Beijing International Chamber Orchestra: the Role Staff - Term Paper Example

 Non profit performing organizations Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 2 2.0 The role and responsibility of the staff 2 2.1 Artistic director 2 2.2 Executive directors 3 3.0 Human resources management- paid staff and volunteers 5 3.1 Assessing the organization’s needs 5 3.2 Recruiting, screening, and selecting organization workforce 6 3.3 Orienting staff and volunteers to the organization 7 3.4 Compensating the organization’s employees and volunteers 8 4.0 Financial resources 9 4.1 Income 9 4.2 Expenditure 10 5.0 Marketing strategies 11 5.1 Market research 11 5.2 SWOT Analysis 12 5.3 Planning 13 5.4 Promotion 13 6.0 Necessities of partnership 14 References 16 1.0 Introduction Non-profit performing arts organizations are the organizations which market their products through arts. From the research which have been conducted, non performing arts organizations increased by over 80% showing a good performance of the non-profit performing organizations (Bram & Eline 2013). This non performing arts organizations uses symbols, music or role models to market their products or services. However, in the recent years funding to these non-profit performing organizations has reduced indicating that the organizations perform their functions with difficulties due to inadequate financial resources. Therefore these organizations depend on volunteers to conduct their tasks. The growth of the number of non performing arts organizations suggests that there is dynamic in performing arts. In this regard, this paper will discuss the role of the board in the non-profit performing organizations and the human resource management in these organizations which comprise of the paid staff and the non paid staff. An example of a non-profit performing organization is the Beijing International Chamber Orchestra (BICO) which aims to bring musicians together. 2.0 The role and responsibility of the staff The management of the non-profit performing organizations is dual leadership. This implies that the management comprises of two sections of different directors. The first director is the artistic director and the other director is the executive director. The following are the roles of artistic and executive directors. 2.1 Artistic director The major role of this director is to do selection concerned with the arts. The first selection done by artistic director is the selection of the program (Drucker，1992). The artistic director is responsible for selecting the program which the non-profit performing organization should take. He or she assesses the various programs available and come up with the best program which will be cost effective and easy to implement. The artistic director also selects the artistic members of the group in the organization (Mancuso，2005). The artistic director assesses the various skills and talents of the available employees and selects the members to be included in the artist group. He or she does this by selecting the members who can best suit in the artist group so that they can help the organization to achieve its goals and objectives. The artistic director is also responsible for selecting the guest artist. It is the responsibility of the artistic director to select the guest artist who will preside over the artistic functions (Mancuso, 2005). It is purely the responsibility of the artistic director to select the guest artist who he or she thinks can preside better the artistic functions and will be able to attract the attention of the audience. Good selection of the guest artist will enable the organization to implement their program effectively because he or she will be able to follow the program guide. In addition, the artistic director is responsible for designing policies and guidelines for the program. He or she should design the procedures which should be followed when implementing the program. This will help the artistic group to effectively implement the artistic program. 2.2 Executive directors The executive director is responsible for taking various actions to ensure that the mission and vision of the organization are implemented fully (Mancuso, 2005). He or she should be able to design procedures which will enable the non-profit performing organizations to successfully implement the mission and vision of the organization. Another responsibility of the executive director is to ensure that there is effective human resources management. It is the responsibility of the executive director to hire the right number of employees with the required skills and ensure that there is a good relationship among the employees and management and among employees themselves (Mancuso, 2005). He or she is responsible for designing programs which will help employees to improve their skills. For example the executive director ensures that there are training programs like seminars and orientations as well as conferences to ensure employees get new ideas which will help them achieve their tasks with ease. The employees’ skills can also be improved by the executive director by providing sponsorship programs to the employees to advance their knowledge and skills (Hopkins 1993). The executive director is also responsible for marketing operations. He or she should be able to know and select a program which will enable the organization to attract the attention of the audience (Bray， 2005). After deciding on the program to take, the executive director should be able to plan the events for the promotion which will attract and maintain employees. The aim of marketing is to attract the attention of the audience after which they will get the message being passed across. The executive director is also responsible for developing sources of finance for the organization. It is the responsibility of the executive director to assess the various sources of finance which the organization will be able to raise capital from (Hartsook, 1997). Because it is a non profit making organization, the sources of capital should be cost effective as possible so that the organization can be able to raise funds and sustain itself. Some of the sources of finance the executive director should consider include donations, sponsors and sale of tickets. In order for the organization to keep being in the operation, the executive director should be able to identify various sources of finance which are cost effective because the organization cannot operate without funds to pay the employees and other benefits to both employees and