Opportunities for Raising Productivity in Non-Profit Organisations - Essay Example

Opportunities for Raising Productivity in Non-Profit Organisations Abstract Substantial efforts have been put into the performance management aspect in non-profit organisations in various spheres such as strategic planning, resource planning, and program planning. Through performance management, organisational performance can be evaluated and measured against goals. Every aspect of organisational functioning can provide potential area of improvement, however, the scope remains limited based on the challenges involved. This paper implies to identify the scope of improvement in four spheres of non-profit organisations in terms of productivity. Opportunities for productivity improvement in these four spheres have been explained with emphasis on the most viable option that can add substantial value to the organisation. Performance management has gained momentum in recent years, probably due to factors such as competition, changing markets and needs of clients. Performance measurement can provide a sense of purpose, motivation and intrinsic satisfaction. Efforts concentrate on the process-oriented level, identification of appropriate performance indicators, managing relationships, raising funds for the organisation and so on. Vast improvement in performance management has been experienced with performance reporting and performance measurement methods being introduced. For instance, the Balanced Score Card system in private and non-profit sectors has popularised performance management system in many aspects (Niven, P.R 2003; p.4). Management systems in a non-profit organisation include planning, developing, and operating. Members of the Board and staff conduct strategic planning to determine the overall purpose and direction for the organisation. This part of the strategic planning will also include the methods to be adopted for the organisation to operate, resource planning, and program planning. Programs have to be designed as means to implement the service-oriented strategies such as marketing to identify community needs for the organisation to meet and the desired outcomes to meet those needs. This planning provides input to resource planning such as number of resources required including staff, funds, and people. Resource planning also includes financial management, advertising and promotions, and fundraising (McNamara, C 2005; p.160). In the current competitive and challenging environment, four spheres that can act as hotspots to organisational performance in the non-profit sector are external relations, management systems, marketing and fundraising, and volunteerism (Berman, E.M 2006; p.5). By improving the effectiveness and efficiency, productivity can be improved, thereby enhancing the performance. In non-profit sector, productivity process involves the production system consisting of labour, capital, and resources to be converted to products and services. Strategic management works towards the effectiveness while tactical and operational management work towards utilisation and efficiency. Productivity objectives provide direction and measurement provides control. Thus measurement and evaluation of productivity at all hierarchical levels is essential for survival and growth of the organisation. Also, a well-planned and developed measurement system can define problem areas in the system. Relationships: Management of relations in non-profit organisations is a highly sensitive and complex objective to be achieved as they depend on outside support to carry out their programs and services. Non-profit organisations have realised the importance of client as the hub around which everything revolves and guides management in the decision-making process. Positive relationships with many segments of the community are vital and a continuous effort to strengthen these relationships is required. This can be achieved through demonstrating how the organisation is benefiting the community. Demonstrating the achievement of organisational goals and objectives can be done by designing their programs in ways that are responsive to the interests and concerns of their stakeholders. Domiciliary care service agencies have to focus on maximising the benefits of engagement with the community with minimum costs can render good community relations. Organisations need to maintain increasing trust with external stakeholders. Services provided by care services are difficult to measure and are characterized by a high degree of experience and credibility. The caretakers face issues of lack of information and inability to measure quality. These are typical in case of providing health care to the disabled people, frail elderly and mentally handicapped people. Also, because the recipient is not the one who pays for the service, and that the financer does not experience the service personally, evaluation becomes extremely difficult. Thus, developing trust is softer, yet challenging, aspect of productivity enhancement. Non-profit organisations need to be more responsive to the clients. Improving relationship with clients and customers can be promising for successful functioning of the organisation. For this, the non-profit agency will require to make decisions on managing to achieve their goals with limited resources. The limitations involved in this sphere are the expectations that the support entities have from the non-profit agencies. This will require a clear goal-setting between the two. Nevertheless, ambiguities cannot be avoided due the regulatory governance issues that also need to be abided by. Non-profit organisations operate in highly changing environment. Needs of the