Strategic Plan for Companionate Childhood Centre - Literature review Example

Running header: Strategic Plan for Companionate Childhood Centre Client inserts his/her name Tutor’s name Name of institution Course title Date of submission Prologue Compassionate Child Care Association is a child care centre which has been operational since the year 1992. The organization has two centers, both located in Tasmania, Australia. One of these centers is along Davey street and hence known as Davey Street Day Care Center and it mainly offers long day child care services while the other is along Macquarie street and hence the name Macquarie Street Day Care Center, which mainly provide after school and vacation child care. Both of these centers are strategically placed, close to almost five schools and hence highly convenient for the ever busy parents. The Davey street centre was established in the year 1992 and has a capacity of 120 children. Macquarie center was established five years later and has a capacity of 80 children. Currently, the two Davey street stands at 85% occupancy and Macquarie street stands at 90% occupancy. The early childhood centre has a high reputation due to its ability to offer various child care benefits to its customers. Currently, the whole organization has 45 employees ranging from permanent, part time and casual. This organization operates on not-for-profit basis. The governing committee is elected by the parents and is highly committed in ensuring that the centre achieves its organizational goals. Organization Identity According to Albert, et al (2000), an organization identity represents want an organization stands for. A positive organization identity is therefore highly essential in facilitating an organization in achieving its organizational goals (Dowling 2001). It is argued that a positive organization identity is a critical element in ensuring a company’s stability and success. According to Gioia, Schultz and Corley (2000), a stable organizational identity is a strategy for selling a company’s products or services. It is the organization’s identity that attracts qualified personnel to seek employment within the organization. Apart from hiring the best staff for the company, a solid organizational identity also helps in attracting investors and sponsors, and most important, it helps in winning public’s trust and confidence. Therefore, the main objective in relation to organization identity is to create a positive and reputable organization identity for Compassionate Child Care Association in order to make it stand out from all other similar organization in the region. Statement of a clear and concise vision or mission is one of the effective ways of building an organizational identity (Barney and Alice 2000). A mission statement can be defined as the statement of an organization’s purpose (Albert, et al 2000). On the other hand, a vision statement summarizes organizations objectives and hence states want an organization aims to achieve. For any organization to come up with its business objectives, it must first state its business mission and vision statement. These two are regarded as the foundational guides to formulation of an organization’s objectives. Since a mission statement states the purpose of an organization, it acts as a guide for all decision making processes within the organization. The mission statement makes it easy for the company’s management team to know the decisions that are most appropriate in achieving the stated organizational objectives. Another strategy for developing a positive organizational identity is by ensuring a healthy and strong organizational culture. According to Smidts, Pruyn and van (2001), an organizational culture guides the behavior, values and beliefs of an organization’s employees. However, for an organization to have a healthy organizational culture, it must have a clear and well stated mission statement. A well stated and clear mission statement clearly states want an organization stands for and guides an organization’s employees in acquiring the appropriate behavior which aligns with the organization’s mission. According to Glynn (2000), an organization can be identified through its employees’ behavior and attitudes. Since employees’ behavior and values make up the organizational culture, they form critical elements which bear used in identifying an organization. Therefore, an organization should first develop a healthy organizational culture in order to have a positive organizational identity. According to Fombrun and Rindova (2000), a positive organization identity is highly profitable to an organization as it ensures a healthy organizational culture. According to Barney and Alice (2000), a well designed and clearly stated vision statement can be an effective tool for an organizational leader as it helps in establishing and maintaining a healthy organizational culture that enhances the organization’s identity. Studies on strategic management have also proved that a well and clearly stated mission can define the crucial elements for an organization’s future strategic planning. Currently, Compassionate Child Care Association lacks a clear and well stated mission statement. Due to lack of a clearly stated mission and vision, the image and identity of Compassionate Child Care Association has been greatly affected. This is the main reason as to why the association has started losing some of its customers to the new upcoming child care centre along Davey Street. Before the establishment of the new child care centre along Davey Street, the Davey Street centre used to have excess customers who sought enrollment in the institutions. However, currently the institution struggles to use marketing strategies such as advertisement and posters in order to get enrolments at the starting of the year. One way that can ensure that Compassionate Child Care Association survives in the competitive market is through the creation of a clear and well defined vision and mission statement. By stating their vision statement, Compassionate Child Care Association will ensure that its employees and customers are aware of the organization’s long-term goals. A well defined mission will enhance good behavior among employees and hence creation of a good organization culture. Just as Dowling (2001) points out, a healthy organizational culture will enhance the image of the organization. A good image for Compassionate Child Care Association hood is highly essential as it will help attracts and retain more customers hence be able to survive in the competitive market. Apart from enhancing a healthy culture, a well defined mission statement will outline Compassionate Child Care Association guiding policies and how it aims to run its activities every day. This will enhance good performance among the employees as they are aware of what is expected of them. Good performance is one of the crucial factors that improve an organization’s identity. A positive organizational identity is highly important for an organization dealing with children like Compassionate Child Care Association. A positive image for Compassionate Child Care Association will make the parents have trust in the services offered by the organization and hence enroll their children. Organizational Leadership and Human Resource Management According to Marengo, Dosi, Legrenzi, and