchmark affects the greatest number of patients?Which benchmark affects the greatest number of staff?How does this underperformance affect the community the organization serves?Where is the greatest opportunity for improvement in the overall quality or performance of the organization or interpersonal team—and ultimately in patient outcomes?Advocate for ethical action in addressing the benchmark underperformance that has the potential for greatly improving overall quality or performance.At which group of stakeholders should your advocacy be directed? Which group could be expected to take the appropriate action to improve the benchmark metric?What are some ethical actions that the stakeholder group could take that support improved benchmark performance?Why should the stakeholder group take action?Communicate your findings and recommendations in a professional and effective manner.Ensure that your report is well organized and easy to read.Write clearly and logically, using correct grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.Integrate relevant sources to support your arguments, correctly formatting source citations and references using current APA style.Did you cite relevant local, state, or federal health care laws or policies when discussing the mandated benchmarks?Did you cite an additional 2–4 credible sources to support your analysis, evaluation, and advocacy?Additional RequirementsStructure: Include a reference page.Length: 2–5 pages should be sufficient for presenting a thorough and concise evaluation, not including any pages for presenting your data and your reference page.References: Cite 2-4 current scholarly or professional resources.Format: Use APA style for references and citations.You may wish to refer to the following APA resources to help with your structure, formatting, and style:APA Style and Format.APA Paper Tutorial.APA Paper Template.Font: Times New Roman font, 12 point, double-spaced for narrative portions only.Grading Rubric:1) Evaluate dashboard metrics with regard to benchmarks set by local, state, or federal health care policies or laws.Passing Grade: Evaluates dashboard metrics with regard to benchmarks set by local, state, or federal health care policies or laws, and identifies knowledge gaps, unknowns, missing information, unanswered questions, or areas of uncertainty (where further information could improve the evaluation).2) Analyze challenges that meeting prescribed benchmarks can pose for a heath care organization or an interprofessional team.Passing Grade: Analyzes challenges that meeting prescribed benchmarks can pose for a heath care organization or an interprofessional team, and identifies assumptions on which the analysis is based.3) Evaluate a benchmark underperformance in a heath care organization or an interprofessional team that has the potential for greatly improving overall quality or performance.Passing Grade: Evaluates a benchmark underperformance in a heath care organization or an interprofessional team that has the potential for greatly improving overall quality or performance; defends reasoning for selecting this benchmark over another with similar potential for improvement.4) Advocate for ethical action in addressing a benchmark underperformance, directed toward an appropriate group of stakeholders.Passing Grade: Advocates for ethical action in addressing a benchmark underperformance, directed toward an appropriate group of stakeholders, and recommends criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the recommended action.5) Communicate evaluation and analysis in a professional and effective manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.Passing Grade: The evaluation and analysis are professional, effective, and insightful; the content is clear, logical, and persuasive; grammar, punctuation, and spelling are without errors.6) Integrate relevant sources to support arguments, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style.Passing Grade: Integrates relevant sources to support arguments, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style. Citations are free from all errors.
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The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
In this , you will propose a quality improvement initiative from your place of employment that could easily be implemented if approved. Assume you are presenting this program to the board for approval of funding. Write an executive summary (750-1,000 ) to present to the board, from which the board will make its decision to fund your program or project. Include the following:
The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
The target population or audience.
The benefits of the quality improvement initiative.
The interprofessional collaboration that would be required to implement the quality improvement initiative.
The cost or budget justification.
The basis upon which the quality improvement initiative will be evaluated.
The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
You are required to cite a minimum of three peer-reviewed sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years, appropriate for the assignment criteria, and relevant to nursing practice.
The purpose of the quality improvement initiative.
Prepare this according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.
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Include a brief statement about your commitment to being a leader in your field.Describe a possible project which could contribute to the improvement of a health care practice or system..
