Managing at British Red Cross - Case Study Example

Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Analyses of Stakeholders and their influence: 7 1. Employees 7 2. Non Governmental Sector 7 3.Individual and Private partners 9 4.Donors if Different Capacities and Locations 10 5.People who Suffer 11 Focus on Humanitarian Needs 13 Societal Marketing 13 Funds & HR Supply Chain Management 13 Importance of Employees at Workplace: 14 3. Questionnaire 17 References: 18 1. Major Participants and Stakeholders Mission statement of British Red Cross (BRCS) has is to be the leading voluntary provider of different emergency services, rescue and restoration services for the people in need around the world. BRCS has its clear vision that is to be the “certain sign of hope in crisis”. BRCS adopted its mission and vision in 1998 and it was highly promoted among the masses and stakeholders to build a strong brand and corporate image. BRCS has approved and reviewed its relations with government sector very precisely after the adaptation of its mission and vision. It is shown in research that 83% of contacts in BRCS in 1999 were with the local governments. Besides this BRCS’s international division also had strong governmental contacts from its own platform too. BRCS also developed strong societal partnership with national government and Scottish parliament along with assemblies of Ireland, Wales and other regional areas. BRCS struggled a lot to develop a stronger relationship with general public also. British Red Cross (BRCS) enjoys a strong and valuable reputation among its stakeholders. Both internal and external stakeholders have a firm belief that BRCS has implemented its mission very successfully wherever it started rendering its services. Main stakeholders consist of two categories e.g., Internal and External. Table 1 Stakeholders, according to importance are of four types. One, those with high understanding and intellectual awareness about organization and its corporate role. Two, those with low level of intellectual understanding about organization. Three, stakeholders with high emotional commitment and Four, stakeholders with low level of commitment for corporate objectives and mission. BRCS has all levels of stakeholders. BRCS at present has 21 region with 4 territory offices support the areas. BRCS’s board consists fifteen trustees with five females in it. Presently young and ethnic groups are not given representation at board. Despite all BRCS has a constant struggle for the change management in a better way. Organizations work for the constant growth and business development always. They pass through various ups and downs; these changes mostly are adjusted accordingly if these are not big ones. But in case of major changes due to any reasons organizational development is a normal outcome. Evolutionary changes are permanent in business, which take place at a normal pace, whenever various changes take place out of this normal course of business. Changes brought into business life by competitors, economy or any other external and internal factors may create a major disturbance or upsets in organization. To nullify the effect of these changes, companies make specific protective and corrective efforts; such efforts are labelled as change management in short. Other than enforced changes many times organizations also plan to change organization’s potential, profitability, image or value. When such changes with the help of a strategy are applied, problems also occur and people show their disapproval or dislike that is called resistance to change. Before we discuss the details of these four levels of stakeholders, let us see the main contributing stakeholders in the structure of BRCS. Stakeholders can be divided into two main groups i.e., internal and external. Internal stakeholders in BRCS are: Governing body & General management Employees Donors Volunteers External stakeholders in BRCS are: Governmental agencies Private partners International Donors Immigrants Victims, Patients & Effected ones If we collectively see the importance of stakeholders we can find the following most important stakeholders in BRCS and its organization. 1. Employees 2. Governmental agencies 3. Private partners 4. National and International Donors 5. Immigrants, Patients and Victims Analyses of Stakeholders and their influence: 1. Employees Employees of BRCS play a vital role as major and leading stakeholders of BRCS. Employees of BRCS are at the level of top when we consider intellectual understanding about organization. Employees have high involvement and participation in the progress of BRCS. Employees have both types of champions and bystanders. When we consider and compare the involvement of employees as champions, we find the examples in service activities and implementation of various projects. Whereas bystanders have their continued contributions as well that they keep delivering in regular and due course of their jobs. Employees’ contributions as major stakeholders are also evaluated from their inputs which are both qualitative and quantitative. Employees also have different groups from emotional commitment where some have high level and some have a lower level. Anyhow such emotional levels may be situation dependent or variable in different. Role and influence of employees as major stakeholders is very much dominant on the overall performance of BRCS. Employees influence also helps BRCS in redefining its strategies and work plans. Employees are also free to give their inputs whenever they feel and required. 