Pasquali (2000), an organizational structure can be defined as a structure that outlines the guiding policies of an organization. The framework lays down the order of authority within an organization and clearly explains the various roles to be played by each employee of an organization’s. According to Marengo, Dosi, Legrenzi, and Pasquali an organization structure helps the employee to know their responsibilities and hence things are done properly just as expected. This means that an organization structure is an essential factor that ensures the success of any organization. According to Argyres and Silverman (2004), for any organization to run its business successfully, it must have a good management team. For an organization to have an effective management team, it must have a well organized structure. Argyres and Silverman argue that attaining a well organized organizational structure is a tricky process but organizations need to achieve it, if they aim to become successful. A good organization structure and effective management team are essential elements in ensuring that a business keeps things running efficiently. A well defined organization structure ensures that everybody within the organization knows what they are supposed to do and be aware of the organizational goals. Through this way, every employee within the organization is kept on the same page and remains committed in achieving the organizational goals. Compassionate Childhood Center is a mission project (owned by the Catholic Church) and hence ‘not for profit’ organization. It is run mainly by five voluntary officials who are elected annually by the organization’s committee. These five positions are: the Chairperson, the vice chairperson, treasurer, secretary and assistant secretary. The committee is elected by the parents and it is in charge of ensuring that the five elected personnel manage and run the organization efficiently. The committee also appoints five other officials who are in charge of managing any emerging special projects within the organization. The committee is fully accountable for its actions as it is not governed by any structure on their decision-making endeavors. According to Argyres and Silverman (2004), most of the good performing organizations are managed by highly qualified personnel, who have the ability to effectively exercise leadership and communication skills. In any successful organization, the managing director remains committed and focused in enhancing and maintaining a healthy teamwork. According to Marengo, Dosi, Legrenzi and Pasquali (2000), an organization’s CEO comes up with alternative strategies of ensuring that the organization achieves its mission and vision. Currently, Compassionate Childhood Centre management team is highly committed and passionate in ensuring both short-term and long term wellbeing and sustainability of the institution. The members of this committee commit several unpaid hours in ensuring that the organization achieves its objectives and hence its goals. However, despite the commitment of the management team, a company managed by volunteer officials like Compassionate Child Care Association stands to face various challenges such as high turnover of the parents who want to become the school’s committee. This is because the commitment of a voluntary management team is not sustainable. In a voluntary management team, there is a high probability that members can quit after getting frustrated of not driving the essential change that can make an organization survive in the competitive markets. After valuable and experienced committee members quit, a voluntary committee is left vulnerable and weak. An organization which is managed by a weak and inexperienced management team also becomes weak. In some instances, a voluntary management team might become strong and consistent for a long period of time but lose all its experienced members at the same time taking away all the knowledge of the organization. Another factor that makes Compassionate Child Care Association committee become weak is the fact that parents are not aware of their commitment and efforts in ensuring that the institutions runs smoothly. For this reason, they offer little support since they are naive of the various challenges facing their committee. According to Argyres and Silverman (2004), a good organization has a well defined structure, which outlines the roles to be played by every employee. An organization with a well defined organization structure has well defined lines of authority that are fully understood by every employee within the organization. The major challenge being faced by Compassionate Child Care Association is that it lacks a general manager, who should liaise between the management team and the institution’s committee. The main reason behind this is that the institution currently lacks the funds required to pay a well qualified individual, who should take on this crucial role in the organization. Currently, the institution also lacks job descriptions and outline of the duties that should be played by the various employees within the organization. Therefore, the organization can be said to be lacking a well structured authority. Despite the fact that highly qualified managers demand high salaries, the services they offer to an institution are of much worth and highly significant in ensuring the success and hence survival of the institution. This is because a good general manager will ensure that an organization’s administration and the management team coordinate properly in order to run the organization efficiently. Therefore, Compassionate Child Care Association should consider employing a highly skilled general manager to coordinate the school’s management team and the committee in order to ensure that the institution runs smoothly and hence achieves good performance. According to Fombrun and Rindova (2000), an institution with a well-organized administration achieves good performance since all its procedures and areas of responsibility are clearly defined. In an efficient administration, the authority and responsibility given to each position determines communication and decision making process in an organization. This means that an organization without a well organized structure lacks effective communication and decision making process. This is the case with Compassionate Child Care Association. As explained earlier, the business is comprised of two centre, Davey Street centre and Macquarie street centre. Therefore, the institutions currently lack an organization structure that connects the two centers resulting to poor communication and decision making processes between the two centers. Due to poor decision making process and communication, Compassionate Child Care Association has started facing serious problems such as increased cost of operation. This is because the two centers undertake various administration tasks separately which could be minimized by harmonizing the two centers through the establishment of a well defined organization structure. There is also lack of unity between the two centers due to lack of a good organization structure. Since the two centers are run differently and they have different names, their organizational performance also varies. This has led to further confusion in the community which has led to open competition