Current and future challenges of VCL

Executive Summary This report will focus on the current and future challenges of VCL .The current challenges include management and operations. Besides that the report will highlight the strengths of the company because they are the ones that have brought it this far. Though these challenges are temporary if they are not addressed they could jeopardize the mission of the organization in future. The workforce of this company is comprised of generalized staff that is expected to play roles of different personnel at a go. This is just a clue of the current challenges that will be covered in this report. On the other hand, there are future challenges that are yet to be experienced. This report will focus on the threats that are posed by these challenges and develop an action plan that will remedy these forthcoming issues. By understanding future challenges, the organization will have ample time prepare itself in anticipation of future changes. Introduction VCL specializes in automobile spares and of late it has managed to establish three branches. In organizational development it is important to analyze what has been achieved and what is yet to be achieved. Once this is done then the focus shifts to the barriers of development. In the case of VCL the size of workforce is in itself an obstacle because no one can be an expert in all fields. Moreover the challenges fall into two categories namely current and future challenges. An organization therefore needs to have a clear vision of future expectations and make the necessary adjustments. The challenges could also come with new opportunities. For instance if the market for automobiles is flooded then the organization could venture into a new market. But then care should be taken while drafting the action plan because every move will cause a positive or negative impact to the organization. It is therefore important to weigh the options early enough. 1. Current and Future Challenges at VCL Current Challenges The present challenges revolve around the companys human resource department and the finance department The HR department is more of administrative rather than strategic. In addition, the employees represent the inputs that VCL use to generate results. Besides that, the financial situation is the core element of the organization because it reflects on the status of the company (Baum Locke, 2004). From the look of things, VCL puts more efforts towards retaining its customers. Perhaps what the managers of this company do not know is that it is unhealthy to make sales without paying attention to accuracy of financial reporting. The organization does not understand the significance of finance department, but perhaps by the time the truth will be downing on the administrators it will be too late. The finance department requires effective support services for it to improve its performance. The success of an organization is not measured by the number of sales generated, but also on the performance of each individual department (Shantz Latham, 2009). The provision of the necessary resources will ensure that the tasks performed by employees in the finance department will be more accurate and satisfying to both the employees and the customers (Cornelius Schwab, 2003). Similarly, the tasks will become easier, and thus they will be completed within a very short time. Upgrading the finance department will help in reducing the expenses that are sometimes avoidable. The records that are held within the finance department can be relied upon to give a history of VCL since its inception four decades ago. Moreover, the impact of all company initiatives is reflected in the finance department, regardless of whether the impact is negative or positive. StrengthsWeaknessAbility to meet market demand and Effective preventive maintenance. 600 million annual turn over. Adequate workforce. Have been in the industry for 40 years Operations are not centralizedStaff without relevant skills Inadequate support staff ( shared secretary) Poor policy implementation Neglected HR and Finance departmentsOpportunity ThreatIntroduce new products Newer markets beyond national boarders Increased client base Creation of new sources of incomeStiff competition from other competitors The market could collapse in the near future SWOT Table As shown in the SWOT table above, the workforce of VCL is not well resourced and the administrators do not reckon this shortcoming. The company has managed to remain competitive for forty years because of the reliability of its workforce and therefore the workforce should not be disregarded (Drach-Zahavy Erez, 2002). In fact, VCL would not have achieved its goals without the workforce. This is why more emphasis is needed in this area. The HR department needs to appreciate the efforts made by the employees for all those years because this is what will keep them going. Just like one cannot serve many masters at the same time, the generalized staff can serve all their assigned roles evenly. It is illogical to think that an employee can be an expert in everything to make him/her work all round the entire company. Perhaps VCL prefers a generalized staff because it costs less to hire and maintain such personnel (Gully et al., 2002). While the administrators may be overlooking the importance of HR department the staff who work there could be overwhelmed by the numerous roles they are supposed to play. In essence, it seems the generalized staff serves different purposes simultaneously. For instance, the two persons are the companys help desk, public relations and human resource managers, and