volunteers. Also the executive director is responsible for ensuring effective financial resource management (Bray 2005). He or she should ensure that the budget comprises of all aspects like salaries, expenses for paying rent and the advertisement costs. The budget will enable the executive director to be able to manage the resources effectively by allocating each unit adequate finance for their operations. The executive director also has the responsibility of ensuring that there is a good relationship between the organization and the donors of the organization (Kennedy，1991). The donors of the organization are important stakeholders of the non-profit performing organization because they help the organization to meet its expenses. If the donors will withdraw their financial support, the organization will not be able to run as there will be no funds to run their operations. In this regard therefore, it is the responsibility of the executive director to make there is good relationship between the organization and the donors by building trust between the two parties. Good relationship can be achieved if the executive director can ensure the organization is accountable for the expenditure of the finances thus the donors will have trust in the management of the financial resources. Furthermore, the executive director is responsible for ensuring that there are effective policies in the organization which will enable the organization be able to implement the strategies effectively (Nicholas，1993). For instance in Australia, the executive director should develop marketing strategies which cannot contradict the laws governing marketing. By designing policies which observe the laws of the government, the organization will be able to implement the policies towards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization because the policies are acceptable by the constitution. Therefore, the executive director of a non-profit performing organization should be able to develop policies which will enable the organization to achieve its objectives. 3.0 Human resources management- paid staff and volunteers For any non profit performing organization to succeed in its operations it must make good decisions in the staffing of employees. This is because the organization will rely on the staff to achieve its goals and objectives (Pakroo，2005). However, there are challenges which affect non-profit performing organizations during the staffing process include hiring the right kind of people. In this regard, a non-profit performing organization has to focus on some issues which influence the staffing in the organization. These issues include assessing the personnel needs for the organization, recruiting, screening and selecting organization’s workforce. Another issue to be considered is orientation of staff and volunteers to the organization as well as compensating the employees and the volunteers of the organization. 3.1 Assessing the organization’s needs It is important to assess the organization’s needs which could be internal or external needs to understand the future success of the organization. The management of the organization should be able to focus on the future demands of the organization (Elena et al，2012). This can be done by assessing the past experience on the staffing demands and focusing on the future environment and how it will affect the staffing management of the organization. The management should also study on the history of the workload, the current personnel demands and the plan for hiring the organization’s staff. The management should also examine the availability of workforce in the area which the company operates both for the volunteers and the staff personnel (Eduardo， 2008). These factors should be studied in the organization’s mission statement to understand the framework for employing the staff as well as the volunteers. The general principles of business operations include ability to retain qualified employees with best skills in the organization by compensating the employees appropriately and applying fiscal management policy. For instance the Beijing International Chamber Orchestra （BICO）greatly relies on the volunteers in its operations therefore the management should ensure it understands the needs of the organization in order to get the right volunteers. In identifying the organization’s needs, the following principles are used to identify the needs of the organization (Hartsook, 1997). The positions of the non profit organizations should be filled with people who are willing to take the job. There should be no forced labor in the organization. Another principle is to fill each job position with accurate specifications. This is made possible by selecting someone who is able to handle the job willingly and the tasks the position is expected to perform. The job expectations should be made in writing as it will help to effectively communicate the position demands. Communication is made better in writing than verbal communication because it shows all the details concerning the position of the job (Hartsook 1997). In addition, the organizational needs can be met by selecting employees based on the performance or the qualification rather than friendship. This will help the organization to hire relevant and employees with adequate skills to help the organization achieve its goals and objectives. The non-profit performing organization will only be able to hire right personnel in the organization if there is systematic procedure for identifying and filling the organization’s needs like the job requirements and the qualifications of the employees. The organization’s can be met by doing job analysis, job description and specifications. 