between the two centers as parents openly prefer the better performing centre. Therefore, it is highly important that Compassionate Child Care Association a well defined organization structure in order to overcome its present challenges and hence survive in the competitive markets. According to Marengo, Dosi, Legrenzi and Pasquali (2000), in creating an organizational structure, an organization should do it in a straightforward manner. Compassionate Child Care Association should ensure that it has a well defined organizational structure, with well defined lines of communication and responsibilities played by each employee within the organization. The organization should be created in such a way that every employee within the organization knows what should be done by whom. Through this way, there will be no duplication of tasks, which means cost of operations is minimized and in addition, things get to be done properly. The structure to be established should also clearly describe all levels of authority and responsibility played by each employee within the organization in order to ensure that each employee knows what is expected of him or her at any particular time. It is through this way that the organization will achieve good performance. Since the two centers are all under one business, the structure established should ensure that they are managed by the same management team and committee with the help f a general manger to ensure that they are at per in terms of performance. Through this way, there will be no confusion and competition between the two centers. Finance Management, Administration and Trends The recent global financial crisis has had major negative impacts on both big and small businesses (Christina D. R. (2011). Compassionate Child Care Association has therefore not been left out. Currently, the employment rates in this institution have dropped tremendously. This has been noticed through declined rate of enrollment since many parents have left the area to search for employment in other places. The parents who have lost their jobs due to economic recession are now at home with their children as they cannot afford to pay for the day care. In addition, some parents who might have enrolled their children in the institution for socializing purposes now prefer keeping their children at home since the decreased family income cannot cater for child acre expenses. The opening of a new day care center along Davey Street has also negatively impacted on the institution especially the Davey street center. The new center has resulted to increased competition for enrolments. However, it is clear that the Davey Street is losing many children to the new center since. The main reason behind this is operational hours. Compassionate Child Care Association only operates from 8.00am to 4.30am while on the other hand; the newly established day care center operates from 6.00am to 6.30pm. In the year 2010, Compassionate Child Care Association introduced an enrollment fee in order to increase its revenue. However, the introduction of this fee has resulted in the loss of some parents as they prefer enrolling their children in the new day care centre as enrollment in this institution is not charged. Davey Street Child Care Center stands at 85% occupancy and Macquarie Street Child Care centre is at 90% occupancy. Both the centers have the ability to provide both Child care Benefit (CCB) and Child Care Rebate (CCR) benefits.. The CCB is a cost associated with child care, including long and vocational day care, which is offered by the Australian Government (The Australian Government Department of Human Services, 2012 a). The CCR is also a child care benefit funded by the government and it covers almost 50% out of pocket child care expenses (The Australian Government Department of Human Services, 2012b). The institution is hoping that by having the endorsement to receive the CCB and CCR benefits, they will attract more parents starting of next year. Another strategy that the institution is aiming to use in overcoming the negative impact of economic recession proper budgeting. According to Christina (2011), a budget can be defined as a business’s plan of action, which is expressed in money terms. A budget can be used in estimating an organization’s income and expenses and hence serve as an effective management. Compassionate Child Care Association aims to use this tool in ensuring that it does not run into any losses in all its operations. Compassionate Child Care Association is currently considering the after school and vocational services offered by Macquarie Street Child Care. This Centre has been running at a loss since the year 2008. This centre has recorded decreasing enrollments since the year 2008 and hence there is need to look whether they should continue offering this service. However, before closing down the centre, it is important that they carry out a survey to fid out the trends in the future enrollments of this centre. If the surveys’ results show that the enrollment mar increase in future the school has to reconsider this option. Compassionate Child Care Association is also considering o increasing the fees for long Day care services in order to increase its revenue. However, increasing fees during such times of financial crisis puts the school at the risk of recording more losses in terms of decreased enrollment. Financially, the association is left to rely heavily on government resources and returns in order to run smoothly. Conclusion From the paper, it is clear that Compassionate Child Care Association has various factors to consider for its strategic plan such as organization identity, leadership and human resource management and financial, administration and trends. Currently, the association lacks a well defined mission or vision statement. Therefore, for it to acquire appositive image in the society, it must formulate a well defined and clear mission statement that will enable its employees acquire the expected behavior and hence at the same time make the society aware of its values and purpose. In terms of leadership and human resource management, the association currently is run and managed by a volunteer management team and an elected school committee. A volunteer management team has various negative impacts on an organization. Therefore, the association should consider hiring a highly qualified general manger, who should liaise between the management team and the committee for smooth running of the institution. Due to economic recession, the institution is facing various challenges financially, such as decreased number of enrollments and employment. Therefore, the association is planning on closing the Macquarie Street Child Care which ahs been running at a loss for the last four years. However, is important that the organization carries out surveys first, to determine whether the rate of enrollment will improve in the near future. The association is also planning to increase fees but this is highly risky step , as the institution s stand to lose many parents who are facing financial constraints as a result of global; economic recession. Therefore, the association is left with no other option but proper budgeting of the government’s funds and returns in order to run its operations smoothly. 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