Managing and Monitoring Quality Standards in ABC Company - Assignment Example

Business decision making: Organisational efficiency Table of Contents LO Organisational structure 3 1a Major positions 3 1b Existing functional processes and relationships between them 3 1.2 Aim, objective and mission of ABC Company 5 1.3 Elements for ensuring quality in the final outcome 5 LO 2: Planning for various responsibility areas 6 2.1 Designing plan for promoting objectives and goals 6 2.2 Recommendations using SMART Objectives 7 2.3 Implementation of techniques to achieve the objectives 7 2.4 Work activities for ensuring operational success 8 LO 3: Monitoring quality 8 3.1 Managing and monitoring quality standards in ABC Company 8 3.2 Organisational culture 9 3.3 Recommendations for continuous improvement 10 3.4 Wider implications of proposed changes 10 LO 4: Health and safety at workplace 11 4.1 Health risk assessment at workplace 11 4.2 Reviewing effective implementation of safety regulations 11 4.3 Organisational health and safely policies 12 4.4 Practical application of health and safety policies and procedures in the company 13 Reference list 14 LO 1: Organisational structure 1.1a Major positions The major positions that were determined in ABC Company are that of the director of the firm and various departmental managers. The director is directly responsible for coordinating departmental activities and overall organisational activities with the help of various departmental managers, while the managers are responsible for task delegation and management of operational stuff in the company. Figure 1 (Source: Author’s creation) 1.1b Existing functional processes and relationships between them Director: The role of director in the firm is diverse as the individual is responsible for coordinating various functional areas, delegating tasks to managers and long term planning for the firm. The director is significantly responsible for determination of firm’s vision and mission. Recruitment: The recruitment activities are highly diversified and do not comprise only the interviewing process of job applicants. The manager in the department is responsible for managing the overall process of recruitment including communication with potential client firms and implementation of recruitment process. The manager is essentially responsible for resolving issues associated with the hiring process and taking necessary managerial decisions thereof. Another important responsibility of the recruitment manager is to take care of internal recruitment (succession or promotion, layoff and new recruitment) and demand of external recruiters. IT: Organisations are increasingly incorporating technologies in their business activities and ABC Company is no different in this regard. Most of the tasks at operational and managerial level are coordinated through email, virtual networking and intranet. As a result, information technology forms an important functional department of the firm. The firm also interact with its external clients through emails. Hence, IT department is necessary for efficient management of soft and hard technologies that are employed in the firm. Training: The training department is essential in ABC Company for supporting the recruitment department. The department ensures that internal employees are imparted with sufficient and requisite training necessary for performing in their respective arena. Additionally, the training department evaluates qualifications of job seekers and candidates so that they can be set up with appropriate job interviews. Business development: The process of business development in the recruitment agency comprises continuous interaction with existing and potential client organisations for better understanding of their requirements regarding candidates. The process of business development ensures developing long term relationships with clients so that continuous business flow is gained. The business development manager is significantly responsible for assessing overall risk and benefit and firm’s marketing strategy. Finance: The finance department is essential for smooth functioning of the company as the department manages total fund inflow and outflow. The finance manager coordinates with other departments to have a clear estimate of total cost and compares the same with firm’s revenue to determine its profit. All the billing activities and salary distribution is conducted by the finance manager. Legal: Legal department is primarily responsible for ensuring regulatory compliance in activities of the firm. The legal department in ABC Company is responsible for designing contracts with clients as well as candidates. These contracts ensure that candidates are well-aware of firm’s regulations and policies regarding recruitments and its legal responsibilities. 1.2 Aim, objective and mission of ABC Company Aim: The aim of the company is to position itself as one of the reputed recruitment agencies and to earn maximum market reputation. Objective: The corporate objective of the company to make maximum utilisation of its resources to maximise profit and market share. The other important objective of the company is to meet recruitment demands of its corporate clients and deliver above expectation outcome. Mission: The business mission of ABC Company is to deliver apt solution to various business organisations with respect to their recruitment difficulties and requirements. The process map of recruitment process is described as follows: Figure 2 (Source: Author’s creation) 1.3 Elements for ensuring quality in the final outcome The effectiveness of a requirement process is determined by management skills and quality of candidates. ABC Company is a recruitment agency and its ability to ensure high