Organizational Behaviour: Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service - Case Study Example

Please review...your presentation will follow in the evening today..Thanks! Fire and Rescue Service Management Organizational Behaviour Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service 1. Outline of the Case Study The Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service have been serving the community for more than 50 years and being administered by the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority. The service is helping and protecting the people of Lancashire and making the community a safe place for everyone. “Working Together to Make Lancashire Safer” (LFRS 2006, Strategies Page) is the main purpose of the service with a long-term vision to reduce risk and provide services in a flexible and cost-effective way. The Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service is basically responsible for the implementation of legislation regarding fire safety by giving advice about fire safety in the home and responding to every fire incident in the community. The fire and rescue services believes in the importance of hard work, control, and operational efficiency thus from 2003 to 2004, the incidents of fire and casualties have been reduced. Following a three year trend, the fire and rescue service obtained their lowest casualty figures in 2007 and deliberate fires or arson have been reduced to as low as 30%. In line with its programme for incidence reduction of fires, road traffic accidents, and other hazards, the service provides advice, education, and community safety initiatives. These include regular Home Fire Safety check and giving advice to people how to avoid fires and make their home safer. The service also does some initiatives to give young people ideas about fire safety and offer a chance for teenagers to work with real fire fighters in almost a week. More importantly, the service provides emergency response service to fire and coordinates with the police, local authorities, and local health agencies to attain the most efficient result. These include engaging with young people empowerment and extensive programmes for child fire safety. 2. Relationship Between Internal Organisational Structures and External Environmental Factors The Fire and Rescue Service’s decentralised internal structure was formed in such a way that the organisation will be able to include important elements required for an organisation with a vision to serve. For instance, the service has four types of staff, which forms its organisation structure. These are the Mobilization of Control Staff, Flexible Duty Staff, Day Duty Staff, and the Specialist Support Staff. These separate teams are responsible to a particular aspect of day-to-day working. For instance, the mobilising and control staff is responsible for processing emergency calls, mobilisation of fire appliances and personnel, and provides life saving advice when required. The flexible duty staff is doing managerial function and gives operational response for emergency incidents that are more complex than normal. The duty staffs plays the role of providing fire safety training, perform specialist functions, building inspection, and fire safety education to the community. Also working on a flexible time basis are the specialist support staff that are responsible for providing administrative functions and technical expertise particularly in front line activities (LFRS 2006, Risk Management Plan). This decentralised internal structure was formed not only to serve the internal needs of the organisation but also to serve the external stakeholders and other important factors. For instance, the fire and rescue service intends to give its external stakeholders the best service as much as possible. Staff in separate teams can concentrate on their particular task thus giving more specialised services to the community and staff. Their constant press releases and publications offer the public information about their works. It also welcomes any input or information from other parties that are useful to the performance of their work. Another is their caring attitude towards their employees, contractors, and other people working on its premises. The fire and rescue service is committed in giving reasonable health and safety precautions to safeguard contractor’s well-being as well as their own employees from undue risks. The Lancashire Fire and Rescue service is bound to uphold relevant legislations and to comply with best practices. Moreover, it had entered into partnerships with the community and other relevant external agencies to ensure effective use of resources and flow of funds. The service also has its own corporate sponsors such as BHP Billiton, O2, ADI, and others helping to enhance deliver of service (LFRS 2006, Performance Report). 3. Analysis of the role of individuals and teams within the organisation The Fire and Rescue Service strategy for workers development reflect the role of the service in modern day society. This is because they believed that the workforce is the key resource important in delivering an effective and up-to-date service. In addition, a well-developed and efficient workforce is definitely required and all stakeholders recognise the importance of learning and development in the pursuit of goals and objectives. Consequently, the service focus is on development and acquiring new and better skills for their members. Similarly, the equality scheme developed by the fire and rescue service enables the organisation to implement best practices for human development. In addition, the Human Resource and Workforce Development is the general strategic approach to address the learning requirements of individual (LFRS 2006, Performance Report). The service embraces negotiation and communication as an important as traditional skills thus the organisational structure is more specialised and direct. For instance, teams are working separately with specific responsibilities making services more organised and effective in dealing with a particular stakeholder. The Home Safety Check is one programme that delivers this direct staff to stakeholder communication. Another is the action being taken by the fire and rescue service that reflects its strategic objectives such as various publications that is being use a communication tool to allow all stakeholders to see a clear picture of the service intentions and rationale behind their approach (LFRS 2006, Risk Management Plan). Generally, individual perception is influenced by the vision set by the fire and rescue management. The strong leadership by officers and well-managed working environment influenced everybody in a positive way. For instance, the organisation maintained a well-structured service because they employ the right on the right tasks with a good record of accomplishment in delivering positive outcomes. Another is the extensive engagement with the community that creates a harmonious between staff and the people they serve. Consequently, staff generally perceived their work as worth doing and very rewarding due to their