I started my career as an observer at a dental clinic (in India) in 2016, immediately after graduating. Before that, I was a part (as a student) of a big teaching organization, my dental school, for 5 years. Basically, I experienced “business” having the same background operating at different scales. Just for the sake of brevity, I would choose to answer based on my dental school.
Just to acknowledge, the dental school I went into was owned by a businessman who already had many other companies in various sectors like food and chemicals. As his companies grew, he invested in schools and later, opened colleges. However, having no or little knowledge about the teaching sector, these ventures (schools and colleges) were undertaken based solely on his knowledge about “business”. The diverse choices of business may inundate the decision-making team (Galbraith, 2014) which indeed, was the case. The main issue in action here is, big companies fail to identify their competitors and gets into the non-price competition (as cited in Ingenhoff & Fuhrer, 2010). Investing in schools and colleges and trying to create a positive brand was the organization’s primary motive, and therefore, they failed at defining their values.
They hired medical teachers that did not even know the dental syllabus, did not have the labs working and no positive environment for studying.
To keep it precise, I will address the same issues as asked in the question-
- Human resource- I do not know much about HRD but will try to touch the essentials. School requires teachers with a specific role. A language teacher may not teach science and a math teacher may not teach art. I would not hire someone just because I know him/her. Most of the staff members were hires based solely on referrals.
- Corporate identity- This company had a negative reputation in the market. Companies sort to mission and vision statements to portray their brand personality (Chun and Davies, 2001), which was done by this organization. Investing in schools and colleges was just a strategy to create a positive brand reputation.
- Organizational culture- Teachers were mostly complaining as they were not paid on time, labs not working properly, lack of information about the syllabus etc. This led to them not being interested anymore to teach, with the students facing the consequences. Furthermore, there was an environment of severe competition among the students and everyone wanted to grab any possible opportunity to learn. This overall, affected the results and hence, the reputation of the college.
Three to five steps necessary to shift the negative impacts and help the organization where you work/worked previously refocus to reclaim organizational purpose, practice, and procedures to a healthy level so they can move more effectively into the future.
- Visionary leadership (Taylor, et al., 2007 )- it is extremely important to have a clear vision about the future to work accordingly; just as a footballer would not make a goal unless he can see the goalpost.
- Effective communication- The leader should not only timely connect with the employees but also make sure if work is being done in the direction of the vision. There should be a forum for the teachers through which they can communicate with each other as well as the management team to address their issues or situations in the college. The management should also encourage suggestions from the teachers to have another set of eyes (Atha, 2018) to effectively draw out a solution.
- Planning the resources- Management should maintain a record of materials and instruments that are used; also, make a note of the materials required. Stealing and cheating can be minimized by setting a heavy penalty for the person in charge. In terms of human resource, management should take care that the teachers remain motivated by timely recognizing them or rewarding them. Care should be taken about their timely payments. The number of teaching staff per subject should be fixed to avoid wasting of human resource as well as the fund.
Three things you do (3+3+3 = 9 altogether):
- Arrange staff and students meeting once every six months- Students are also a part of the organizations and it is partly because of them that the vision can be accomplished. Performances will significantly improve if they feel a part of something big (Maslow, Stephens, Heil, & Bennis, 1998).
- Provide optimum service to patients visiting the college (hospital)- Quality should not be compromised while running behind quantity. Teachers should make sure that students are giving proper treatment to the patients. Management should take a record of patients coming back with the complaint. If teachers make sure that students are performing better, it would be beneficial for both, the students as well the patients. If effective treatment is given, patients will continue to seek treatment from the college, indirectly benefitting the organization.
- The “Oath Day”- Oath day should be organized by the college each year to take a new resolution for innovation and improvement. This would keep the students as well as teachers motivated.
References
Atha, D. (2018). A Systems Thinking Primer: Seeing Organizations in Action. LDRS 501Startegic Leadership Week 3. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs501/unit-3- learning-activities/
Galbraith, J. R. (2014). Designing organizations: Strategy, structure, and process at the business unit and enterprise levels.
Ingenhoff, D., & Fuhrer, T. (2010). Positioning and differentiation by using brand personality attributes. Corporate Communications: An International Journal,15(1), 83-101.
Maslow, A. H., Stephens, D. C., Heil, G., & Bennis, W. (1998). Maslow on management. New York: John Wiley. Retrieved from http://altfeldinc.com/pdfs/maslow.pdf
Taylor, G. D., Van Aken, E. M., & Smith-Jackson, T. L. (2007, July). Improving organizational culture using core values. In 19th International Conference on Production Research, Valparaiso, Chile (Vol. 29).