communities and the customers keep changing rapidly. These needs and conditions may involve multiple, often divergent, demands, causing a need to adapt the organisation’s programs and services to circumstances that were not anticipated initially. Trying to remain faithful to the initial organisational goals and at the same time being responsive to current beneficiaries and community needs can cause controversies over the organisation’s future goals and directions. Improving communication with citizens and elected officials by developing better and more frequent use of tools such as surveys, advisory committees, performance review committees, and community forums can aid in making participation more meaningful. Introduction of electronic communication and instant messaging can be very promising in engaging citizens in community improvement activities (Greiling, D, 2007; p3). Marketing and fundraising: Increasing productivity in marketing and fundraising spheres involves producing desired levels of income at controllable costs; ensuring that income is consistent and predictable, and managing the effort with efficiency. Fundraising is a painful challenge that requires careful planning. Productivity can be enhanced by utilising fundraising time in qualified and productive activities. For this, knowing the apt financer is extremely important. Donor profiles or donor scorecards can be established to identify the high potential donors based on past and current relationships. Relying on the current prospective financiers takes less time, less cost and enhances relationships. New financiers have to be looked for while maintaining the current financiers. Efforts for effective marketing are required that again involve time and money. Financiers have to be explained about the project with measurable metrics that can give them a strong insight into growth trends and efficiency. Predictability and consistency are the limitations in this sphere (Greenfield, J.M 1999; p.76-85). Efficient volunteerism Strong core of volunteers are vital for the success of non-profit organisations. Volunteers must be committed and be able to give strong attention to those cared for. Providing care in domiciliary care services would include caring for the elderly and the disabled people. In order to provide high-quality service, the volunteers must understand the client by learning; say the ageing process and their psychology. The volunteers should be able to connect with those they are caring for. The volunteers should be aware of their own strengths and weaknesses involved in the caring assignment (Jackson, V 1996; p. 5). With the increasing number of care takers, newer groups of volunteers need to be identified by spreading word or making the existing volunteers ask their immediate friends, family and community members; by recruiting on a short term or long term basis. Reducing turnover among volunteers can play significant role in improving the productivity as it saves training time and costs of recruitment. Volunteers need to be kept motivated and encouraged for their work. This will help in reducing turnover, increasing commitment and producing better results. Various reward and recognition programs can be held to accomplish this. Managing volunteerism effectively is vital for sustainability and functioning of the organisation; however, with the ever-changing circumstances and challenges, this task becomes quite difficult. People and management: In order to promote high productivity and reduce waste, all resources including labour, material, funds, etc must be utilised optimally. To achieve this, all workers have to be well trained to contribute maximally to the success of the business. Workers need to be motivated to operate effectively. A participative management approach can help in bringing effectiveness. Effectiveness of the services can be increased by dividing the jobs assigned into discrete and defined tasks. Appropriate responsibilities have to be assigned according to the authority held. Delegation of important tasks can be used as a tool to recognise one’s capability and hard work done previously. Managers should ensure workers are working towards their predetermined goals by way of monitoring and performance measurement systems. Reporting lines have to be clearly stated and adhered to. The top management has to appropriate guide the workers at lower levels towards the organisational goals on a periodic basis. Alignment of individual’s goals with the organisational goals will increase the motivation of the employees thereby bringing positive results. Fair remuneration has to be adopted. This will help in avoiding discontent among its employees. Besides this, trust has to be developed with employees by means of fair practices and understanding; through this the organisation can achieve enhanced efficiency, quality, and productivity. Employee retention has to be dealt with high importance because this constitutes the intellectual property of the organisation. This can be achieved by adopting practices such as job tenure, job security, and good leadership. In this manner employees can be motivated to perform better in a secure environment. Rewards and recognition in the form of incentives and appreciation can stimulate work and productivity of the employees. This can benefit the employee and the organisation. Implementing rewards can lead to an increase in the cost, effectively increase in the input. Managers can find out what individuals need and try to provide some of them. Most often, leadership that recognizes and acknowledges the good work done by the people can bring about significant motivation among the workers. Practices such as appreciation in