Organizational Behavior at Cheshire Fire and Rescue Organization - Report Example

Running header: Organization Behavior Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Organizational Behavior Introduction Organizational behavior is the attitudes and actions of individuals as well as groups toward each other. It also involves individual attitudes and actions towards the organization as a whole. It also involves its effect on performance and functioning of an organization. Organizational behavior encompasses the organization study from different viewpoints and level of analysis. Organizational behavior involves the study as well as application of knowledge about how individuals, people and groups interact within an organization. In studying this organizational behavior, one uses a system approach. This involves interpretation of people and organization relationship in terms of the whole group, whole person, whole social system and the whole organization. The major reason is to build a better relationship through achievement of organizational objectives, social objectives and human objectives. Cheshire Fire and Rescue Organization Cheshire Fire Authority operates within local communities of Halton, Warrington and Cheshire in UK1. They manage Cheshire Fire and Rescue Services in those areas. Chief fire officer and a team of management service lead Cheshire Fire and rescue organization. Cheshire Fire and Rescue services respond to emergency incidents cases mostly referred to as emergency response. Cheshire Fire and Rescue have an organizational structure with several key functions. These key functions include service support; this is usually managed by Mark Cashin. The other key function is Finance and corporate planning; Darren Griffiths manages this department. The third function is service support; Keith Brooks manages this department. The fourth key function is Human Resources usually managed by Jan Burns. All departments, teams and fire stations, are in at least one of these four functions. Other services include providing advice of safety to the community. This helps in reducing risks as well as improving public and business safety. Cheshire Fire and Rescue organization have approximately 995 employees. This number excludes volunteers, members and secondary roles. Of all the total employees, 44 of them work on a part time basis. Females make up nearly 20 percent of the workers. Administrative, professional and cleric employees, mechanics, handy people and mechanics are all part of support staff. The Cheshire Fire and Rescue organization vision is “Cheshire in places where they are no injuries, damage and deaths especially those that are preventable from fires and other emergencies”. The organization mission is helping to create safe communities, rescue people and protect environmental, economic and community interests. The core values of the organization are those values they hold and those that form the foundation on which they perform the work and conduct themselves. Within the organization structure, Deputy Chief Fire Officer Mark Cashin, manages service delivery. Delivery of services includes community fire safety. The main action of community safety department is to reduce the risk. At the same time, they deliver a high level of targeted HSAs (Home Safety Assessments) to those people at high risk. This department also aims at reducing injuries, deaths and emergency response. This is mainly because they allow the organization get long term reinvestment in prevention. This department is made up of support and operational staff. They include advocates, volunteers, administrative staff and community safety managers. The organization gives services to vulnerable target group; they provide care to them before potential problem becomes worse. It aims at promoting, maintaining and sustaining living that is independent. Service delivery also liaises with other parties like social services and police. This is mainly to identify risk and offer safety measures to domestic violence victims in the society. Service delivery department run many programs that engage the Cheshire youth. Cheshire fire and rescue services have youth engagement programs. These have role model status with young people. This enables them to engage positively with young in the society. The Cheshire fire and rescue organization is also contributing significantly towards the road safety agenda for the government. The organization delivers critical and relevant messages on road safety to a broad range of groups that are targeted. The organization has also corporate communications team that is based at the Fire Service Headquarters in Winsford2. This part of organization structure promotes relations with the media locally. It also controls and issues press releases. It also deals with press enquiries from TV, newspapers and radio. This team is also responsible for co-coordinating external, corporate consultation. It also develops consultation with those groups that are hard to reach. Community fire protection department is also another department that ensures fire safety legislation is enforced or put in position. Community fire protections officers are based within Cheshire. They ensure best services are provided to the local community and other sectors in local government. The organization also works with building control boards and others to ensure the safety of buildings is looked at closely. Their collaboration ensures fire prevention standards are met and are up to standards. The organization also works with community by providing education which supports the initiatives for fire safety. This is mainly through promoting fire safety behavior. Every person in the Cheshire fire and rescue organization is supposed to dedicate his time in learning new ideas. There are over 995 employees or individuals within the organization. A person is supposed to learn from the society context on how well the services can be improved. Teams are supposed to learn from each other and assist each and every person in learning and generating new ideas. There are several teams or departments in Cheshire fire and rescue organization. These include fire authority department, service delivery department, service support department, finance & corporate planning department and people & organizational development department. All these departments have got teams within them. These teams interact and assist each other even in an individual capacity in learning new ideas. Each team communicates extremely well with one another ensuring proper convey of information between team members and the organization as general. Motivation is referred to as the process of exciting and sustaining goal oriented or directed behavior. In Cheshire fire and rescue organization, each and every person plays a great role in motivating one another. There is continuing role of every person towards encouraging one another and motivating every person towards increasing output and work performance. Teams have a role of motivating every team member towards higher achievement and performance. Motivation is one of the basic things that organizations need to embrace; this is to encourage better provision of services. Team leaders use all means possible to motivate their followers. Motivation has a serious impact on the behavior of a person. Therefore, there is the need to motivate each and every person either as a leader or a colleague. In Cheshire fire and rescue services, motivation is one key factor that is taken into consideration. Teams have a vital role of encouraging the individuals or persons in their group. They as well encourage members of other teams; these are motivations between various teams or groups. The main aim towards encouraging each other is to ensure that the organization goals are achieved extremely well. In