Include a brief statement about your commitment to being a leader in your field.Describe a possible project which could contribute to the improvement of a health care practice or system. Indicate a particular area of interest that you believe can be improved as a result of your completion of a practice-focused doctoral project.Use this essay as an opportunity to communicate to the Admission Committee your goals as a nurse-midwife or nurse practitioner for changing healthcare, improving the delivery of care for rural and underserved populations, improving current practice. Please write a well-crafted statement about your desire to become a nurse-midwife or a nurse practitioner. Include information about yourself and your professional goals as a nurse-midwife or nurse practitioner. Please type separately and limit yourself to 300-500 words.Essay 1 – Goal Statement Essay:Include with your application materials a brief statement about your commitment to being a leader in your fieldDescribe a possible project which could contribute to the improvement of a health care practice or system. Indicate a particular area of interest that you believe can be improved as a result of your completion of a practice-focused doctoral project.Use this essay as an opportunity to communicate to the Admission Committee your goals as a nurse-midwife or nurse practitioner for changing healthcare, improving the delivery of care for rural and underserved populations, improving current practice.
Record of experimental work with the correct structure including results and conclusions. Evaluation of performance including suggestions for improvement..
Record of experimental work with the correct structure including results, and conclusions. Evaluation of performance including suggestions for improvement.
Brief: There are two key ways in which you will be assessed in this assignment: the first is your conduct and practice in the laboratory and the second is the record you make of this practical experience. During the practical elements of the assignment you will be given the challenge of cloning a gene by PCR, ligation into plasmid vector DNA, amplification in bacteria, purification and then sequencing and an analysis of the sequence data. You are required to submit a record of your experimental work where you will use the standard scientific report structure namely a title, brief introduction, health and safety considerations, method, the results you obtain and appropriate conclusions. You are also required at the end of each piece of experimental work to analyse your performance and suggest areas for improvement. The title, introduction (for the most part), health and safety considerations and method will be given to you and so the marks for the write up will be gained by fully presenting and interpreting your results and using additional research to inform that interpretation and the process of drawing conclusions. Research will also need to be used to inform your analysis of your performance in order to provide you with the information required to suggest ways in which the outcome could have been improved upon. Assessment Criteria: 1.  Demonstration of technical skills during practical work in the laboratory (30%) 2.  Record of experimental work with the correct structure including results, and conclusions. (35%) 3.  Evaluation of performance including suggestions for improvement. (25%) Identification of relevant texts which the report will refer to using the Harvard referencing system outlined in the assignment handbook. (10%) Word count: 2000 (for results, conclusions and analysis) I HAVE INCLUDED A FILE called notes that will tell you know how to structure this paper, I will update this file soon to include results in note form for you to make sense off and write up. The writer must be English as it is to be written in English, not American or Chinese English. Would rather that not so many American (uni/college) websites were referenced either, I hope you know what I mean by this. HAVE INCLUDED ANOTHER FILE called example of a past paper that shows what harvard referencing should look like called EXAMPLE PLEASE LOOK AT THIS. YOU MUST LOOK AT JOURNALS FOR THIS. Where possible reference from up to date journals (from the last four years) and reference from the suggested reading list at the bottom of the instructions. As a rule use around 1 reference (from different sources) for every 100 words, use journals mainly, up to date books and try to stay away from webpages. Assignment Title: Practical demonstration of molecular biology techniques including laboratory report Learning Outcomes: 2.  Demonstrate the ability to apply underpinning theory to current methods and techniques used in recombinant DNA technology and genetic engineering. 4.  