public and recognition in writing, encouraging customer appreciation and feedback, occasional pat on the back, and low-cost reward programs can be very helpful in keeping the workers motivated. Quality is yet another sphere that could always have potential for improvement. Berman (2006; 86) explains that some principal values of the quality concept are heightened customer orientation and improved service in order to provide the right services faster, better, and at lower cost. This can be effectively achieved by adopting the Total Quality Management (TQM) practice focusing on systems for producing services and the individual activities of employees. Effectiveness can be further enhanced by continuous improvement through TQM as it allows identification, meeting, and exceeding the needs of customers and stakeholders; strives to produce services right the first time. Usage of systematic analysis to evaluate and improve service provided can be of great value to the organisation. Consistent support can be provided to the workers in their efforts to improve quality and meet customer needs. Reduction of errors can help in gaining the confidence of stakeholders, and avoids rework thus decreasing costs. Besides these, TQM promotes empowerment of work, and thus increases the ownership and responsibility; this further improves commitment towards goals. Application of information and technology to implement TQM can also reduce costs incurred in employing middle managers as the workers tend to assume responsibility for their tasks and decision making. With reduction in erroneous work or poor quality service, resources can be allocated to produce more work elsewhere. Thus, application of TQM improves effectiveness by way of quality customer service and enhanced efficiency. Productivity of the workers can be improved by ensuring proper training and skill development. Planning sessions to formulate desired customer service responses to specific problems can be conducted to involve workers in decision making process. These sessions will also help in minor workflow adjustments or sorting out other small issues which might require interactions. Managers can closely monitor customer service interactions and conduct exit interviews or discussions with clients to assess performance. The service experience can be discussed with employees and changes made as required. To ensure the new approaches are maintained, managers can periodically discuss with workers their customer service efforts. Customers can be encouraged to provide feedback in writing or through hotline calling (Berman, E.M 2006; p.94). Most of the people working for non-profit organisations prefer working in teams. Teamwork has to be fostered at all levels, in all situations whenever required. Working in teams can increase the speed at which things are done; it brings together diverse expertise for dealing with complex and comprehensive problems; increases learning and sharing thereby increasing productivity. Appropriate horizontal and vertical communication patterns can be established to foster team work. To create successful teams, team’s authority and purpose has to be made clear. Adequate support should be provided to the teams from the managers and other members. Individual roles in the team have to be clearly defined and they should be in line with the team goals. Leaders of the team should be capable of connecting with the team members and escalating issues to the manger if required. Volunteers and other workers should be given balanced assessment of their performance including positive and negative aspects. Appropriate delegation to empower the employees can be done by identifying appropriate tasks, people, and time; monitoring implementation and outcomes along with making adjustments have to be done. Thus, teamwork, empowerment and feedback play vital role in improving performance. From the above discussion, it can be inferred that appropriate management of people of the organisation can be a very promising method to improve the productivity and enhance performance. While external relations, fundraising, and volunteerism are also important, the limitations that these aspects carry may not be as successful in achieving maximum productivity as the aspect of people management can bring. References Berman, E.M. (2006). Performance and Productivity in Public and Nonprofit Organizations. Edition 2. M.E. Sharpe. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=-DjxFMBza90C&pg=PA187&dq=productivity+nonprofit+organisation Greenfield, J.M. (1999).Fund raising: evaluating and managing the fund development process. Edition 2. John Wiley and Sons. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=fY8636G9LrMC&pg=PP24&dq=marketing+and+fundraising+in+non+profit+improve+productivity&lr= Greiling, D. (2007). Trust and performance management in non-profit organisations. The Innovation Journal: Public sector innovation journal. Vol. 12(3). Article 9. http://www.innovation.cc/volumes-issues/gibson1.pdf Jackson, V. (1996).Volunteerism in geriatric settings. Published by Haworth Press. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=gzqDw0wjS9kC&pg=PA5&dq=volunteerism&lr= McNamara, C. (2005). Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development with Nonprofits: A Collaborative and Systems Approach to Performance, Change and Learning. Authenticity Consulting, LLC. http://www.managementhelp.org/misc/np-orgl-diagnostic-model.pdf Niven, P.R. (2003). Balanced scorecard step-by-step for government and nonprofit agencies. Published by John Wiley and Sons. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=jEMEh1HlPAwC&pg=PA3&dq=balanced+score+card+in+nonprofit+organisation Read More