one support staff aids them. Both the support staff and the generalized personnel cannot work efficiently because they will concentrate on areas that they are more acquainted with. For instance, if the personnel is a trained accountant he/she will deliver outstanding results in this area because he/she has the relevant training. The other areas will be overlooked and he/she will attend to other areas for the sake of pleasing the employer. Maybe this approach of generalized recruitment was employed for the sake of minimizing operations cost but then VCL should consider what specialized personnel could achieve (Jay, 2004). Zhao, Seibert, and Hills (2005) reckon that the generalized staff is forced to tackle tasks that they are not familiar with and they are likely to make uninformed decisions. The above argument is supported by the fact that the same generalized personnel have the mandate of drafting the policies that are implemented in other branches of the organization. For instance, an accountant cannot make policies that are going to influence the other departments in an organization without consulting the people who head the other departments. This is because does not understand the concepts that can or cannot work in every individual department. It is like forcing a marketer to emulate the policies recommended by the manufacturer while it is clear that marketing is not close to manufacturing. When the policies drafted by the supposed mastermind fail to deliver the desired results, VCL should blame itself. This is because the wrong person drafts the policies. Additionally, the generalized staff is always at the head office and so they do not know exactly what happens in the sites apart from the information that is conveyed to them by the site managers. In fact, the policies should be drafted after the site managers have been consulted. Centralizing functions is another challenge because it reduces the process of implementation. Having a centralized HR means that each branch cannot make its decisions without the approval of the head office (Locke Latham, 2002). VCL should embrace the latest technology for effective management of its branches. This is because each branch has its own unique needs, and the individual HR managers understand the areas that need improvement. Future Challenges The generalized staffs at VCL make decisions that are based on their previous experiences in other organizations. The strategy employed by VCL does not create room for exposure, which is much needed by the generalized staff (Pinder, 2008). Situations change with time, but since the HR department is under staffed the approaches recommended by the policy makers may not work in future. When challenges arise, VCL can only rely on generalized personnel to draft an action plan. This limits the chances of solving the problem because the people on the ground are not involved in making decisions that affect them on a daily basis. In addition, VCL branches have a single client and this could spell doom in the future as competition stiffens. This implies that the existence of VCL is fully dependent on the existence of these designated customers. The company would no one to buy the automobile parts. Seijts and Latham (2005) argue that by having a single customer, the company has limited its options and its chances of survival are very narrow. Should this speculation happen, VCL will be ejected from the market because it will not meet the market demand. The company has one stream of income and this is a problem in waiting because the company will have to close down incase the market does not favor its ambitions. Having several different product lines guarantees survival because revenue can be obtained from either side. A time will come when the current personnel will have to leave the company and thereafter a vacuum. In will be left in the company. This is because VCL does not have a succession plan especially in the head office. In essence, the STEEPLE table below depicts the issues discussed in this section, SocialDisposable income, ageing population, shift in customer demandTechnologykeeping with technological trendsEnvironmentpolicies and pollutionEconomicalRecession, Interest rate, inflation, Fuel price going upPoliticalBritain not part of Europe, changing Government policies, export regulations.LegalEmployment law, LegislationEthicsCSR,( ethical practices with labor according to UN ETC Learning and Development Implications of VCLs Challenges The development of an organization is dependent on the knowledge that is contained in the organization. This knowledge can be obtained through learning which comes in different forms (Baum Locke, 2004). Knowledge can be transmitted in formal learning institutions or through observation. VCL employs apprenticeship and vocational training. This strategy is ideal because it is voluntary, and thus the learner learns at his/her own pleasure. Likewise, apprenticeship is convenient and cheap both to the organization because it takes place within the premises of the company (Selden Brewer, 2000). However, a functional HR department must be established to oversee the implementation of learning and development. Learning through observation is also useful because the learner applies the concepts of the lesson in his/her tasks. Alternatively, vocational learning enhances the talents that are possessed by individuals by refining them for the benefit of the organization. The advantage of apprenticeship is that it gives the learner hands-on experience, and therefore incorporating those skills becomes easier (Shantz Latham, 2009). Learning