Skills for Tomorrow is government-sponsored organizations tasked with helping at-risk young adults gain vocational training toward preparing them for a successful career in several different industries. The Harrisburg Skills for tomorrow located in Pennsylvania is constantly in the lower half of the rankings and has been constantly declining.
The main issue of declining rankings can be directly related Ted Alvarez being a poor leader in the organization. In addition to having every man for himself mentality with no teams formed.
To fully understand why the organization wasn’t heading down the path to success many different tools were used to help analyze the situations. Models such as the service profit chain, MARS model, big five personality traits and the Johari window were used to understand the behavior of the employees at Harrisburg.
Skills for Tomorrow was able to generate three different alternatives each bringing advantages and disadvantages to face. The first alternative is to implement weekly team building activities, the second alternative is to send Alvarez to team leadership classes and the final alternative is to have team social outings that will allow team members to form closer bonds and understandings of one another.
The alternative that was chosen was alternative number one to implement weekly team building activities. This decision was based on the importance of creating a cohesive team. Forming a team will increase the organizations morale in addition to allow them to satisfy their students.
Problem Statement
The main problem present in the case of Skills for Tomorrow, a government-sponsored organization, is its issues internally and externally limiting its operation from operating at its full potential. Specifically, Skills for Tomorrow has been experiencing morale issues amongst its management team.
Martina Jones, lead consultant for Hancher Consulting, has to determine a course of action and implement a recommendation to the executive director of Skills for Tomorrow, Ted Alvarez, to resolve the current situation. It is Friday night, September 28th, 2012. She has only until Monday, October 1st, 2012, three days, to come up with this plan.
Issues and Symptoms
OB Issue: Job Dissatisfaction
Evidence: Several employees experiencing job dissatisfaction had behavioral changes towards the organization. This level of dissatisfaction affected task performance and organizational citizenship. Its ultimate course without change or intervention was projected to affect employees joining and staying with the organization. Employees were losing confidence in their decision-making skills. In the status meetings employees were not expressing their opinions on any of the issues.
They had become quiet, not involved in their work, even at times bickering between themselves and relinquished their decision making to Ted Alvarez. More seriously, they did not set any goals for the growth of quality in their student’s continual education. Also, the relationships among the coworkers and directors were very strained and there was no support for one another. It was every man for himself type of environment. There was not a solid presence of ‘team’ or team effort.
OB Issue: Stress Evidence: Due to the recent budget cuts and during the hiring of the new executive director, Mr. Ted Alvarez, the organization fell lower in performance rankings which in turn increased the amount of stress. Ted continued to add to their stress level by making the rankings the only thing he focused on. This can be related to the general adaptation syndrome that is a model that consists of three stages: alarm reaction, resistance and exhaustion. Ted entered the alarm reaction when he was notified that if he didn’t perform to the level expected from corporate headquarters their charter would be revoked.
The second stage that Ted and his employees are under is the resistance stage. They are all trying to overcome the stress being put on them however people have a limited resistance capacity and if the source of stress persist, the employees will eventually move into the third stage, exhaustion. Employees are also experiencing low task control. Low task control is a stressor and increases with the burden of responsibility that the employees must carry with outcomes that they have little control over.
OB Issue: Lack of Communication Evidence: All of the employees at Skills for Tomorrow are not communicating with each another. Some of the employees are experiencing high levels of communication barriers called noise in their attempts to communicate with one another. A few employees have language barriers with Yu and do not share a similar codebook meaning they do not share the same language. The employees are reluctant or having difficulty in communicating their issues to the executive director. In holding back it additionally is not allowing them to effectively re-organize work in light of the budget cuts and costs to the organization. Ted also did not communicate clearly job role perceptions for his employees. Another communication barrier that is evident with Ted is the imperfect perceptual process of his sending and receiving skills.
Industry Analysis KSF
In the government-sponsored organization of Skills for Tomorrow it is important that employees and management realize that effective team management is the key to successful operations. Having a more effective team in place will create a more successful organization by allowing the coworkers to work together to create a better experience for its students. The students that the organization brings in are its sole purpose and organization existence. Satisfied students and rankings will spread the news about the services at Skills for Tomorrow by word of mouth and the industry experts that will refer students to the organization. The whole organizational team, top to bottom needs to work together in maintaining morale and setting quality goals to offer the best services to their students.
Step Analysis
The Step Analysis is used to show how the external environment affects Skills for Tomorrow as an organization.
Social Having a furthered education is becoming more prudent in today’s society. Employees need to work with the student’s lifestyle changes so they can adapt their teaching methods Technological Important to keep up with the new trends in web-based communication to educate their students with the most recent information. Economic Economic growth of the region to improve the current high unemployment rates Inflation and interest rates because SFT is sponsored by the government effecting their budget Political/Environmental
Since the organization is government sponsored it is highly subjected to policy and budget changes. The society is on a green trend so SFT should do its part for the environment to keep employees and students content.
Internal Analysis Company’s KSF
There are several key success factors that this organization relies on to remain a successful operating school. These key success factors include:
Exceptionally competent employees who have been working at Skills for Tomorrow for over a decade and who are dedicated to their jobs and believe in the mission of the organization; Skills for Tomorrow has the potential to be one of the top contenders for rankings considering their raw scores for many of the judged criteria had been consistently above the baselines. (Above baseline in: student satisfaction rating, in all three categories of program results, initial wage, and percentage wage about $8/hour and in student safety rating. Ted Alvarez, the new executive director, has over 14 years of experience in different locations making him a very well rounded leader for his role with Skills for Tomorrow; Each of the above key success factors allow the organization to build upon their reputation as a successful well managed school in the Harrisburg location;
Key Uncertainties
There are a few uncertainties within the organization that have to be addressed so Skills for Tomorrow can operate at its full potential. These key uncertainties include:
Lack of effective teamwork, communication between themselves and goal setting; No critical job satisfaction feedback program in place for Ted’s employees to reach him to help them be a part of the decision making process, or task control to become more involved in reaching the educational goals The employees have no clear direction on how to handle budget cuts The student education program is lagging and needs to be updated