Demonstrate technical proficiency in molecular biological techniques. Rationale: Recombinant DNA techniques form the toolkit of the modern molecular biologist. These techniques have allowed scientists to investigate the complex workings of cells and organisms and also to develop medicines, therapies and genetically modified organisms. This assignment provides the opportunity for students to practice some of these techniques and develop useful practical skills. The assignment also provides the opportunity for the student to record, analyse, interpret and reflect upon this practical experience. Brief: There are two key ways in which you will be assessed in this assignment: the first is your conduct and practice in the laboratory and the second is the record you make of this practical experience. During the practical elements of the assignment you will be given the challenge of cloning a gene by PCR, ligation into plasmid vector DNA, amplification in bacteria, purification and then sequencing and an analysis of the sequence data. You are required to submit a record of your experimental work where you will use the standard scientific report structure namely a title, brief introduction, health and safety considerations, method, the results you obtain and appropriate conclusions. You are also required at the end of each piece of experimental work to analyse your performance and suggest areas for improvement. The title, introduction (for the most part), health and safety considerations and method will be given to you and so the marks for the write up will be gained by fully presenting and interpreting your results and using additional research to inform that interpretation and the process of drawing conclusions. Research will also need to be used to inform your analysis of your performance in order to provide you with the information required to suggest ways in which the outcome could have been improved upon. Assessment Criteria: 4.  Demonstration of technical skills during practical work in the laboratory (30%) 5.  Record of experimental work with the correct structure including results, and conclusions. (35%) 6.  Evaluation of performance including suggestions for improvement. (25%) Identification of relevant texts which the report will refer to using the Harvard referencing system outlined in the assignment handbook. (10%) Word count: 2000 (for results, conclusions and analysis) Format: All text should be fully justified, size 12 Arial font, with 1.5 line spacing, and normal margins. The report should contain page numbers and a header indicating your name, the module code and the assignment title. You must include a completed assignment submission cover sheet. Reference relevant sources in the referencing style as described in Pears and Shields (2010) Cite them Right. 8th edn. London: Palgrave Macmillan Indicative reading: Brown, T., A. (2010) Gene Cloning and DNA Analysis. 6th edition. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN-13: 978-1405181730 CLEAPSS (2010) CLEAPSS Laboratory Handbook, Recipe Cards and Hazcards CLEAPSS Secondary Source, The Gardiner Building, Brunel Science Park, Uxbridge. Gallagher, S., Wiley, E. (2008) Current Protocols: Essential Laboratory Techniques. London: WileyBlackwell. ISBN-13: 978-0470089934 Micklos, D., A., Freyer, G., A. (1990) DNA Science: A First Course in Recombinant DNA Technology. Burlington: Cold Spring Harbour Press. ISBN-13: 978-0892784110 Nicholl, D. (2008) An Introduction to Genetic Engineering. 3rd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0521615211 Sambrook, J., Russell, D. (2000) Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual. 3rd edition. New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. ISBN-13: 978-0879695767 Watson, J., D., Gilman, M., Witkowski, J., Zoller, M. (1992) Recombinant DNA. 2nd edition. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. ISBN-13: 978-0716722823 Watson, J., D., Caudy, A., Myers, R., Witkowski, J. (2007) Recombinant DNA: Genes and Genomes A Short Course. 3rd Edition. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. ISBN-13: 978-1429203128 Journals: Nature Genetics, Trends in Genetics, Nature Reviews Genetics, Genetics, Journal of Medical Genetics, European Journal of Human Genetics, American Journal of Human Genetics, BMC Genetics
What is inclusion and how does the legislative mandate of IDEIA (Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.
Inclusion continues to be a very heated debate as to whether it is beneficial for student learning; including those with and without disabilities. There is much research that supports and also opposes the practice of inclusion. Educational psychology provides us with the ability to examine inclusion based on the theories of learning and behavior and the continued research that aims to either validate or abandon this notion of inclusion.
For this discussion, your instructor will divide you into two different debate groups based on support and opposition on the topic of inclusion. Read Chapter 4 to gain an understanding of how legislation mandates that, whenever possible, children with exceptionalities be educated in the mainstream education classroom with other students. You want to get a deep understanding of LRE (Least Restrictive Environment). Review the additional links to review the controversy over inclusion to assist in formulating your defense with support from the li
Feel free to read additional texts about the topic and be sure to cite.
