Benefits of Bachelor of Community Services
I have chosen Bachelor of community services because this course is aimed at educating students to be more ethical, competent as well as culturally acceptable towards community service. This course provided me with the skills that will prove beneficial for me in lifelong learning and professional development. Working in the community services profession and earning a certification in the field is incredibly gratifying, as it allows me to help a wide spectrum of individuals in a number of contexts. As a community worker, I would have the opportunity to facilitate change, develop solutions, offer assistance, and provide information and resources to individuals or small groups through Community-Based Services and programs.
Similarly, this course offers job flexibility by allowing people to explore wide number of areas like aged care, child welfare, family support, drug and alcohol services, volunteer and more. This course is worth time and effort as I was exposed to concepts and theories that are relevant to human service. The experiences gained in this course will assist me in making difference in people’s life. I am passionate about serving the mankind, and this course will offer me all the relevant knowledge and experience that I require to create a meaningful change in people’s life and community at large. One can relax knowing that you are assisting in the provision of opportunities which will dramatically improve someone’s life. Rather than performing a 9-5 job that allows you to feel unsatisfied, I might choose to be helping people get their life on track. Also, the healthcare industry is growing at faster pace, so, this will assist me getting plenty of job opportunities in coming days.
The topic taught in this week is “Governance”. Governance is the role of managing and leading an organization and assist in managing every day roles and responsibilities of an organization and its people. This generates rules and policies for better leadership and control which determined in what way a company is to be managed and aligned with the interests of all its stakeholders (Pargendler, 2016). Effective governance is able to lead an organization towards ethical business practices.
Governance assists you in working for the benefit of the company and people at all times. It has the potential to boost the company’s performance, make it more secure and efficient, and open up new possibilities. It has the potential to lower risks while also allowing for faster and more secure expansion (Bhagat & Bolton, 2019). It can also help to boost a company’s reputation and build trust. All of these advantages increase the likelihood of your company’s long-term viability.
Following are some of the benefits of a good governance system in place:
- It provides clear vision and objectives for future growth and development
- Effective governance enhances performance of business and employees and assist in gaining better financial results
- If an organization thrives to succeed in the industry, good governance is a viable option in gaining competitive edge (Lund & Pollman, 2021).
- This assists in staying ahead of risks and threats due to proper planning and contingency plans. This further lowers risk of fraud, poor management and corruption. This further develops trust and reputation of the organization.
- Governance system in place makes the place comply with every legislations, so that every organizational processes and employee behaviour ensures accountability and abide by all legal responsibilities (Lund & Pollman, 2021).
The topic introduced in this week is “Leadership”. Leadership is the capability of an individual to lead, guide and influence people or group of people in articulating a vision, develops achievable objectives and assists followers with appropriate tools and knowledge to achieve those objectives (Silva, 2016). An effective leader is expected to possess various qualities like innovation, creative thinking, decision making, management skills, communication, problem solving, risk taking and more.
Importance of a Good Governance System
Innovator, executor and mentor are three main roles in an effective leadership. An innovator is a leader who applies creativity and innovation in people management. They inspire productivity in numerous ways and generating diverse approaches in place (Northouse, 2021). For example: an innovator will come up with ideas that can help an organization operate more sustainable manner like waste management.
An executor mainly focuses on how to achieve the goals. They have the vision to make things happen. They conduct proper planning about goal achievement in the future and once they are clear about the targets and in what manner the plans will be executed, they start executing it (Antonakis & Day, 2018). Outstanding leadership starts with great execution.
Mentoring is among the most vital skill that a leader must possess. A leader takes the role of mentor for providing guidance, advice to team members, constructive feedback, as well as supports the mentee in performing diverse range of tasks in a productive manner. A mentor can act as a role model, a counsellor, a teacher, advocate and sponsor depending upon the specified roles and responsibilities (Silva, 2016). Mentors’ credibility inside the organization could be enhanced when they share their knowledge with others. It exhibits trust in their skills, displays excellent leadership through their commitment to nurturing others, and generates trust through their investment in the achievement of others.