2. Non Governmental Sector BRCS was initiated in 1870 and was incorporated in 1908 by the by royal charter of England. BRCS joined the International Federation in 1923. BRCS has gone through a process of association into a major sole charity. Being the of this development, the law was revised in 1997 when the new royal charter came into being in January 1998. “The statutes and the new system of governance also took effect as of January 1998. Prior to the restructuring, each of the society’s branches had separate charitable status. The last national assembly was held in March 2002. Elections to the national board of trustees, the regional councils and the branch councils are made on an annual basis.” (BRCS a profile – 1990) Various governmental agencies and public sector organizations are also major stakeholders of BRCS. Governmental agencies contribute in terms of finance and logistic support whenever required by the project management teams of BRCS. British government also has strong influence over the management and success track of BRCS. Government by all means supports BRCS with a very encouraging and supportive gesture. Britain government and its related institutions are strong stakeholders of BRCS and are considered at number one and at the top when we compare their influence over management and services rendered by BRCS. Governmental agencies are considered on high intellectual understanding and high emotional commitment. High intellectual understanding of governmental agencies further enables BRCS to continue its programmes and projects. Table 3 From careful analysis we can find governmental agencies as the most powerful and developed stakeholders. From power and interest these are at the right top part of this matrix. These stakeholders also have very high involvement and they play very decisive and critical role in policy and mission decisions of BRCS. 3. Individual and Private partners Private partners include multidimensional range of supply chain that provides help and support. Private partners include various logistic and humanitarian support providers like hospitals, transporters, promoters, and media. These private partners have significant but not very strong influence on BRCS. Private partners have variable emotional understanding to the cause of BRCS where some participants have lower emotional involvement like transporters and media and some participants have strong emotional understanding like service providers, clinics and paramedics. “British Red Cross has significant partnerships at local and national level in areas such as first aid, home from hospital, refugees and asylum seekers, emergency planning and international development.”( Journal RCS – 2004) From interest and power points, private partners have minimum rating in the matrix and lie in the left bottom corner showing lower interest and power in the management of BRCS. Private partners’ low level of emotional understanding and variable involvement do not create a negative or lower impact on their influence and importance in BRCS. Despite variable involvement we can see a visible positive change in the role of private partners in case of calamities and dangers. 4. Donors if Different Capacities and Locations Donors from national and international groups, individuals and organizations also play an important role in the development of BRCS and its projects. Donors provide greater flexibility to the working of BRCS and play a very vital role in both structuring and application of BRCS. Various contributors place an important stress on financial management especially in case of crisis management. Donors help BRCS in fulfilling and maintaining crisis needs of needy people such as people in suffering, with disabilities or with dependant living. Such individuals are well served with the support of donors and establish them as major stakeholders of BRCS. Supremacy is the liability of the board of trustees, involving one elected trustee from each of the former eight regions and seven co-opted trustees with specific skills, expertise or knowledge. All trustees are volunteers. Donors stand at the top in matrix when we refer to their power and involvement (table 3). Donors play a standby role in peaceful conditions and keep providing BRCS their advice and valued inputs. Where as during crises the role becomes more involved (Table 1) and they show a very strong and vivid emotional involvement and intellectual understanding. 5. People who Suffer Fifth most important stakeholder group consists of beneficiaries of different sorts like immigrants, patients, victims of natural calamities. These stakeholders have a very positive outlook for BRCS. “Operational managers will have discretion to prioritise available resources to meet the most significant unmet needs in their area.” Role and influence of these stakeholders is important but not active (Table 3). We can see two main elements in RBCS service strategy that are building and promoting charitable human values, and preparing for and responding to crises. The society requires and focuses on need led and user focus always. Their service strategy is based on certain priorities. The service strategy is based on five new service parameters. Directors of teams and management are given discretions to focus specifically on crises management and priority making. BRCS has its active contribution in and maintenance to incorporate emergency planning activities at different geographical levels nationwide. 2. Critical Activities at British Red Cross The job of a non-profit organization is to work for the benefit for the community it has come into existence for. This task is not an easy one, considering the facts that non-profit means no money and there are very few people left in this world that would want to work for no money or less money. Besides these barriers, there are other barriers faced by the organization as well. One of the very common barriers that most of the non-profit organizations face these days is ‘NIMBY’ (Not in my back yard). Now what is NIMBY? It is the negative attitude of a person, community or town towards the development of anything that they feel make them prone to some kind of danger. The community usually takes this stance because they do not want that particular thing to be in their area, town or locality. The Christian Science Monitor first used this term in 1980. Mostly the people of a neighborhood are concerned about the kind of developments that developers do in their areas. The reasons behind some innocuous developments facing the NIMBY problem are various. For example, most people would prefer a chemical factory or a detention center to be far away from their houses where they are out of sight and out of mind (Wallace, 2008). The importance