Cheshire organization, motivation is usually implemented between teams and individuals. This has improved services within Cheshire fire and rescue organization. Perception between members can be improved through creating awareness between each other. Every individual has to create awareness between every individual; this encourages service delivery in the organization. Processes by which people take information from outside and inner environment and make use of those ideas are referred to as perception. Individual’s percept what they see, experience or hear in any organization. Individual on any organization defines the culture of the organization. Teams influence perceptual process through past experiences, values and attitudes. In Cheshire fire and rescue services teams have a role of making team members pay attention to information. Teams have a role of selecting and interpretation of information for the organization. Individuals have a role of influencing each other’s perception positively. In Cheshire fire and rescue organization, individuals influence each other positively in enabling good service delivery in the organization. Individuals have a great role towards group formation. This is mainly because groups determine how the organization performs or delivers. Groups are extremely important towards executing various tasks. Groups also help towards execution of some tasks. Groups play a crucial role in helping solving complex problems that need several ideas from different people. This is due to diversity of ideas from several sources. Groups play a key role in addressing issues like task issues, authority and interpersonal issues. Role of a team is to enhance job satisfaction for individuals in an organization. This enables improved productivity and service delivery. Individuals and teams have a prominent role of ensuring organization structure formed is the effective one. Individuals and team work have a great task of ensuring that, the people who represent them are competent. Structure of any organization is determined by individuals and group teams. Individuals and groups know exactly which groups can lead them. They know what structure can bring change within an organization. Individuals and teams have a great role of influencing the structure within an organization. Team work within any organization is determined by individual persons and teams. Team work is of great importance towards effective performance of any organization. Success in any organization has been associated with team work. Individuals and teams have a great role in ensuring that organizations perform and deliver as required. Roles are a collection of skills that are commonly related. There are often represented by an individual. Roles usually define a lot of a person at his work. Many people take pride and like being associated with their roles. An individual has defined roles that he is supposed to play within an organization. Every team or group has defined roles that they are supposed to play within an organization. However, both individual and team roles are affected by organization design, structure, culture and strategy. Organization design is the set of procedures and decisions. They are usually used to bring suitable changes within an organizational structure. This usually ensures that the organization becomes more effective and efficient. In Cheshire fire and rescue services, the organization design affects the roles of individual and teams. Individuals determine what decisions to be made as well as procedures to be followed. This in some cases may be affected the organization design. Organization structures also influence the roles of individuals and teams. Organization structure brings out the roles of workers at various positions in any organization. Therefore, organization structure can affect the roles that an individual is supposed to play at any time. The roles can be changed by the structure of any organization by giving out different roles of an individual or a team. Culture of any organization can affected and changes the roles of different people and teams of organizations. Organization Culture in most cases determines the roles to be undertaken. Organization culture can change the expected roles of individuals and teams in an organization. A strategy within an organization layout changes the defined roles of both individuals in an organization. This is in the process of trying to adapt to various ways of improving service delivery. An organization lays out different strategies in order to improve service delivery. Definitely, this changes the defined roles in an organization. Organization development is usually associated with several challenges and obstacles. There are several aspects that change when any organization tries to adapt to change. One major aspect is culture; different people have different cultures. Development of an organization is characterized by the rise of a new culture. This is mainly due to changing values, rituals, traditions and behavior. Other aspect associated with an organization development and change is conflict. This is mainly due to different views and behaviors of people and teams. Conflicts are very frequent with developing organizations. As organizations continue to develop, conflicts arise due to changing roles and structures. This is mainly due to different views by teams and individuals. Change of culture is also a major contributing factor of conflict in organizations. However, these conflicts can be solved out through consensus and agreements. Decision making in an organization is a great role of organizational management. Management of any organization has a great role of making a decision that are of importance. The decisions need to be precise and well defined. This is mainly to help in coming up with a concrete solution for the problems facing an organization. Management is looked upon as a sole provider of solution facing all departments of any organization. Conflicts usually arise within an organization due to disagreement and variation of views. The major player towards solving any arising conflict is management. Any organizational management should come up with ways of resolving any arising conflicts. This is important when trying to reduce hindrances that may hamper delivery of quality services. However, conflicts also rise between management. Therefore, there is the need to make a firm decision and come up with a concrete solution or agreement. Conflicts usually results to poor decision making. Power and politics in any management of an organization are major hindrances towards the development of an organization. It is the role of management not to put themselves into politics and power struggle between its members. This usually leads to conflicts and failures to reach at mature decisions by the organization management. Management in any organization has a great role of ensuring that there are no power struggles within their organization. This will ensure delivery of services that are of high quality. Effective service delivery can be achieved if politics and power thirsty are managed by management. Cheshire fire and rescue organization has reduced all those factors by ensuring harmonious interaction. This has ensured flow of quality service delivery within its functions. Conclusion Organization behavior is a great aspect in ensuring that services are delivered well. Organization behavior ensures that quality services are delivered all through. It ensures that productivity within workers is achieved to maximum. Organization behavior ensures that interaction between various departments work well and they are up to the task. Bibliography Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service, ‘Cheshire Fire Authority’, Cheshire Fire & Rescue service, , 2009 (accessed 31 March 2010). Read More