Based on your assigned position, formulate a defense statement that includes the following:
What is inclusion and how does the legislative mandate of IDEIA (Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, formerly known as IDEA – Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) support its efforts.
Based on your research, provide at least three reasons for your position that is supported by the texts. You also want to provide solid examples to support each reason.
Are you ready to begin your next discussion post? Following are some tips to help you succeed!
For this discussion response:
· Explain what inclusion is
· Discuss how IDEIA supports inclusion
Additionally, you will present an argument for or against inclusion. If your last name starts with a letter A through L (my last name start with B),please present an argument for inclusion. If your last name starts with a letter M through Z, please present an argument against inclusion.
In your argument, you should:
· Refer to research, not just your personal opinion
· Discuss three reasons for your position and provide evidence supporting these reasons from the sources listed in the discussion prompt
· Include relevant examples as part of your discussion of each reason that supports your position
· Share any personal experiences you have had with inclusive classrooms that support your position
What methods could be used to ensure continuous process improvement in the organization from a production and operations management perspective?.
There are a number of well-known strategic planning models. To bring your team up to speed on the evolution of strategic planning itself, write a white paper of 1,200–1,500 words that addresses the following specific models of strategic planning:
Michael Porter’s Five Forces
Adrian Slywotzky’s Value Migration
W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy
Using the Web resources provided and any others that you find, address the following in your white paper:
Discuss the premise underlying each of the three models of strategic planning and the advantages that each brings to the process.
Discuss how to apply or implement strategic planning using each of the methods.
Discuss the pros and cons of each strategic planning method.
Select 1 of the models, and respond to the following questions:
What methods could be used to ensure continuous process improvement in the organization from a production and operations management perspective?
From a business finance or accounting perspective, how would you analyze the business and measure the effectiveness of your strategy so that you can make the best decisions for the organization?
As a leader, how would you help the organizational structure and culture adapt to the changes that would result from this strategy (e.g., how you would empower teams, resolve conflicts, and motivate employees to support the changes from this strategy)?
From a marketing perspective, what effect will the strategy have on your marketing plan; product differentiation, positioning, life cycle, and portfolio; and Internet or retail marketing to your customers?
What human resource management changes will be necessary because of the strategy? Address each of the functions of human resources, including staffing, training and development, performance management, compensation, and employee relations.
Assignment Objectives 2
Develop the capacity to think strategically about a company, its business model and position within the industry, and the attainment of a competitive advantage.
Acquire skills in conducting strategy, developing strategic options, analyzing action alternatives, making strategic decisions, and effective policy and strategy implementation
Write 400–600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.
You plan to hold a weekly breakfast meeting with your team of strategic planners to practice how to conduct a SWOTT analysis. For the upcoming week’s breakfast meeting, you told your team that they should be prepared to conduct a SWOTT analysis of an organization in the consumer electronics industry.
Conduct a brief SWOTT analysis on any real organization in the consumer electronics industry. Provide a short introduction of the organization you chose, and describe the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and trends.
Strengths: The internal and external characteristics of a company that are stronger than its competitors.
Weaknesses: The internal and external characteristics of a company that are weaker than its competitors.
Opportunities: The issues internal and external to a company that can affect the company and its competitors in a favorable way.
Threats: The issues internal and external to a company that can affect the company and its competitors in an unfavorable way.
Trends: The internal and external patterns in the organization, market, or industry.
1. You work for an organisation that does not actively encourage its employees to participate in decision-making processes, and to assume responsibility and exercise initiative as appropriate. What would you say to convince the organisation’s management that they should actively encourage employees to assume responsibility and initiative? Write a transcript of what you would say.
“Although not encouraged, recently I decided to let our ICT Support Specialist head up the roll out of our new Antivirus solution. I presented him with the project and advised that he will be managing it and will need to source the resources required and also the process.