3.2 Recruiting, screening, and selecting organization workforce For non profit performing organizations, publicizing their existence is essential for hiring staff and volunteers. Through publicizing, the volunteers are encouraged to be involved in the organization’s operations (Paul & William，2012). Volunteers are the life blood people associated with the organization’s operations willingly. There are basically two avenues where the nonprofit organizations can publicize their existence and they are local media which comprise of newspapers, radios and billboards. Another avenue is other community based organizations like the non-profit performing organizations. The non-profit performing organizations help one another by publicizing their existence in other organizations thus they help one another in terms of finance or volunteers. The interviewing process is important for any non profit performing organization because it helps to screen and get the right people. Interviews should be conducted to hire employees and it should also be done to volunteers the same way so as to get qualified people (Haslindar et al，2011). After interviewing the staff and the volunteers, the management of the organization will then select the people with right and competent skills. For the organization to ensure effective recruitment and selection process, the following should be taken into consideration. Ensure that the positions being filled have impacts on the performance of the organization. This is because some positions have more impacts than others. Therefore the organization should be able to recognize various positions so that it can be able to prioritize various needs (Haslindar et al, 2011). A form that covers all the information of the applicant should be used. The skills of the applicants should be known during screening and draw specifications which could help the recruitment department select the most qualified personnel. 3.3 Orienting staff and volunteers to the organization Training of the staff is very crucial if the non-profit performing organization wants to improve the skills of the employees. There should be specialized training organized by the management of the organization to ensure that the employees acquire relevant skills in their area of operations (Niu, Y 2009). The principles of improving quality in the organization should be emphasized during the training. Orientation is done after the employees have been selected to orient them with the organizational environment. This will help the new employees and volunteers to understand the organization’s procedures and policies. At some point for any organization, they must have complained about poor performance of an individual or a group of individuals (Hartsook, 1997). When this situation occurs, the organization should be able to take necessary steps to improve the productivity of the employees and avoid such occurrence in the future. The management should more especially be concerned with volunteers because they may feel lonely as they offer free services. It is not easy to dismiss low performing employees instead the management of the organization should take measures to improve the performance of the employee or the volunteer. 3.4 Compensating the organization’s employees and volunteers Non profit organizations have various benefits to their employees and the directors. These benefits can be as good as the profit making organizations (Stephen et al, 2007). The benefits can be economical to the organization but benefit the employees most. Some of the benefits of non-profit performing organizations include employee pension and the income plan for the retired employees. They also compensate employees in terms of sick pensions and vocational payments. Other employee benefits that non profit performing organizations offer to their employees include medical cover and education sponsorships. In this regard therefore, the employees are compensated in terms of benefits they get from the organization. In return, after compensation the employees work hard to improve the welfare of the organization and help the organization achieve its goals and objectives. On the other hand, the intangible benefit the employees and volunteers receive from the non-profit performing organizations is recognition that it is the employees who made the organization to succeed in the operations (Stephen et al, 2007). It is not only financial payments that motivate the employees but also the recognition of their efforts. In addition, the management benefits the employees by involving them in the management of the organization. By engaging the employees in the management of the organization, they will learn to know how important they are in the organization hence they will be motivated and they will get more skills in the management aspect. For example, Beijing International Chamber Orchestra, the volunteers have been attracted to the organization because of the good conditions of working. The volunteers in this organization play management roles which motivate them as they are part of the management like the assistant Orchestra Librarian and amateur musicians. This participation in the management role attracts many volunteers to the organization because they will gain experience in the management role besides getting other benefits. 4.0 Financial resources In this section, this paper will discuss the various sources of fiancé for non profit performing organizations and their expenditure. Because these are organizations which are not profit making, their sources of finance are slightly different from those of the profit making organizations because their objectives and goals are different. The primary sources of finance for non profit performing organizations include box office, government funding and corporate sponsorship or any other earned income (Bray 2005). In addition, the paper will discuss how the nonprofit performing organizations’ financial resources are spent. 4.1 Income The following are the main sources of finance for non profit performing organizations; Box office- this is where the sale of tickets takes place. When there is an artist performing somewhere the organization can raise funds through the sale of tickets to customers who come for the entertainment (Roland et al 2003). From the data collected in the year 2001 and the year 2002, it is clear that the nonprofit performing organizations raise 43% of their income from box office. This income is achieved through good planning of events and selection of the best artists who attract the attention of the audience which is the responsibility of the artist director. However, there are some changes in the sources of income between the year 2001 and 2002. For instance the box office income increased by 1.7% between the year 2001 and 2002. This indicates that box office as a source of revenue increased due to better planning programs (Roland et al 2003). Another source of revenue for the non-profit performing organizations is the government support. From the statistics taken in the year 2001 and 2002, the government funding provides 4% of the sources of revenue for the nonprofit organizations. Out of the 4% of the government funding, 14% was from the public support, 42% came from the sources of the government while 44% came from other sources locally (Roland et al 2003). The government funding started to decline because of the economic recession and the rising security concerns which required huge capital to implement. Through this decline in the government support, the operations for the non profits became hard due to inadequate funds. The percentage change in the government support between the year 2001 and 2002 is 17.1%. Finally, another source of income is private sponsorships (Bram & Eline 2013). The total percentage of income raised from the private contributions as indicated in the statistics of 2001 and 2002 is 46%. The main sources of private funding include individuals, other organizations or foundations and businesses that are willing to support the non-profit performing organizations. The donations from the individuals rose from 41% indicating the greater source of income for the non-profit performing organizations. There is also the last source of income which investment and other earned income which provides 7% of the total income for non profit organizations. 