of this problem is that decision makers have to face conflicting objectives. First objective is of helping the under privileged individuals of a particular area while the second is to give importance to opinion of valuable tax paying citizens. The solution to this confliction could be a plan that does not jeopardize the motives of the each of the section of the society (Jimenez, 2005). Four processes of BRCS responsible for its development and growth are: Focus on Humanitarian Needs BRCS has its own mission to be unique and idealist in providing humanitarian services and relief to the victims and suffering humanity. For this purpose organization and its board of trusties constantly focus on emergency and realistic humanitarian needs. For the purpose of humanitarian need analysis BRCS has a set procedure of field surveys, virtual support system, need identification programmes and field staff’s feedback. Societal Marketing Emergence of BRCS as a leading service provider in emergency service sector is mostly dependent to its strong social and political influence generated by the its social marketing process over the last many decades. Social marketing process is adopted and implemented on continuous bases on multi-pronged media strategies. The effect of BIA is also very strong and BRCS tries to manage it rationally wherever becomes possible. Funds & HR Supply Chain Management Financial process of BRCS is remarkably strong and highly efficient. We can see the smooth inflow of funds from internal and external sources and similarly outflow also endorses the image of organization very successfully. Process of HR management adopted and BRCS is globally acknowledged as the best HR arrangement. Regardless situation and its diversity, BRCS has remarkable people to cope with situation in a comfortable and smooth way. All this comes as a result of its global and national networking with public, private partners and volunteers. Importance of Employees at Workplace: Employees are important for achieving goal then the responsibility comes how these employees should work for achieving high standards of customer satisfaction? At BRCS it is an open secret that employees mainly intend to work for the physical work giving to them according to their job description. Though BRCS makes different efforts to ensure quantitative and qualitative efforts to ensure performance of employees but there is not specific way to know how do employees behave and work for achieving customer satisfaction. As per Hertz Berg’s two factor motivation theory, people treat salary and working environment as routine requirement of their jobs and don’t fee motivated on the basis of nominal salaries. For doing something extra, they need motivation and for motivation they need to be given something extra by the employer. (Adler, R. B) Similar to the concepts of employees, business researchers and scholars are also divided on certain human needs and employees’ concern bout growth. But all researchers and business psychologists are of the opinion that rewards really award. If you give rewards to your employees reward, they will award business with better results. Various rewards to employees make different behavioural and motivational changes in their personalities. BRCS has an edge over other NGOs in service sector and it focuses on performance with a maintained humanitarian perspective. Figure: 1 Like modern business and non-business organisations, BRCS also believes in good reward system that would base on financial compensation or Remuneration, certain benefits regardless their job hierarchy and business status, and perquisites of different types based on hierarchy. These three factors make the most successful blend of modern reward package. As such package is a motivating blend of financial and non-financial benefits, this suites majority of people. Why reward got this much importance? Answer is due proven and emergence understanding of human capital. Now this concept is also very concrete that without having a good reward strategy no HR development is possible. So, its not only that business strategy is important, HR strategy accompanied by reward strategy has its own position in both developed & growing companies. (Figure:1) BRCS tires to focus on modern communication practices seriously considering the importance of reward system and develops its own unique reward systems to boost employee’s performance. 3. Questionnaire Name: Age: Gender: Nationality: No Questions Responses Q # 01 Do you know about British Red Cross Services (BRCS)? Yes/No Q # 02 What is your source of information about BRCS? 1. Newspapers 2. Television 3. Magazines 4. BRCS Material 5. Radio 6. Friends/Family 7. Others Q # 03 Have you read about BRCS reportage in the above-mentioned sources? Yes/No Q # 04 Have you learned about BRCS reportage in England and Europe? Yes/No Q # 05 Do you feel that there is some sort of ethnic discrimination in the services rendered by BRCS? Yes/No Q # 06 Do you think BRCS has strong mind share among Britain audience? Yes/No Q # 07 Do you think that the social marketing efforts and reportage enhances the prestige of BRCS? Yes/No Q # 08 Was there any kind of superiority BRCS has over other service providers in NGO sector? Yes/No Q # 09 Are you familiar with the history and achievements of BRCS? Yes/No Q # 10 Was there any kind of global image indicated or reported in the promotional material of BRCS? Yes/No References: O. Wallace. ‘What is NIMBY’. 2008. Retrieved on April 10, 2008 from Liza Jimenez. ‘FROM NIMBY TO YIMBY: UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY OPPOSITION TO SPECIAL NEEDS RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES IN VANCOUVER.’ Bachelor of Arts, Simon Fraser University 2002. Retrieved on April 10, 2008 from http://www.sfu.ca/mpp/pdf_news/Capstone/Liza%20Jimenez%20capstone.pdf Kotter, J. (1996) Leading Change. USA: Harvard Business School Press Lewis, R. (1994). ‘From Chaos to Complexity’. Executive Development. Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 16-17 (Bamford and Forrester, 2003; Burns, 2004) Sadler, P. (1996). Managing Change. London: Kogan Page Limited. Read More