The only information I provided was a deadline of 4 weeks to complete the project/rollout
Firstly the feedback I got from the Support Specialist was incredibly positive. He was excited to run his own project and make his own decisions on how to complete it. It brought out a different side to an employee whom sometimes finds it hard to stay motivated.
The project is in its final stages now and has ran very smoothly and is well ahead of schedule.
I believe encouraging employees to make their own decisions does boost initiative and this is one example of how extra responsibility and the opportunity for a non-management employee to work autonomously brings in very positive results.
This is something I would like to encourage to my department more often as I believe I can get excellent outcomes on upcoming projects.
2. Do you consider group decision-making to be a valuable tool that will aid in encouraging employees to participate in decision-making processes, and to assume responsibility and exercise initiative? Explain.
I strongly believe any decision making process privileges that one can grant to employees can be very beneficial as stated above in the example. This shows trust in employees, and I believe giving employees extra responsibilities can have a very positive effect. In a group decision making environment, this also promotes team work. Having a department making decisions together is a great way to encourage this.
Assessment Activity 2
1. Your organisation has changed the way it accepts payments from customers/clients to make the process easier for clients/customers. What would you do to ensure that the organisations continuous improvement processes are communicated to all stakeholders?
I believe this is something the whole organisation should be aware of, this way any client facing employees can better explain this to customers/clients in the event questions or queries are raised.
Stakeholders would include clients/customers so I believe a communication in the form of a letter/email should be sent out to all the client base explaining how the new payment process works and how it will benefit them. The most important part is to promote it as a positive change for the client/customers.
Assessment Activity 3
1. Define sustainability and outline why organisations should develop workplace sustainability policies. Sustainability in a business sense is the management the impact the organisation has in it’s environment. The impact can cover areas that not only include the “environment” but also the staff, client base and even the finances of the organisation.
Developing Sustainability policies is very important in a number of ways. It can be promoted by the organisation that they follow this policy in order to achieve a smaller carbon footprint, however at the same time this could be saving the organisation money. For example, the organisation decides to implement double sided printing, now this is reducing paper usage which is fantastic to the environment, however it is also reducing the amount of paper the organisation is purchasing, therefor reducing expenditure.
2. Research environmental management issues for the workplace and state why these issues should be taken into consideration when planning and managing an organisation’s operations. The main issue as with most organisations is their impact to the environment and their footprint. This can effect a number of areas within the organisation, including reputation to their clients/customers, general publics views/opinions, employees and even the companies finances. In an office environment such as Status Industries. The main concerns are overuse of paper and printing products, lighting usage and power consumption. These can all be addressed. See table on next page how Status Industries has engaged these issues with policies.
Environmental Issue
Impact
Resolution
Result
Over Usage of Paper in printing
Environment, Cost of Paper, Paper Wastage
Double Sided Printing forced on all Xerox devices within organisation
Dramatic reduction in paper usage. Cost of paper saved.
Colour Printing Usage in office
High usage of colour toners where not needed, cost impact as colour prints more expensive than black and white. Force default Black and White printing. Requiring staff to have to select colour printing if they require it. All Staff email sent explaining cost of colour printing over black and white Black and White printing increased. Less colour toner usage. Cost savings.
Lighting
Lighting currently on 24 hours a day. Expensive power bills and waste of electricity Timers installed on lights to switch off at 8pm every night and to be off over weekend periods Dramatic cost saving and less usage of power. Cost saving on replacing globes.
Electricity Wasting
Computers and monitors switched on 24/7, wasted electricity usage, expensive electricity bills Email sent out by management detailing a new policy to switch off PC’s at night when finished. Exclusions from this are staff whom like Reduction in power. Reputation from general public boosted as windows are on main road and public can see Monitors are left on at night time.
Assessment Activity 6
You have been asked to develop strategies to ensure that systems and processes are used to monitor operational progress and to identify ways in which planning and operations could be improved. In particular, your organisation wants you to determine whether processes currently carried out by employees are as efficient as possible. How would you go about doing this? Firstly you could perform an audit of the current processes. Let’s look at a new employee process and how this is setup from at an IT viewpoint.