contributes to increased performance because the employees are able to improve the outcome of their inputs. However, learning can loose its relevance if the learners are not allowed to apply the concepts learned. In the end it will be a waste of time. This suggests learning is the catalyst of organizational change. There is no point of investing in learning if the organizational behavior will not change (Wise, 2005). The challenges that have been cited in VCL can be traced in the companys organizational culture. However, the Chartered engineer at Windy Hill site is herself an agent of change. She is a very radical person because when she came on board she assessed the situation at the site and identified a fault in workforce management. It is impossible to initiate change without understanding why certain are done in a particular way (Srivastava, Bartol, Locke, 2006). She relied on her broad experience, which in this case was her source of knowledge. She may have encountered a similar challenge elsewhere and fortunately, for her those challenges presented an opportunity to learn. She realized that the employees, especially the junior employees, were not motivated in any way. The head office would have initiated change long before the new manager was hired but then they chose to ignore the challenges. In light of this, organizational learning and development should be a gradual process (Jay, 2004). The new manager is aware of this because she realized that change was not going to be experienced overnight. She realized that change need to start from somewhere and spread to other branches of VCL. So far, her initiative has achieved commendable results, and thus her station should be viewed as the role model by the other branches. The new manager must have spent time with the employees in her site for addressing their needs. Organizational learning should be inclusive because the members have to move ahead as one block (Gully et al., 2003). Currently, VCL employs selective learning and thus organizational development cannot be felt in the entire organization. Likewise, biased learning can cause the employees to be demoralized because they think that the organization favors certain people at the expense of other employees. It is important to solve the current challenges because with time they will pile up, thus causing the organization to be overwhelmed. This is because there are future challenges that are yet to be solved (White, Bandura and Bero, 2009). The current challenges at VCL should be viewed as lessons for handling future challenges. This means that once the problems are eliminated, the lessons should be retained and advanced because the future challenges will be more complex. The challenges do not have fixed solutions and that is why organizational learning must continue (Whyte Saks, 2007). The new manager has created a balance between branch growth and personal development. It is evident that she has established a working relationship with her team, which has led to improved performance. Most managers think that employees are only concerned about their pay, which is wrong because there are other issues that contribute to employee satisfaction. Employees are motivated when the organization appreciates their contribution towards the growth of the company (Jay, 2004). This can be achieved by sharing the achievements with the people who contributed to the achievement of those results. For instance, the yearly turnover stands at 600 million pounds. A certain fraction of this money should be given to the employees because without them this figure would not have been realized. Employees have their own goals that go hand in hand with those of VCL and if those goals are not achieved the employees will be demoralized because they do not have anything to show for their hard work (Wise Freund, 2005). It is likely that the junior employees at VCL work for the sake of their survival and thus they will leave the organization in case new opportunities show up elsewhere. Action Plan for VCL The management of VCL should not wait until the environment demands for change because that way they will miss the organizational goals. The current and future challenges need to be addressed by involving all the members of the organization. The decisions made by the management of VCL should include the voice of employees who work in different sites. This is because each workstation is unique and thus requires unique solutions. The change strategy should be documented so that all the aspects and elements that need to be altered are clearly understood. It is important to set a period within which the changes should be implemented (Zhao, Seibert, Hills, 2005). Before scheduling change, VCL should set realistic goals that are dependent on availability of resources. For instance, more staff needs to be brought on board but then this exercise requires a commendable amount of money to be dedicated to this purpose. Furthermore, the organization should come up with long-term solutions so that the problems are entirely solved. Other branches should emulate the changes implemented by Windy Hills site manager. However, the changes need to follow a specific sequence because changes are not easy to implement. This is because each workstation has its own capacity and thus unique strengths and weaknesses. The changes should then be allocated priorities based on their importance. The management should identify ways of motivating its employees. A simple gesture such as involving them in decision-making processes will help build lasting relationships. Furthermore, the generalized staff should be