4.2 Expenditure The main expenditures for the non-profit performing organizations include the direct program performance costing, marketing, resources development and the costs for administration (Eduardo 2008). Artistic and program costs take the largest portion of the total income of the nonprofit organizations and it takes 59% of the total income. These are the expenditures involved in the selection of artists and paying them as well as paying the rental charges for the performance. Other cost incurred is the production costs involved in the production of the programs for performance. Another area of expenditure is the administrations expenses which take 11% of the total revenue collected (Hartsook 1997). Administration costs include the costs for managing the organization including the payment of the employees and other benefits offered to volunteers like pension benefits. Education and development takes 10% of the total income of the organizations. The employees need to be trained so that they can gain better skills on how they will administer their duties effectively and this program needs some finance but it benefits the organization. Education and development include aspects like free education sponsorships and training like through seminars. Finally, marketing takes 10% of the total income of a nonprofit performing organization (Hopkins 1993). For any organization to attract employees and volunteers it must market their products effectively. Also the organization and its operations will only be known with the effective advertisement so that they can get some funding to help the organization achieve its goals and objectives. Marketing includes advertisement for the events or programs so that the organizations can sale tickets to raise income. In this regard, an organization should be able to raise sufficient amount of revenue to ensure sustained operations (Hopkins 1993. The major source of income for non profit performing organizations is the fundraising from various sources. For example Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra raises much of its funds through government funding of about 80%, box office and the rest through donations. These sources have enabled the organization to effectively conduct its operations. 5.0 Marketing strategies Marketing strategies are the strategies that non profit performing organizations apply in ensuring that the organization and its customers are well linked. Marketing strategies enable the organization to achieve its goals and objectives by creating awareness of the organization and meeting the needs of the customers. Without proper marketing strategies, the organization may not meet its customers’ needs thus cannot achieve the goals and objectives. 5.1 Market research Market research involves collecting data concerning the market knowledge. It involves gathering information about the market using the 6Ps which are product, place, price, processes, promotion and people (Mancuso 2005). The information that should be collected concerning the products include the variety of products offered and the quality of the products. It is important to know about the products in the market so that the organization can be able to develop products which are unique but can meet the demands of the customers hence the organization will gain competitive advantage. Place concerns the channels of distributing the products to the customers. Information about the existing channels of distributing the products is important because it will enable the organization to design appropriate channels for example using middlemen so that the customers will get the products at their disposal (Mancuso 2005). Price information on the other hand will enable the organization to price their products accordingly to ensure that they can be afforded by their customers as well as attracting more customers. Processes information will also enable the organization to choose a process which is preferred mostly by customers as a way of meeting their demands. Information about promotion will enable the organization to select the cost effective method of promotion like using the newsletters. Finally, information about people will enable the organization to know the kind of people it is dealing with so that it can develop appropriate strategies for instance the strategies for teenagers is different from those of the aged people. 5.2 SWOT Analysis SWOT analysis comprises the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that face an NFP organization. The strengths of the organization can be a strong brand name and the skills of the employees of the organization in accomplishing their tasks than other organizations. Weaknesses include the inability to apply the appropriate technology in the offering of services or products like using analog methods of serving customers which is slow thus cannot meet the customers’ demands of wanting to be served faster (Pakroo 2005). Opportunities on the other hand include ability to expand the operations of the NFP organization to other locations or internationally. This can expand the operations of the organization hence can attract a large pool of volunteers (Pakroo 2005). Finally, the weaknesses include a high degree of competition from other organization limiting the source of volunteers to work for the organization. Another weakness is the lack of adequate financing for the organizations due to declining government support making the operations of the organization be difficult thus many organizations cannot sustain themselves. 