Management Development Models - Safari Tours - Essay Example

Management Development Models of Study of This paper is a comprehensive summary of manager development programs used in organizations in order to clearly illustrate the place of manager development programs in business. The organization has a current manager development model which is highly ineffective because the company has expanded and carries out more operations. Safari Tours is forced to employ new managers and train them before finally incorporating them into the business. This paper goes shows how the organization would ensure the old and new managers would work concurrently ender different policies. In addition, this paper gives a rough budget of the estimated values expected to be incurred in the process. Although this paper is written in detail the topic is wide and would be almost impossible to cover exhaustively. Keywords: safari tours, manager, models, employees, Organizing, staffing, planning, directing, controlling and leading an organization is dynamic and changes with the time, environment and policies. Traditionally, managers had a fairly consistent and somewhat rigid way of performing their duties, but today periodic training sessions are held to enhance and sharpen their managerial skills (Kate 2006). Management development is necessary if managers are to improve their knowledge and abilities not only for their own benefit but also for their employing organization. Management responsibilities are now broader ,integrative and more challenging therefore they require more efficient methods, new attitudes, approaches and skills and thus the need for management development programs. This paper will cover how to create manager development models, how to recruit managers and train them with reference to a particular case study. Safari Tours is a business organization formed in 2000 with an aim to transport tourists in Africa, within the countries being visited, at an affordable price. What started as a sole proprietorship evolved into a corporation and was registered as one in 2008. Safari tours has had a total of five managers all of whom are still part of the business but have either relocated to other branches or elevated into new statuses. The tourism industry is highly dynamic and for Safari tours to keep up with it, constant change and continued expansion has been taking place over the last ten years. Mr. Rodgers’, the director of Safari tours, main aim as he started the organization was only to provide transport to tourists within the country being visited but now he has incorporated services such as tour guiding, soliciting accommodation for tourists, advertising various tourist destinations and arranging fight arrangements to and from the tourists’ countries of residence. Today, the business has over one thousand employees, ten branches and twenty departments therefore the need for management development program. In the early years of Safari tours, management was led by one person, Mr. Rodgers, who coordinated the entire business, chose candidates for employment and assessed work done by the staff to ensure efficiency and completeness. This way, all the employees did their work with very little conflict arising and minimum confusion. At the beginning, Mr. Rodgers had a small number of employees who were easy to work with but this restricted the employees to one task while the manager was over burdened with all other aspects of a business therefore encouraging corruption and bureaucracy. Further, there was no human resource manager hence the manager set his own standards for prospective employees, conducted interviews and employed employees of his own liking which according to Mabey and Finch-Lees (2007) leads to lack of integrity and honesty. The criterion for choosing employees is tricky since in today’s world academic qualifications are not the only basis to choose staff. Several other factors come into play regarding employees’ personality and their ability to relate with their colleagues as well as customers. Safari tours would first place an advertisement through the media in which all required academic qualifications would be established. Prospective managers will be required to hold a master’s degree in their fields of expertise, have polished inter personal skills and varied experience in the tourism business. Not only this, but also they must be young and fresh, eager to learn, self motivated and goal oriented., Safari Tours will call the short listed applicants for an aptitude test to test their ability to reason logically and fast. Finally, the successful candidates will be interviewed by a carefully chosen panel of judges. As Mason (1951) said the interview should be for evaluating their character, social skills and ability to communicate effectively with other people. The best twenty candidates who pass all these tests will then join the organization but only as trainees. Initially, their training will only consist of introduction to the organization’s various departments. The trainers will identify the each of the trainees’ area of strength and weakness in order to establish where they are most suitable. The trainees will be given several assignments to cover which will be evaluated by the trainers and sent back for correction and modification. It will also involve a great deal of research on the trainee’s part to find out the scope of business that is carried out by Safari tours with each giving