Employee motivation is very critical for success of an organization. This includes a level of commitment, desire, and passion which an employee of an organization brings to the workplace on everyday basis. When a workplace lacks motivation, businesses suffer from decreased productivity, low throughput and are not able to achieve long term objectives (Rožman, Treven & ?an?er, 2017). A motivated workplace brings numerous to the workplace like more innovation and creativity, high profit, low absenteeism and turnover, strong brand reputation and culture.
There are two types of motivation in place namely extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
When an employee’s performs and are motivated to gain success in exchange of influences like increased salary, bonus and commission and promotions, and they perform well because they have fear of negative outcomes, they are said to be extrinsically motivated. Extrinsic motivators include things like status, job security, salary, and fringe benefits, as well as a compensation package, incentive, rewards and recognition, and other perks. Extrinsic motivation refers to elements that motivate a person from outside of themselves. In other words, an external force impacts the motivation to achieve a task. Even if the triggers are external, the task’s outcome would be rewarding to the individual who completes it (Locke and Schattke 2019).
Intrinsic motivators are motivating factors which represent less concrete, more subjective requirements. Intrinsic motivators include challenges, good work, effective team, empowerment, gratitude, collaborations, acknowledgement, career advancement, and the prospect for advancement (Alshmemri, Shahwan-Akl and Maude 2017). Intrinsic motivation refers to the factors that motivate a person from inside. Since the outcomes are in accordance with the moral code or satisfy a need of a person, so, a person desires to finish a specific activity, and it is given priority.
Qualities of an Effective Leader
Effective decision making in the workplace is a valuable skill because it not only empowers leaders but also employees in making mindful choices which is expected to result in a favourable outcome. It involves selection of best possible methods or options to a particular problem or situation. In order to undertake effective decision making in place, one needs to follow following steps:
- Identification of several possible or alternate options.
- Anticipating possible outcomes (Zhang & Highhouse, 2018)
- Considering the requirements or needs of those impacted by the decision
- Brainstorming the best possible alternative to the problem
- Understand the impact of decision on person, department or organization as a whole.
A leader’s position in the workplace frequently includes making decisions. Even if you aren’t a leader, your capability to make decisions could have a favourable or negative impact on the work life as well as overall company. Being able to make smart decisions effectively has a variety of advantages like saves time and resources, cultivation of respect in place, motivates employees, creates strong and ethical workplace values, prevents risks and mistakes, enhance productive in place, availability of numerous alternatives to problem, enhances quality of decisions, enhances teamwork and collaboration, fosters positive relation among management and employees, strengthens organizational value and enhances degree of acceptance among employees (Okoli, 2020).
However, if an organization lacks effective decision making it faces certain drawbacks like loss of competitiveness and market visibility and loss of creativity and innovation in workplace. This often results due to barriers that cause ineffective decisions like lack of empowerment, conflicts, biasness, time constraints and many more.
Strategic management is the procedure of establishing goals, processes, and targets in order to improve the competitiveness of a firm or organization. Generally, strategic management focuses on efficiently allocating personnel and resources to meet these objectives (Nickols, 2016). Similarly, through strategic planning, leaders of an organization define mission and vision for future growth and development as well as identify goals and objectives for an organization, so that it could achieve those objectives to remain competitive in the market.
For example: Beyond Blue is a renowned mental healthcare organization in Australia and mainly focuses on suicide prevention, depression and anxiety. The main aim of its strategic planning is to expand its business so that it could assist people in transforming their lives. This can be achieved by creating meaningful relations with people to improve their conditions (Beyondblue, 2022).
Beyond Blue has developed strategic plan for three years which is to focus on three areas. The three main strategic priorities of Beyond Blue include: to become a trusted source of providing information, promote mental well-being among people and providing support and advice so that suicide can be prevented.
Following are the strategic planning in order to achieve the above mentioned strategic priorities:
- Build mental communities wherein people could play, learn, live and work. Also, implementing the power of storytelling so that stigma and discrimination can be reduced. Also, providing support to disadvantaged groups like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
- To connect people with proper information through making available low intensity support devices, streamlining Big Blue door policy and influencing change through research and development (Beyondblue, 2022).