The current process below
Now there have been several flaws in this process. Mainly the communication breakdown with Human Resource and IT which has resulted in accounts not been created in time. There are ways to alter the current process and instil new procedures to ensure the process is more successful. The proposed changes are below: A timeframe of at least 10 days for Human Resource to allow for the completion of IT’s account creation and asset allocation (PC/Laptop, Mobile Phone) Accountability to one staff member in Human Resources to communicate with an IT staff member regarding any change to the process and vice versa. A written and ISO approved document on the procedure. This is from the beginning stages with HR to the finishing touches on the IT stages. This is to be given to all staff members in both departments and signed by each staff member. So it is on record as being understood by each employee in case further action/education/disciplinary discussion is required.
Assessment Activity 7
You have determined that adjustments should be made in your work team. Changes need to be made to the way customer complaints are recorded and dealt with. How would you go about communicating the need for change to strategies to relevant stakeholders? Relevant stakeholders internally are first and foremost the executive team, they are the ones that make the organisational impact decisions. Changing the way customer complaints are dealt with is something they will need to provide input for. Once they have approved the said solution this should be communicated in several forms to the customer base. This can be done by posting letters, emails and on the main page of a website. In the planning stages communicating three different alternative solutions to Executive Management would be a good first step. Explaining and selling the reasons why this should be changed.
The main goal in mind for making a change that effects customers, is to ensure it is a “better solution” A good example of this is a large organisation such as Telstra. They have a reputation for having less than satisfactory customer service via phone. Customers have complained about being transferred multiple times and not getting a solution. Telstra has made large steps to improve customer service and have introduced a “Chat” service. This is ideal for people who have a desk job and don’t have the time to be on a phone. You speak to one representative and can explain information a lot easier. This is a very positive step that other organisations in the industry have followed. Selling the vision to relevant stakeholders, explaining how it will benefit the customer base. Remembering please customers not only retains a base, it can increase reputation and perhaps even allow for expansion of customer base.
Assessment Activity 9
2. Give examples of aids/tools that can be used to document the data from a checklist Several graphs and tables can aid the recording of this data and also to report on the data collected. Such Graphs that could be used in this instance are Pie Graph to show the amount of a certain defect on a certain shift to compare where most of the errors are occurring Line Graph to show where the peak period of errors occur
Histograms to show similar to the above
Example of a Pie Graph for the above table
3. Why do graphs and charts provide a good representation of data? Graphs and charts provide a graphical view of the overall picture. As shown above in the Table of Data and also the Pie Graph. Straight away by looking at the Pie Graph you can see the trend. When analysing data Graphs are the best way to do this instead of tables. It can be a quick reference guide compared to sifting through a large amount of numbers. On the subject of trends. Line Graphs can show this better than most methods in some cases where using a line graph is applicable. For example. To see how many defects over a 24 hour period took place in a factory environment. Here you can see where defects dipped and were at a minimum and also peaked and showed a maximum. From this data you can easily see where pain points are in a situation and then provide a possible resolution.
Assessment Tool 2
1. How can an organisations continuous improvement processes be communicated to all stakeholders and how can individuals and teams be encouraged and supported to embrace it? Communicating change in any organisation is important. Stakeholders in certain situations depending on the scale of change could include almost every employee. Best practice is to have a seminar or training session to highlight the need for certain changes or continuous improvement.
For example if the organisation wants to be ISO accredited in a certain area, then it becomes vital for all employees to play a part. Explaining the positives the improvement will entail will certainly sell the vision.
2. Having made a decision about what to do to improve an organisations processes, what should you do to plan for the implementation of that change? A Project Plan is always a good start. This can outline the schedule and resources required, identify the tasks and objectives associated. Communication again is very important with any change, to ensure all of the organisation (if applicable) is aware of the change. The key thing to remember is, people don’t like change if they haven’t been advised.