5.3 Planning For effective marketing strategies to take place, there has to be clear goals, mission and objectives of the nonprofit performing organization. Effective planning cannot take place if there are no clear goals and objectives to achieve. Among the goals of the and objectives of NFP organization include improving the living standards of people through moral and financial support as well as providing essential services to the community (Pakroo 2005). Another objective is to be among the best leading NFP organizations with better services and products to its customers. The mission of the nonprofit performing organization is to be the leading NFP organization both regionally and globally by providing quality products and services at the least cost possible. With these objectives and mission statement, the management of the organization will be able to plan well on how to achieve them like hiring qualified staff to implement the strategies and also training and developing the skills of the employees so that they can be creative. 5.4 Promotion There are various methods through which NFP organization can promote its operations. Some of these types of promotions include paid advertisements, publicity and public relationship. The aim of promotions is to ensure that the organization is famous so that it can attract various sources of funding and volunteers (Pakroo 2005). Through paid advertisement, the organization pays some fee to the media houses so that they can advertise the organization and its operations. Publicity is when the organization publicizes its operations and reports through newsletters and other articles where people can get to know the existence of the company. Finally, the relationship between the organization and the public can promote the organization. When the organization is involved in the corporate social responsibilities it creates a good relationship with the community thus the community members promote the good reputation of the company leading to fame. For example Malthouse Theatre which is a company dedicated to promote Australian theatre has applied publicity and public relationship to promote itself. This is because the company is a non-profit making organization and has helped many of the Australian artists hence it has created good relationship with the public thus the organization is famous. 6.0 Necessities of partnership Partnerships are the agreements which bring together different organizations with the aim of achieving a certain task or objective. The organizations can come together to change an aspect which has been existing or implement something new. With partnerships, the organizations should share some responsibilities, goals, resources and objectives. There are various reasons as to why many non profit performing organizations enter into partnerships with other organizations and they include the following. Many financiers of the organizations are conscious of how they will fund projects and organizations which will help many people (Thomas 2002). When organizations come together, they can easily attract funding because funding organizations can easily fund projects which can benefit many people or organizations at once unlike when an organization operates individually thus partnerships attract funding to non profit performing organizations. Partnerships help to improve efficiency in the provision of products and services. Due to a high growth rate of non-profit performing organizations, many organizations have similar objectives and goals to achieve and with limited funding they cannot be able to achieve the objectives (Seidel et al 2001). Therefore it is of great benefit to bring their resources together so that they can improve the efficiency of the products and services they offer. Through partnerships, the relationship between organizations is enhanced. This is because the organizations have to work together as well as sharing ideas and resources which promotes social interaction between the different members of the organization (Brown 2001). Good relationship promotes efficiency in the nonprofit making arts organizations because they can share both ideas and resources for the better performance of the industry. Partnerships save the costs of implementing projects by an individual organization. When many organizations come together to implement a certain strategy or change, there are economies of scale because the costs incurred are shared unlike when there is an individual organization implementing the change (Ray 2002). Therefore this partnership enables the organization to save costs because of the shared costs of implementing a change or a strategy. Moreover, partnerships enable the management of the organization to improve their skills on the management aspects. The board members of the different organizations work together and as a result they can exchange ideas and get new skills which they did not have initially (Roland et al 2003). Therefore, partnerships help to improve the skills capacity of the management of the organizations. Due to growing multicultural operations in the world, partnerships have become the most preferable way of going international (Roland et al 2003). For instance when an organization wants to enter into international market, the legal systems may be different between the different nationalities thus the best way to go international by a non-profit performing organization is through partnerships. This will eliminate the cultural differences. There has been the need to change the systems level in the art industry for non profit performing organizations. In order to improve the efficiency of the programs and the development of the audience, it is more important to change the whole community instead of the individual change (Ray 2002). In order to implement this change effectively, partnership approach is more preferable than an individual approach, hence the need for partnerships in the non-profit art performing organization. Partnerships help to mobilize the resources of the non-profit organizations. For instance when there is a crisis like bankruptcy in a major organization, the other partners can mobilize their resources to address the crisis and help the organization or the community in restoring its position (Ray 2002). Without partnership a crisis cannot be easily managed because there is no pooling of risks. An example of a partnership is Sydney Opera House which is a non profit performing organization which in partnership with Samsung Electronics Australia. 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