- In order to prevent suicide, extending support services to people who are experiencing mental disorder by offering clinical and non-clinical outreach, practical support and follow-up care.
Performance management is often linked with strategic planning in an organization. Strategic plans assist in determining what a company is attempting to accomplish and mapping out the measures required to attain it. Performance management assessments are used in many long-term workforce planning methods to determine the “quality” of the personnel or whether the firm is recruiting and keeping skilled individuals (5 Step Process of Strategic Planning, 2022). In order to manage performance, following strategic planning must be implemented in workplace:
Vision statement: This provides a roadmap about the expectation of an organization. It is very vital to understand where an organization is moving and the only way to get there is through strategic plan. The main aim of vision statement is provides a shared goal and objective to leaders and employees of an organization.
Types of Employee Motivation
Mission statement: This is intended towards explaining about the existence of an organization. This has to be in accordance with organization’s vision (5 Step Process of Strategic Planning, 2022).
Perform Gap analysis: This helps in identification of gap in the organization’s current process and what it aims to achieve in the long run. This could be done through conducting research about market share, financials, internal processes and public relations.
SMART goals: An organization should have SMART goal in place. This makes sure that organization’s objectives can be achieved within specified timeframe. For example: an organization aims to grow its profit to 25% by the end of the year (Role of the board, 2022).
Monitor progress: Every goal should be monitored on quarter basis. This will evaluate the progress towards set target and objective and make the management identify areas of success and failure.
When a company decides to alter a process, department or any other major component inside an organization, it is termed as organization change. Any change impacts the whole organization and major shifts or transformations impacts employees, organizational goals, products and service, and any other operations (Mathews & Linski, 2016).
Organization change can affect me in several ways like, I could face salary cuts due to loss incurred by the company, stress and anxiety due to downgrading of job position as organization might be facing financial downturn and does not have sufficient capital to pay its employee. Change might also result in job loss and relocation to another department, city or state.
However, considering the positive side of change in an organization could bring benefits like more growth opportunity in place, enhanced salary, promotion, and recognition. This will result in motivation and I will be committed to work in a more productive manner, so that I could leverage opportunities available inside the organization.
Team management is very crucial in a workplace as it enhances communication and collaboration and builds team dynamics within team members. There are four management functions that play a key role in managing team and resolving their issues:
Planning: This helps in determining action in a systematic and planned manner for attaining a specified objective. This is preparation for future as well as controlling events (Griffin, 2021). However, if planning is not properly communicated to the team members, this will create ambiguity and the plan will fail to achieve its objective. Hence, proper planning should be communicated, so that the desired plan does not fail.
Organizing: This assists in building connections by bringing people and system together in a logical sequence. If an organization and its people are organized, it brings productivity and on the other hand, poor organization often gives rise to conflicts and frustration (Hales, 2019). This could be achieved through proper delegation, span of control, departmentalization, informal groups, staffing, authority, accountability and more.
To resolve conflicts five steps must be adopted like being proactive, dealing with difficult in competencies, digging under the surface, enhance communication and implementing change.
Directing: The process of directing resources toward objectives and goals is termed as directing. Leadership, motivation, communication, and training are all part of it. Leaders should establish a relationship among an individual’s want and the organization’s objectives and combine the two (Griffin, 2021). Individuals only pay attention and approve completely whenever they observe an action which meets their own interests.
Controlling: This is to make sure that the action plan is carried out in a right direction. This can be done through setting key performance indicators, making comparison between past and current events, and taking corrective actions (Hales, 2019). Feedback is also a viable option to manage team in place.
References
Alshmemri, M., Shahwan-Akl, L. & Maude, P., 2017. Herzberg’s two-factor theory. Life Science Journal, 14(5), pp.12-16.
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (2018). Leadership: Past, present, and future.pp.25-30.
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Bhagat, S., & Bolton, B. (2019). Corporate governance and firm performance: The sequel. Journal of Corporate Finance, 58, 142-168.
Griffin, R. (2021). Fundamentals of management. Cengage Learning.120.
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Locke, E.A. & Schattke, K., 2019. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: Time for expansion and clarification. Motivation Science, 5(4), p.277.
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