3. Explain the difference between Feedback and feed forward control. Feed-Forward Control is a measure that regulates inputs. This can be resources such as human resource, financial and material. This is a proactive measure to allow management to prevent issues instead of having to resolve them later. This is known to be a time consuming exercise,
4. What processes might be used to ensure that team members are informed of outcomes of continuous improvement efforts? Why is this necessary and how will this contribute toward further improvements?
Reports can be sent to team members on a set time frame (monthly, quarterly) this could include data and graphs/tables. Graphs are a great way to visually see trends and also to gauge whether there has been improvement in a certain area. It also determines where there are possible issues. It allows the team to strategize where and how they can improve.
5. What is continuous improvement?
Continuous improvement is an infinite process to improve a service, product or process. Depending on the type of industry the organisation is in will determine what areas of will utilize this type of method. Let’s look at an IT department, who has an inbuilt database every employee uses for the day to day tasks. A prototype has been created of this software, and it is in production. However there will always be room for improvement for any software, so constant updating is done on the software, the applications team within the IT Department work each day on add-ons or improvements. What started out as version 1.00 has now turned into 2.34 in the space of 3 years.
6. What can you do to support improvements now and in the future? Improvement in an organisation comes with ideas from the team. This can be suggestions raised in meetings, feedback and communication. The only way to improve processes, products or services is to communicate with departments and key members of staff.
Having evidence in front of employees such as graphs is a great way to visually demonstrate where improvement is needed in certain areas. Concentrating on weak points in the organisation is the key to improvement.
Assessment Tool 3: Project
Continuous improvement is common in most organisations in some degree. This is an exercise that can cover a number of areas. Usually the three areas are as follows
Process
Products
Service
Process in the context of continuous improvement can look at ways to improve the said process. Let’s look at the example of a crucial process in a majority of organisations. A login is required for every employee who starts with the company. This is for them to login to their desktop and perform day to day functions. The process is as follows.
The problem is with this process is communication is relied upon. There is no official area where data can be obtained. IT need to wait for HR to provide information, then HR have to wait for IT, The manager of a new employee has to wait for IT and HR. There has been several flaws with this. Improvement can be done is a number of ways.
1. Have a meeting with HR and IT to establish procedures and timeframes 2. Look at a more centralised system where details can be accessed.
It was later decided a shared calendar on Sharepoint with email alerts when entries are created to be sent to all HR and IT staff. HR would enter a new starter on this calendar, IT would see the details and create the account. They would then add the relevant login details to the calendar and notify the manager. This is seen as a better process, but one that can still be improved upon. There can be a period of trial over a set timeframe to see if it can be improved even further. Taking as much manual labour out of the equation will reduce the amount of errors, oversights etc. Now looking at service. Customer Service or Service Delivery (in an internal environment) is extremely important in any industry. Good customer service means happy clients, more clients which leads to a successful organisation.
Let’s look at the example of an ISP. They have 3 core call centre departments, a Sales, Billing and Technical Support area. How can we gauge what customers impressions are of the level of customer service? A good way is after a phone call to have a rating system where a customer can rate the level of service is received from 1-5. 5 being exceptional and 1 being appalling. This is the first step in continuous improvement in customer service. The survey could be on going or could be over a set period. Either way reporting could be sent on the results to managers/team leaders. There might be a number of trends identified. Staff with exceptional consistent ratings could be rewarded. Staff with lower or appalling ratings could be trained to improve their skill. Reporting for this survey could be time stamped, so graphs could be created when staff aren’t providing a good level of customer service.
You may see a trend like Monday being the worst performing day or Friday afternoon. Education, Training are a number ways to continue the improvement of customer service. As well as awards or rewards as stated above. The final area is products. If an organisation is in the business of developing and distributing products, their main concern with continuous improvement will be developing this product to ensure it is the best in their market. If in a mass production environment, quality control would be paramount to ensure product defects are at a minimum or non existent. Earlier in this document a graph was created showing defect levels over certain shifts.