quality outcome depends significantly on its operational and managerial employees. For instance, clear understanding of client’s job description and specification will help the firm in selecting appropriate candidates for the job opening. Analytical skills, sincerity, determination and commitment among organisational members are some of the important elements necessary for quality management. Another important feature is timeliness because if the firm fails to deliver result within deadline then client may not consider it incredible and may refrain from providing future assignments. LO 2: Planning for various responsibility areas 2.1 Designing plan for promoting objectives and goals The primary responsibility areas comprise recruitment, training, business development, information technology, finance and legal departments. Since organisational efficiency depends on all departments, it is necessary to integrate and coordinate functions of each department with others. The key factor that should be understood within the firm is that organisational development is not possible by means of employee layoff, cost minimisation and short term fixes. Currently, ABC Company requires developing long-term strategic plans so that improvement is brought in the operational and financial condition of the firm. After evaluating the corporate structure of the company, it was determined that the firm require considerable amount of modifications in its organisational structure and culture. Prior determining the necessary changes with respect to organisational structure and culture, it is important to recognise and evaluate slacks in the organisational process that is resulting to poor performance. The issues that were determined to be responsible for organisational inefficiency are ineffective management style and inadequate leadership. The next step is to assess every layer of the organisational process so that the weak links are recognised. Once the weak points are determined, the firm will have to take measures to resolve the weaknesses. The last step is to redefine the organisational objectives and implementation of effective management and leadership within the firm. 2.2 Recommendations using SMART Objectives The term SMART indicates that objectives should be specific in nature, measurable in terms of output or performance, attainable and realistic and must take in account important of time factor. Specific: The job description of every employee should be highly specific in nature. The recruitment manager should offer detailed information of the kind of candidates the staffing team should recruit. The finance department should prepare budget for short and long period to compare budgeted cost and actually incurred cost. The training department should coordinate with the recruitment department prior recommending job seekers to external clients. The IT and legal departments play important supportive roles and should not be underestimated (Pearce and Robinson, 2000). Measurable: Objectives can be measured either in terms of revenue or by means of performance. Operational employees should be designated jobs in such a manner that they are measurable at the end of the day, month or quarter. Measurable jobs make employees understand their capabilities and weaknesses. In addition, measurable objectives should not be implemented only on employees but also on managers. In this regard, the finance department can measure average revenue per employee so that quantitative and qualitative measurement is performed at the same time. Attainable and realistic: It should be noted that the objectives should not be unrealistic in nature. Unrealistic goals generally result in increasing level of frustration and poor performance. When goals are attainable, employees often over-perform with respect to their job responsibility. Timeliness: Determination of timeframe is imperative for performance improvement. In ABC Company, implementation of timeframe is very important for bringing changes in the current condition of the firm. Timeliness will ensure adequate allocation of resources and measurement of performance (Mullins 2007). 2.3 Implementation of techniques to achieve the objectives The process of developing SMART objective is relatively easy compared to its implementation which calls for strict discipline within organisational process. It was determined that ABC company has a functional organisational structure; as a result the degree of unit coordination is very limited within the firm. The foremost step that the firm need to adopt is to increase level of interaction and coordination between departments. The process should be started with managers so that awkwardness and confusion is minimised at operational level stuff. In this regard, matrix structure can be implemented within the firm which is a hybrid combination of functional structure and divisional structure. Another measure that should be adopted in the firm is bringing fluidness in the organisational culture. Open communication need to be encouraged in the firm so that unnecessary functional rigidity and bureaucracy is removed. It was determined that participative leadership style in managers will motivate employees and elevate their performance level (Mullins 2007). 