Strategic Planning for a Youth Services Organization
Organizations have different strategies that are intended to improve the standard of production operations. Some firms ensure that their business goals are aligned with the organization’s vision and mission statements. Other firms benchmark practices of successful organizations and adopt practices that promote the delivery of quality services. Bayer Center has adopted management practices that are effective and can be used by other organizations. The firm has a visionary leader who operates as an executive director. The executive manager of the Bayer Center has ensured that the organization grows its budget and scale of operation. There are various managerial and management practices which require advanced planning for the executive director to retire successfully at Bayer Center.
I would recommend that the Bayer Center considers increasing diversity in its leadership and operational workforce. Diversity contributes to success in an organization as it improves the level of coordination and cooperation. Such elements of leadership would be enhanced at the Bayer Center by considering gender equality. Both male and female leaders would play a key role in ensuring that employee diversity contributes to successful delivery of services (Cho, Kim & Mor Barak, 2017). Bayer Center requires gender equality to conform to conventional standards which promote social progress. Gender equality would provide a source of motivation to both male and female employees who aspire for a leadership position. Moving to higher levels of management would be achieved through hard work and commitment among employees.
I would also recommend transformational leadership to Bayer Center. The organization has relied on the long-serving executive director. He has been in office for 37 years and was considered retirement. The level of leadership that the executive director depicted was impacting in the organization in unique ways. For instance, the leadership of the executive director ensured that youth services had a sustainable budget since the Bayer Center was established (Hoch et al., 2018). Transformational leadership would enable the organization to decentralize decision-making processes. According to the case study, the organization has been depending on the executive director for decision making. This costs the organization time since the executive director has many responsibilities. Transformational leadership would allow Bayer Center to improve on its decision-making processes.
Bayer Center requires new sources of funds since its scale of operations is expanding rapidly. The case study notes the government as the main provider of funds to the organization. I would recommend that the organization considers Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs that attract many stakeholders (Lim & Greenwood, 2017). For instance, the executive director could plan for a football tournament among all youths of a given area. The tournament should invite local leaders as well as businesspeople. Such programs would enable the Bayer Center to create awareness about its services to the public. As a CSR initiative, organizations and other partners could be attracted to the program and provide funds as a means of improving youth services.
Stakeholder management was one of the reasons that the Bayer Center shifted to true governance. According to the case study, it is noted that the organization had an ineffective relationship with the director. I believe that stakeholder management led to ineffective managerial decisions at the Bayer Center (Mok, Shen & Yang, 2015). For instance, the organization was operating under a centralized management hierarchy which created categories of the decision-making process. A centralized management hierarchy reduces stakeholder management as senior employees interact with operational workers rarely. Bayer Center shifted to true governance as it improves collaboration and coordination among all employees. True governance would also improve the rate of interaction among employees during teamwork projects.
I also believe that the Bayer Center shifted to true governance as it would improve talent management in the organization. Great scholars argue that talent management contributes to creative production in any organization. Bayer Center had a management hierarchy which, in most cases, fails to promote individual professional talent among employees. As a result, the quality of services at the organization did not meet consumer expectations among the youth. Talent management would have enabled the Bayer Center to undertake succession planning strategically (Sparrow & Makram, 2015). The retirement process would have been aided by objective successful planning which considers professional talent among employees. With true governance, the Bayer Center would develop professionals who provide quality services among the youth.
Corporate governance is an important element of management in any organization. Bayer Center considers upgrading its corporate governance during the replacement of its executive director. A decentralized system of management implements most objectives of corporate governance. Objectives of corporate governance include improving collaboration and coordination among employees. For transformational leadership to be effective, the Bayer Center should consider managing professional talent among employees. It is through talent management that the organization would improve its corporate governance and succession planning. The need for operational capital grows as a firm seeks to expand its scale of operations. Bayer Center should consider bringing more financial stakeholders in its projects among the youths. Additional stakeholders would provide enough funds which fulfill budgetary needs in each fiscal year.
References
Cho, S., Kim, A., & Mor Barak, M. E. (2017). Does diversity matter? Exploring workforce diversity, diversity management, and organizational performance in social enterprises. Asian Social Work and Policy Review, 11(3), 193-204.
Hoch, J. E., Bommer, W. H., Dulebohn, J. H., & Wu, D. (2018). Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis. Journal of Management, 44(2), 501-529.
Lim, J. S., & Greenwood, C. A. (2017). Communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR): Stakeholder responsiveness and engagement strategy to achieve CSR goals. Public Relations Review, 43(4), 768-776.
Mok, K. Y., Shen, G. Q., & Yang, J. (2015). Stakeholder management studies in mega construction projects: A review and future directions. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 446-457.
Sparrow, P. R., & Makram, H. (2015). What is the value of talent management? Building value- driven processes within a talent management architecture. Human resource management review, 25(3), 249-263.