Ballard Integrated Managed Services is a firm which provides hospitality services and food to various organizations. Currently, its major client is the Douglas medical Center and most of its employees are based in this hospital (School of Advanced Studies, 2004). The firm has maintained a relatively good performance until recently, when signs of poor performance are beginning to appear. For instance, the operating costs have increased to 74%, yet the average costs have been between 50% and 60% in the other months.
This issue has been brought to the attention of the management with the aim of exposing the existing problems and finding solutions to them. This paper aims at assessing the organizational culture and structure with the aim of discovering inherent problems and recommending solutions to them. Background of problem. As stated above, there is an increase in the operating costs from an average rate of between 50% and 60%, to 74%. The increase in operating costs points to inefficiency in the company.
Accordingly, a survey was carried out to assess the magnitude of the problem in BIMS as relates to the organizational culture, structure and communication channels. The findings revealed major problems in communication channels, motivation of staff, and relations between upper and lower management. These problems arose out of issues related to working conditions, skills training, shift scheduling, communication, remuneration and job security (School of Advanced Studies, 2004). These issues have not come to the attention of the management and have therefore not been addressed.
The ultimate repercussion of these problems is that employees have low motivation levels. Low motivation can be directly linked to low performance by BIMS. Unless the management addresses these issues, it will be difficult to achieve the goals and objectives of the business. Problem statement. The problem which should be addressed is the low motivation levels among employees of BIMS which ultimately leads to low performance. Purpose of proposed research. The purpose of the proposed research is to improve the performance of the company through solving the problems inherent in the company.
This will be achieved through studying the survey carried out by the HR Manager and identifying the weaknesses that are present in BIMS. These will be further analyzed to evaluate their impact on performance of the company. After identifying these problems, the necessary solutions will also be identified and summarized. The next step is to come up with the necessary recommendations to the problems identified. The report will finally be presented to the CEO of BIMS, who will be strongly advised to implement it.
Evaluations will be done in frequent intervals to analyze if proposed recommendations have solved the problems and improved the performance of the firm. Limitations and assumptions of research There are various limitations to this report, which are necessary to state, in order to ensure that any person who will rely on it for decision making has full information. The first limitation is that the report is limited to Ballard Integrated Managed Services, as a company. It therefore means that other firms should not rely on the report for decision making, since it analyzes the unique problems facing BIMS.
The scope of the report is also limited to the survey carried out by the HR Manager. It is limited to the questions which were asked to the employees. If there were other impending issues which were not covered in the survey, this report may also fail to analyze them. The research uses secondary sources of information when writing the report. It includes the use of books and journal articles written by scholars (Hinkel, 2005). These sources of information have various weaknesses which the users of the report should be made aware of.
Since they are originally written by other parties, there is a possibility of generating bias, if the original author was biased in the report (Kothari, 2005). There is also the possibility of making errors since the original authors cannot be contacted to give further insights on their works (Maxwell, 2000). There are also certain assumptions which have been made in the report, and it is important to mention them to provide readers of the report with full information. The first assumption is that the data which is used for the report is the most recent.
It is assumed that there are no factors which have changed in the recent past which would affect the information gathered to compile the report. It is also assumed that the information which is used to generate the report is accurate. For instance, we assume that the survey carried out by the HR Manager attracted honest and accurate responses. Any bias by employees when conducting the survey is subsequently ignored. Scope of study. The study will be limited to operations in BIMS, and it will not analyze the operating environments of other firms.
The research is limited to the use of questionnaires and secondary sources of data, including the use of books and academic journals. These sources are limited to the subject of the study, and only the most reliable and credible have been used. These include academic journals and books. After solving the problems, the following situation is expected; Motivation. Employees are expected to have high levels of motivation and this is expected to translate to high performance by the company (Mugisho, 2007). The high levels of motivation are expected to come from several factors.
Employees are expected to receive a fair remuneration package, and this will be one source of motivation (Cummings and Worley, 2005). The relationship between the senior and junior management is also expected to improve, and this will be a source of motivation to employees (Cohan, 2003). The third is that employees are expected to work in shifts, and in an environment in which they are comfortable, and this too is expected to boost their motivation. Highly motivated employees will have pride in their organization and will give their maximum output (Salacuse, 2005).
This is expected not only to lower the costs of operation, but also to increase the profits which are made by the firm. Communication. After the implementation of the report, it is expected that the communication channels in BIMS will be very efficient. It is expected that junior employees will have access to, and frequent interactions with senior employees, in order to enable the managers to know the issues facing junior employees (Brown, 2001). It is also expected that bureaucracy will be reduced and that there will be efficient transmission of information from the top level management to lower level employees and vice verse.
Employee relations. It is expected that employees will have cordial relations, both within themselves and with their seniors. The current conflicts between supervisors, employees and supervisors’ bosses will cease to be. They will be replaced by a conflict resolution model which is all inclusive and uses arbitrators who are elected by employees (Fogg, 2000).
References.
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