Organizational Design
A company’s organizational structure or design defines the allocation of activities such as supervision, coordination, and task allocation to achieve the organization’s goals. They are vital in providing the foundation on which the standard routines and operations of the organization occur. Through an organizational design, individuals are given a different perspective or glass from which they view the organization (Jacobides, 2007). For instance, how a mechanical engineer views an organization differs from how a manager views the same organization.
At People First San Diego, the organization’s design is geography-based, with the CEO at the helm and three directors below him. There is a director for Poway and San Diego, San Marcos and Santee, and another for Solana Beach and Vista. Different members of the organization fall below the directors depending on the member’s address. The organizational design at San Diego is dedicated to putting people first. The organization builds a wellness network through physical, mental, and emotional services, employment, and housing (Walden University, 2022). The company aims to creation of opportunities to build financial stability, wellness, and resilience (Walden University, 2022). Also, one of the organization’s aims is to raise people’s confidence and self-esteem so that they can provide for themselves and their families. By shaping the community’s perceptions, they hope to solve complex issues.
How the Design Supports Missions of the Organization
The organization design at People First San Diego determines who gets which assignments and roles. The design also decides the flow of information in the company. For instance, the design at People First San Diego helps maintain an easy flow of information from the CEO to the organization’s members. This is vital in the flexibility of the company, thus ensuring that the company’s mission is achieved. Through the design, the Latino community can get services regardless of age (Walden University, 2022). The organizational design at San Diego also allows for the fast forging of partnerships with different organizations. This has been vital in the achievement of the organization’s mission. For instance, People First San Diego provided Food Pantries and transitional housing to ensure the traditional needs of these people are met for the next two years. Other services the company provides include employment which assists with supporting clients, job readiness, interviews, job searching, resumes, and applications. Through a holistic approach to its organizational design, People First San Diego provides therapy services that help achieve its mission of putting people first.
Importance of Organizational Charts and Organizational Structure
Organizational structures and organizational charts are essential because they are vital in organizations and businesses making efficient decisions. By assigning specialized roles to lower-level employees, organizations can have faster decision-making. A business can keep track of its human resources through the clear log charts that organizations provide. For a small organization like People First San Diego, it is hard for the CEO to lose track of what everyone is doing in the company. This is because small organizations, startups, and businesses have a setup where everyone does everything.
As People First San Diego grows, these different silos will likely start getting distinct from each other. The organizational charts and structures will help the business identify gaps in skills and get support within the business setup. Gaps in business skills become easier to identify, and it becomes easier for support in the business to be identified. Nonetheless, one must remember that behind the flowcharts are real people.
Organizational Culture and Cultural Competency
Organizational culture refers to a collection of beliefs, values, and attitudes that influence and shape the behaviors and actions of members of an organization. The culture of an organization influences how different employees view each other. Some cultures are highly inclusive because they bring together people from different backgrounds, for instance, values that unite people from different cultural backgrounds (Northouse, 2020). The organization of interest, in this case, is the People First San Diego organization.
The organization is a social work organization in San Diego, California. The organization informs, trains, and supports people living with developmental disabilities. The organization focuses on advocacy that supports the rights of people with developmental disabilities. The cultural competencies needed to work in this organization include compassion because of the characteristics of those the organization focuses on. To create a culture that sets the tone of equity and inclusion for everyone within the organization, there is a need for an environment that brings together people from different backgrounds.
People First focus on self-advocacy. The organization’s location is in San Diego, which is in Southern California. The organization of interest, in this case, empowers people with developmental disabilities and those close to them. The location that the organization is in is very diverse. As a leader, there are different ways I would create a culture that sets a tone of equity and inclusion for everyone in the organization, both employees and beneficiaries.
An important characteristic needed for members of the organization is compassion. The organization significantly impacts individuals with developmental disabilities that are beneficiaries of the organization. In social work, such as in the People First organization, there is a need for practical communication skills. An inclusive organizational culture acknowledges and embraces differences in experience, behavior, background, and cultural background (Northouse, 2020).
Different individuals have different ways of thinking, but a unifying organizational culture leads to a similar form of thinking within the organization. The organization, in this case, deals with individuals with developmental disabilities. The target population is minorities but has problems that require intervention. A good organizational culture sets the tone for the staff members to interact with each other and those they serve (Johnson, Hekman & Chan, 2016). The organization serves a diverse community and has diverse employees, which emphasizes the need to have things that unify them.
The objective of the organization and the characteristics of the community in San Diego, California, shape the internal culture of the People First San Diego organization. In this case, the organization’s values align with the organization’s activities, including empowering and creating opportunities for people with disabilities.