closeness to the community (LFRS 2006, Chief’s Message). In LFRS, motivation is increased by the strong leadership and well-structured working environment. Its leadership motivates the staff by creating a flexible and harmonious environment. The emphasis on serving the community and equality in the workplace motivates individuals in various ways and it may be to serve better or work efficiently as a contribution to the mission of the organization. In this type of working environment, each individual motivates each other by showing their dedications to their work and to the community. The LFRS believes in the importance of providing effective and efficient service to the community and for this reason, it value and respect the diversity of its workforce. It had made its workplace an environment of equality, lawful, and fair. A working environment where similarities and differences are well understood, acknowledged, and treasured. The LFRS equality strategy contains approaches that would settle equality issues that include race, disability, and gender. For this purpose, the service had appointed a Community Outreach Development Officer to ensure development and preservation of the links between the service and the minority ethnic community. To provide fair and impartial services, the service has its own Equality Scheme to deal with diverse communities and provide employees with a working condition that provides equal opportunities. More importantly, the LFRS Equality Scheme follows the statutory requirements set by government for race, disability, and gender (LFRS 2006, Equal Opportunities). In view of its commitment to serve with equality and respect for diversity, the service is now doing its best to provide positive action for under-represented groups such as females and ethnic minority groups in the service. Females in uniformed roles in the LFRS are under-represented and in terms of employment, the ethnic minority groups are limited in their roles. For this reason, the service decided to conduct several positive action events to rectify the under-representation of the above groups. The service generally value working with all groups and treat everyone equally and with respect. The Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service organisation structure is generally made up of several teams, all with one aim and objective- to serve. The various teams that composed the organisation apparently are well versed in teamwork since although they may be in separate teams and working on specific task, their individual output contributes to the final results. A good outcome is not possible if one or two of these teams is not cooperating thus teamwork exist (LFRS 2006, Equal Opportunities). 4. How Roles are defined in organisation and how they are affected by organisational design, structure, culture, and strategy The LFRS workforce is made up of a number of teams. Their roles are defined by the task involve in enhancing the services offered by the LFRS. The decentralised nature of the organisational structure of the LFRS influenced the roles of individual by giving them low-level decision-making power. The people and service oriented culture of the organisation on the other hand influences the role of each individual through motivation and will to serve. The strategy however, influences these roles by setting the goals each individual must achieve. 5. Assessment of organisation development Normally, organisational development focuses on the group and its dynamics where individuals are considered a functional unit within the system (Hord 1987, p.41). This concept is present in the LFRS organisational development as its organisational clearly gives importance to the functionality and contribution of its group and individual in the system. Since the “fire and rescue services are creatures of evolution” (Collins 2005, p.14), it is therefore subject to change particularly in its organisational structure and operation. As mentioned earlier, the LFRS always was seeking positive results with its change agenda. The hiring of in-house specialist to handle the particular requirements of clients and communities on disability, ethnicity, age and gender issues is one organisation change aiming for a positive result. Another is hiring the right people for the job and establishing the right partnership for the mission (LFRS 2006, Chief’s Message). Organisation culture generally a system of sharing meaning, belief, symbols, rituals, myths, and practices in an organisation (Preston et al., 2002, p.57) thus culture varies in every organisation. These differences may be in the form of individual initiative, direction, integration, management support, and conflict tolerance. All organisations even those that well structured involve conflict (Fiala p.2), thus tolerance is mostly required. However, according to Fiala (2005, p.2), individuals cannot share a common life without giving up something of value thus tolerance requires sacrifice. The LFRS know the reality of life, had considered the issues of ethnicity, age and gender, and disability to avoid, and reduced conflict (LFRS 2006, Chief’s Message). 6. Appraisal of Organisational Management Decision-making in LFRS are being made in consultation with officers and elected members of the council. For instance the Risk Management Plan for 2008-2011 was made in consultation with the Combined Fire Authority consist of twenty-five elected councillors from Lancashire, Blackburn, Darwen, and Blackpool. Moreover, legal obligations, local risks, affordability, value for money, and a wide range of associated considerations influence the current operating environment of the service. Conflict is being managed or tolerated by understanding and respecting the diversity of the workforce and promoting equality through elimination of discrimination. The service ensures that guidance is available to every staff and equalised issues through outreach programmes that maintain links to the minorities in the organisation. The power of management depends on the quality and dedication of the workforce since none of their effort would be possible without the great contribution of each staff (LFRS 2006, Chief’s Message). Politically, similar to many service organisations, the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Services works under the guidance of relevant organisation legislations and the Combined Fire Authority elected councillors. Any decision or change in the organisation therefore is influenced by these factors and none could progress without due process. 7. Bibliography Collins L. 2005, Technical Rescue Operations: Common Emergencies, US: PennWell Books Fiala A. 2005, Tolerance and the ethical life. US: Continuum International Publishing Group Hord S. 1987, Evaluating educational innovation. UK: Routledge LFRS, 2006, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, United Kingdom, available at http://www.lancsfirerescue.org.uk/lfrs/home/default.php Preston N., Samford C. & Connors C. 2002. Encouraging ethics and challenging corruption: reforming governance in public institutions, Australia: Federation Press Read More