retained, but new experts should be hired for the sake of relieving the overwhelmed staff. This will contribute to improved performance because the employees will concentrate on a single task. Recruitments should be based on qualifications for the sake of guaranteeing effective performance. Further, VCL needs to focus on strategies that can contribute to increased market share. It seems the marketing approach that was employed by VCL was not effective. More efforts should be directed towards gaining new customers before competitors flood the market. The company should establish a target market and ensure that the products of the company are marketed to people who are likely to make a purchase due to their needs. Potential competitors should be identified for preparing to defeat them. This can be achieved by focusing on the activities of the competitors and advancing them for the benefit of the organization. VCL should identify a different venture that should act as a back up plan. Markets are very dynamic and thus an organization should be prepared to cope with these changes or risk being ejected from the business. VLC should then identify and document another niche product in anticipation of market change. It is not possible to experience change without knowledge because being aware enables an organization to identify its weaknesses and strengths. Since situations are not dormant, learning should also be continuous. This implies that learning programs should be integrated with the organization. The management should provide the support that is required to facilitate the learning process. Consequently, the initiatives of VCL need to be assigned resources such as budgetary allocation. The resources allocated to each initiative should not be fixed because the changes in the environment may exhaust the available resources. VCL should also establish channels of communication. Besides that, communication should take a two-way traffic instead of the current one-way approach. This will ensure that the appropriateness of the decisions spear headed by management is closely managed. When the underlying issues are addressed, VCL will forge ahead successfully and remain intact. Conclusion VCL must continue assessing its current and future challenges. This is because challenges do not have permanent solutions because they are also subjected to change which makes them tougher than ever before. The HR and finance departments need to be accorded equal relevance just like the other sections. VCL needs to weigh its strengths before embarking on the implementation of the action plan. The plan should include how the market share will be increased over a given period of time. Besides, the goals that will be set need to be realistic because if they are not then the mission would be a waste of time and resources. Organizational learning should be documented in the companys culture to ensure that it is a continuous process. REFERENCIES Cornelius, P., and K. Schwab, 2003. The global competitiveness report. New York Oxford University Press. Jay, W., 2004. International perspectives on workforce education and development. New York Information Age drafting. Pinder, C., 2008. Work motivation in organizational behavior. 2nd Ed. Toronto Psychology Press. Baum, J. and E. Locke, 2004. The relationship of entrepreneurial traits, skill and motivation to subsequent venture growth. Journal of Applied Psychology online, 89, pp. 587-598. Drach-Zahavy, A. Erez, M. (2002) Challenge versus threat effects on the goal-performance relationship. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 88, pp. 667-682. Gully, S.M., et al (2002) A meta-analysis of team efficacy, potency and performance interdependence and level of analysis as moderators of observed relationships. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, pp. 819-832. Locke, E.A. Latham, G.P. (2002) Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation A 35 year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57, pp. 705-717. Seijts, G.H. Latham, G.P. (2005) Learning versus performance goals when should each be used Academy of Management Executive, 19, pp. 124-131. Selden, S.C. Brewer, G.A. (2000) Work motivation in the senior executive service testing the high performance cycle theory. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 10, pp. 531-550. Shantz, A. Latham, G.P. (2009) The effect of subconscious and conscious goals on employee performance. Organizational Behavior and Human decision Processes, 109, pp. 9-17. Srivastava, A., Bartol, K.M., Locke, E.A. (2006) Empowering leadership in management teams effects on knowledge sharing, efficacy and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 49, pp. 1239-1251. White, J., Bandura, A., Bero, L. (2009) Moral disengagement in the corporate world Accountability in Research, 16, pp. 41-74. Whyte, G. Saks, A. (2007) The effects of self-efficacy on behavior in escalation situations. Human Performance, 20, pp. 23-42. Wise, B.S. Freund, A.M. (2005) Goal progress makes one happy or does it Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 78, pp. 287-304. Zhao, H., Seibert, S.E., Hills, G.E. (2005) The mediating role of self efficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, pp. 1265-1272. PAGE PAGE 17 Y, 4IsNXp
xpop, Yu),j-BXRH8@ I7E10(2O4k LEzqO2POuz_gx7 svnB2,E3p9GQd H I jZ29LZ15xl.(zmd@23ln-@iDtd6lB63yy@tHjpUyeXry3sFXI O5YYS.7bdn671. tn/w/t6PssL. JiN AI)t2 Lmx(-ixQCJuWlQyI@ m2DBAR4 wnaQ W0xBdT/.3-FbYLKK 6HhfPQh)GBms_CZys v@c)h7JicFS.NP eI Q@cpaAV.9HdHVXAYr A pxSL93U5U NC(pu@d4)t9M4WP5flk_X-C wTB Y, Ao Ye zxTVOlp /gTpJ EG, AozAryerb/Ch, Eoo. 6Q