Teamwork is an essential aspect of creating an inclusive organizational culture. Bernstein et al. (2019) show that creating an inclusive environment involves the elimination of the chances of both intentional and unintentional discrimination. Managerial diversity is essential in creating a culture that respects and understands individual differences.
Management and the Role of Human Resource
Human resource management refers to the strategic approach of nurturing and supporting employees by ensuring safe workplace environment. While the functions of the human resource manager vary from one business to another, they all include employee relations, training and development, compensation and benefits as well as recruitment. Human resource managers have three leading roles: personnel management, change management, and administration. As the personnel manager, the HR fosters employee engagement, oversees training and development, and resolves conflicts. As the change manager, HR professionals communicate policies and monitor regulations. They also help employees in supporting compliance through procedural changes. As the administrator, the HR procures benefits packages, creates workplace policies, writes job descriptions, and runs payroll.
The critical areas in the human resource department are employee relations, compliance and safety, training and development, compensation and benefits, and recruitment and staffing. The HR manager acts as the risk manager in a company. He also follows up with employee and labor relations, policy creation, compensation and benefits, training and development, recruitment, and strategic planning.
Human resource management is responsible for dealing with disciplinary issues and addressing conflict between members of the organization (Roper & Higgins, 2020). The human resource management department’s functions complement a manager’s functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. The human resource department bridges the management and the organization’s members (Roper & Higgins, 2020). In this case, intervention is needed to ensure that each employee respects the other and works as a team.
The apparent problem is that, in this case, a possible cause is generational differences that contribute to the conflict between Patrice and Bo. The complaint about the situation has come from other team members, which means that the conflict is not just a concern for the two but for the entire team. Speaking with Patrice remains the same, and this leads to the need to consult with the human resource department. The human resource department has a vital role in training and guiding employees to work in ways that are acceptable in the organization and is also responsible for taking disciplinary action in case of violation of existing policies. In this case, the best approach to address the personnel situation is through consultation with the human resource department.
In this case, the organization’s culture extensively focuses on inclusivity and respecting diversity. Existing policies and the organization’s culture will help the human resource department to be the referee in the issue between Patrice and Bo. It is essential to understand that it is not Bo who raised the concerns but the other staff members. This shows that Patrice has displayed unprofessional behavior that has negatively influenced the entire team. In this case, there is the possibility of using disciplinary action because the first intervention did not bear fruit because Patrice continued with the undesired behavior.
The company has a clear vision to help people most vulnerable in society, which should also be reflected in the organization’s culture (Walden University, LLC, 2022). People First San Diego is characterized by a culture of care that involves valuing each employee and contributing to their professional development (Walden University, LLC, 2022). Training and development are about developing new knowledge and skills and addressing negative behaviors that negatively affect employees and the organizations. Therefore, the human resource department will play an essential role in making the issuing official, for example, by offering Patrice an official warning and showing that workplace discrimination and bullying are unacceptable. In this case, the human resource department will play an essential role in mediating and solving the conflict between the two employees.
SWOT Analysis
People First Organization was formed in California to envision how people with disabilities will have the opportunity of gaining empowerment through respect for each other and unity.
Strengths
One of the strengths of the People First of California is Unity. As the adage goes, unity is strength. The members of the organization are united, which aids them in pushing their ideas together as well as tackling problems together. Through unity, members of the organization can also educate and inspire each other in California. The people in the state are trained to make their decisions and solve problems, know their responsibilities and rights, and speak up for themselves. They also target to help people with disabilities to gain their rightful position in the world. Strengths from the unity of the People First Organization include diverse aspirations, goals, and skill sets, as well as a large pool workforce.
Weaknesses
The organization still needs more membership compared to the population of the state of California. This gives the organization less impact on the state and, thus inability to push its agenda with ease. Another area for improvement of the organization is the need for more sufficient funds, which limits its power.
Opportunities
California has many people and continues to increase in population with each passing day. If the organization can take advantage of the large population in California, then the room for its growth is unlimited. This will aid the organization in getting more in terms of the contributed funds and skills diversity. More disabled people will also be reached, which will aid in getting more donations. The employment chapter of the organization boasts the provision of exceptional and top-tier talent to their clients, which is likely to attract more clients and increase the organization’s income.
Threats
Possible threats to the organization include the possibility of disagreements and conflicts with new members. People are different, and new members may bring in new ideas and motions against the organization’s previous standings. If care is taken to ensure that they have less influence, they may lead to disagreements and the eventual collapse of the organization.
Trends
Trends in the organization are the increase in the number of members with a large diversity being witnessed. The organization has also opened an employment chapter called People First Employment. It aims to provide individuals with opportunities to reach their full potential by matching their skill sets with those of organizations that invest in their people’s well-being and growth.