possible ways to make Safari tours a better organization. Exchange programs will be carried out, with new members of all departments and branches exchanging roles and positions. According to Gold and Mumford (2004) this ensures that the new recruits get varied experience, are all rounded and for them to identify where their talents will be best suited. At the end of the training, the best will work with the management of various branches while the rest work as employees. As employees of Safari tours, continued training is necessary because as earlier stated the tourism industry is very dynamic. (Mason 1951). Firstly, employees will participate in academic seminars to update them of any change with a written exam at the end of each seminar. Informal retreats will also be held with the sole purpose of interaction between the mangers. During these retreats relationships will grow as the employees enjoy the benefits of being a manager. This will encourage the employees to work even harder and smarter, to share ideas that will help them develop and encourage healthy competition among members of the staff. All the trainings will be conducted as a whole, no divisions according to departments or branches to enhance uniformity and cohesion. Gold and Mumford (2004) point out that evaluation of personnel would probably be the biggest challenge because unlike academic work, written exams would be inefficient. One way of evaluating personnel would be through the other staff, that is, through handing out questionnaires to the other staff members. Questions, for example, ’who in your opinion is the most sociable member of staff?’, ‘which department in your opinion is the most efficient?’ and ‘What would you do to boost the economic position of Safari Tours?’ would be included in the questionnaire. Members of staff have fully interacted with each other and hence are more likely to gauge the performance each other conclusively. Another way of evaluating would be carrying out performance tests on the work already done and to gauge the overall performance of each of the departments with new recruits. Currently, the company conducts monthly semi-interviews on each of the employees on their development as at then but this has failed because employees are dishonest and corrupt the answers to their advantage. Usually, managers do not go through the above process because the current polices in the management do not give a provision for the same to take place. Because of this, the new process may take a while to be incorporated into the system considering the already existing managers. The company will then apply the grandfather clause that will allow for both the old and new policies to be effective in the new company concurrently. This clause will only last for a period of one year within which Safari tours is expected to have sufficiently taken up the new policies in their completeness. Grandfathering gives time for the current managers to catch up with the pace of the incumbent mangers without a great deal of pressure and without stretching the finances of the company to unmanageable levels (Tobin & Pettingell, 2008, p.66). In contrast, running two parallel policies in the same company is tedious and time consuming not to mention it requires expertise and finances. Although management training is a very expensive program, it is a worth while investment whose advantages far outweigh its monetary value (Christopher & Mabey 2007). Most trainers charge $120 to $125 per hour of their services while each session is three hours and it takes one session per month for three months. The monthly training takes place at the company’s offices therefore nothing is charged in relation with accommodation services. Four star hotels offer accommodation for as little as $50 per night per person, for a weekend for twenty people. The total comes to approximately $5000 dollars without taking into account transport charges which the company can easily cater for since they have company vehicles. An effective manager is one who leads and manages simultaneously (Kate, 2006). For them to be competent, they need constant training and continued imparting of knowledge in their areas of expertise hence more efficiency in delivery of quality services. Given the case study, Safari Tours, this paper has taken an in depth look at the kind of management program the company is about to undertake, the process to be followed and the consequences of the particular process. Several challenges will be encountered but as stated earlier this is a small price to pay compared to the results. All organizations are encouraged to take up management development programs that suit their respective type organization, their needs and functions in order to sharpen the managers’ skills. References Gold, J. & Mumford. A. (2004). Management development: Strategies for action.4the edn. http://apus.aquabrowser.com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/  Mabey, C. & Finch-Lees, T. (2007). Management and leadership development. SAGE publishers. Mason, P. (2003). Tourism impacts, planning and management. Retrieved from http://www.myilibrary.com.ezproxy1.apus.edu?id=100913 Tobin, D. R., & Pettingell M. S. (2008). The AMA guide to management development. American Management Association: AMACOM Div Williams, K. (2006). Introducing management: A development guide. Retrieved from http://apus.aquabrowser.com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/ Read More