This is a great way to isolate where improvement is needed. Why did a certain shift have so many defects? Is there something wrong with the team who is assigned to these shifts? This may involve further staff training, disciplinary action or new staff members involved. Sometimes it could be as simple as making a clearly defined process to get a product complete without issues. Let’s look at the example of Microsoft. They are the pioneers of operating systems. According to data for the years 2004 – 2009, Microsoft on average has covered around 90% of the market across the globe. (see graph on next page)
This is an extraordinary number and one that comes with pressure and responsibility to ensure its product is up to an elite standard. Microsoft will release Operating Systems every 4 years on average, however after the release they will continue to build on the operating system. Adding features, fixing bugs, improving the overall experience. Also it offers support to customers with forums such as Technet and the obvious customer support. The updating is the main part of continuous improvement. This builds towards the next version of the Operating System which in some cases not all, will be an absolute improvement over the predecessor. Example being Windows 8, they have received overwhelming feedback that consumers are not favourable of the start menu being removed.
They listened and implemented a start menu of some description in Windows 8.1 and it will return in Windows 10. Risk Management comes into play with most decisions or implementation of a new process. With the three examples shown above a Risk Management assessment of some degree/scale would be included. For the example. Microsoft would need to investigate whether continuing support for an operating system would be viable. They will usually release a statement to the public explaining how long their support and updates will be created for Operating System. Microsoft also would have weighed the pro’s and cons for implementing a start menu feature into 8.1. Customer satisfaction is a high priority, however if it isn’t feasible it would be a risk to implement it. As you’re using resources and time to implement something rather major. Wouldn’t this be better spent developing on the next version.
How does continuous improvement affect employees? This question is very important. As employees are a major part of how well an organisation succeeds. An example of this would be an entrepreneurial firm which is small. Employees are driven to succeed because a sense of ownership due to it being only around 20 staff members, each is aware of their responsibilities and are directly accountable for certain roles. However the firm’s hierarchy believe the best way moving forward is to grow. As the growth takes place the sense of ownership has decreased. The culture will understandably change. Therefor it is incredibly important in the early stages prior to making major changes such as growth, that the organisation creates a culture that values accountability and to provide for accountability in organizational design. Communication in a small company will be different to a larger one. There would be little need for formal communication and any sort of reporting as they are all in the same small location.
They also understand what is important to communicate due to the scale of workload. The change here as it grows would need to be subtle. Explaining to current staff the need/requirement to implement different ways we must communicate. It is logistically going to be impossible to have a general talk with another colleague about something critical when they are in the East coast of the United States and you are based at Head Office in Sydney Australia. If this is educated earlier, it will provide a better understanding from long standing employees on how it will benefit the organisation, this once again comes back to the culture created. The employee will see this will a positive for the organisation. Attitude towards change can vary dependent on factors such as the average age and tenure with the organisation as well. Why do organisations feel the need to incorporate continuous improvement sometimes is dependent on the type of industry.
The pressures of certain industries almost forces organisation to implement continuous improvement. The Business Environment refers to the factors that affect an organisation’s ability to be competitive in their market. Kodak for example, were a leader in photographic/camera film. However the environment changed around them dramatically in recent years with digital photography taking over the market. Film was no longer the medium used. It saw a decline in revenue ($14.5bn in 1995 to $2.35bn in 2013) A lot of companies would not of survived something this dramatic. Kodak revolutionised and changed their way of thinking.
Kodak had to shrink in size and effectively start again, go back to basics. It kept the best minds they had to brainstorm how to continue. Kodak is now a leader in photo print paper, packaging, commercial film and speciality chemicals. Although Kodak isn’t a good example of “improvement” there is an argument for continuity. Not many companies have survived when hit with a change of the scale photography went through over 10 years ago. It is a credit to Kodak they were able to adapt to change and strive to succeed with improvement to the way they work in their industry.