Funding Sources
Fundraising Practices
One way that can be utilized in the raising of funds for People First San Diego is fundraising. For a long time, mail solicitation has been a popular way of obtaining charitable donations. Organizations have also sold their mailing lists to other organizations (Furman et al., 2020). For instance, if People First San Diego channels donations to the American Association of People with Disabilities, it will likely receive solicitations from other disability and human empowerment groups. The reason for this is that the name of People First San Diego will now be on the list of contributors and shared belief in the fundraising world is that those that give are the most likely to give again.
Fundraising has its benefits and limitations or disadvantages. One limitation of fundraisers is that the company or organization must spend some money on costs such as theater tickets and donor costs upfront. Donor costs include payments such as dinner, transportation, and tickets. This is risky because the organization gains much money if the event is successful. Recent years have witnessed an increasing overreliance on fundraisers on social media. Through social media, the constituents are directly engaged in fundraising (Maqbool et al., 2019; Negeswarakurukkal, Goncalves & Moshtari, 2019). Social media has helped fundraisers to reduce on the costs of advertisements. Also, the number of people that can be notified of the fundraising is unlimited, implying that large sums of money can be collected within a short time. Crowdfunding has been utilized in instances such as opening schools in Afghanistan, sloth sanctuaries in Costa Rica and fighting malaria in Africa (Gore & DiGiammarino, 2014). Through online fundraisers, large amounts of money have been raised over short periods of time, ranking it the best source of money for non-profit organizations in the present day.
Foundations
People First San Diego can also raise funds through writing proposals to foundations. There are many foundations in the United States with big amounts of money ready to give to reliable organizations. Examples of billion dollar foundations in the US are the Soros Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Lily Endowment, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation. Many non-profit organizations across the globe source their funds from these foundations. While any amount of money can be sourced from these foundations, there are limitations to what the funds can be used to do. Foundations rarely give grants for general purposes. Most of their money is aimed for use according to their mission and priorities. The same cannot be said for corporations. Despite this, the money from foundations is too much to be overlooked. In 2017 alone, foundations gave up to $62 billion to charitable foundations. Through utilizing these, People First San Diego can raise unlimited sums of money for their daily operations and other use. From the analysis above, money from foundations ranks second just behind fundraisers.
Big Donors
Charitable organizations also get funds from individual donations with about $292 billion in the year 2018 coming from individuals (National Philanthropic Trust, 2019). Big donors refer to big donations that an organization gets from an individual. This often results in the organization naming the project after the donor. Through securing of large donations from individuals, organizations are able to raise portions of their required funds. The executive director, a fundraiser or the board of directors are responsible for identifying possible big donors and gaining access to them to convince them to make donations. Money from big donors is limited to the number of donors that a particular organization has access too. Accordingly, from the analysis above, money from big donors ranks third behind fundraisers and foundations.
Evaluation
Two intended outcomes of therapy services at People First San Diego are the facilitation of behavioral change and helping the client improve their ability to establish and maintain relationships. Different instruments are used in measuring outcomes including assessments, interviews, inventories, measurement, measures, questionnaires, ratings, scales and surveys (Walden University Library, n.d.). these outcomes will be measured by use of self-report measures. In clinician practice, there are four major categories that are utilized, namely self-report measures, performance-based measures, observer-reported measures and clinician-reported measures. For People First Organization, self-reported measures will be utilized. Self-report measures will be conducted in the form of questionnaires. The score of the questionnaires will be obtained through a predetermined point system to the responses of the patient. While self-reported measures seem subjective in nature, they objectify the perception of the patient. For a long time, therapists have been required to fill out questionnaires through interviews with patients or patients fill the questionnaires on their own. While this will also be utilized at People First Organization, digital and computer based report measures will be provided. Electronic measures take an adaptive or fixed form. Under the computerized adaptive testing, the questions for the patient will be determined by the computer based on his previous responses (McCabe et al., 2018). In this case, the questionnaires that will be utilized will be referred to as patient-reported-outcomes (PRO) whereby the health and physical functions of the patient will also be reported. PROs can be categorized as generic or disease specific. They refer to any reports concerning the status of patients that come from the patients themselves (Black, 2013). Through responses from patients such as concerning their state of mind and the friends made, I will be able to know whether they are benefitting from the program or not.
If I realize that the patients are not benefitting from the programs at People First Organization, I will call an external team to perform the evaluation and assessment for the organization. The team of experts that I choose will be key in the effectiveness of the process (Fitz, 2020). If their results are the same, I will immediately revamp the strategies in place and initiate change for the better. Among the changes that I will make is the introduction of external overseers to advise on how the results can be adjusted for the good of the organizations. The areas with mistakes will be identified and corrective action put in place.
References
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