2.4 Work activities for ensuring operational success The work activities involve division of each job into small tasks, intra-departmental meeting among managers regarding achievement of various tasks, clear definition of task to employees and specific resource allocation and frequent meetings with employees for discussing achievements and slacks. The strategic activities of the firm should be continuous interaction with clients so as to have feedback on firm’s services and regarding scope of improvement. Additionally, the business development department should undertake aggressive marketing strategies to attract more potential clients for the firm. LO 3: Monitoring quality 3.1 Managing and monitoring quality standards in ABC Company Ahmad and Schroeder (2002) exclaimed that behavioural traits of organisational members play an important role in ensuring quality management within the firm. With respect to ABC Company, Total Quality Management (TQM) techniques can be recommended for monitoring and managing quality of service. Haigh and Morris (2002) highlighted six components of TQM, namely, people, quality, delivery, management systems, technology and cost. People are an important dimension of TQM and suggest that employees need to be dedicated and committed towards their organisation for improving quality. Employee motivation through training, team development and performance reward often contribute towards enhanced productivity. ABC need to ensure that features of its services is not compromised under any condition. The target in this regard should be high, only then the firm will be able to improve quality of its products. The delivery aspect suggests that the clients of the firm should be able to enjoy the firm’s services as and when necessary. In this regard, time is an essential factor as service should be delivered within specific time and operational delay should be minimised. The management system of the firm should be supportive in this regard so that consistency in direction and organisational purpose is maintained and error margins are minimised. The firm can make maximum utilisation of technologies for continuous improvement in processes and reduction in overall time and cost consumption (Haigh and Morris, 2002). 3.2 Organisational culture Cultural manifestation with respect to organisation is a long term learning process where values, beliefs, norms and traditions are learnt by employees during continuous association with an organisation. Organisational culture is a three layer system comprising surface manifestation, espoused values and shared assumptions. For encouraging an organisational culture that result in continuous improvement, managers at ABC company need to be aware of the existing culture, its benefits and drawbacks. It has already been discussed that organisational culture at ABC Company requires certain modifications for bringing about organisational change. In this regard, managers need to determine the aspects of current culture that they would like to retain and develop a new culture for future state of the firm. Cultural change at organisations is frequently received with high degree of resistance; as a result, managers should adopt open and continuous communication system along with employee engagement. These measures will encourage employees to adopt the new culture promptly. The cultural modification should be considered as a strategic move and management and employees should work together so that productivity is improved (Ahmed, Loh and Zairi, 1999). 3.3 Recommendations for continuous improvement The recommendations with respect to continuous improvement are discussed as follows (Talib, 2013; Talib and Rahman, 2010): a) It was determined that TQM has strong implication in the service industry and can only be successful if the top management is committed towards development. b) Training and development is very important for ensuring high quality service at ABC Company; hence, the firm should adopt measures to enhance skill and knowledge of employees. c) Greater participation of employees at organisational decision making should be encouraged. d) Breakdown of the TQM measures into series of tasks so that efficiency of teams is increased as small goals are quickly and conveniently achieved. e) Managers should ensure continuous monitoring, guidance and control and rapid response to existing difficulties. f) Efficient feedback system should be maintained in the company so that reviews can be obtained from clients as well as from job seekers regarding its services and efficiency. 3.4 Wider implications of proposed changes TQM technique requires complete process integration within the firm and strong level of commitment on behalf of management and employees. The primary aspects of TQM are improvement, development and maintenance of quality; hence one of the broad implications of the technique is long term returns and benefits. TQM not only influence process but also organisational structure and culture. Participative culture is an important aspect of the technique which minimises various structural barriers and increases interaction among employees and management (Lakhe and Mohanty, 1995). Another broad implication of the process is training and development, which positively influence personal development and career growth of an employee. The implementation of above mentioned recommendations will improve interpersonal relationship between employees and thereby will provide better scope for efficient management and leadership. Another implication of the recommendations is customer centric services. The firm has two kinds of customers: job seekers and firm level recruiters and they have related yet different requirements and the firm being a mediator need to serve purpose of both (Talib, 2013). LO 4: Health and safety at workplace 4.1 Health risk assessment at workplace There is no fixed rule regarding the way risk assessment should be conducted but there are certain basic principles that every organisation adopt to manage health related risk within the organisation. These principle steps are: a) Identification of hazards, especially risky ones. b) Evaluation and prioritisation of the risks c) Determination of preventive measures d) Implementation of the measures e) Monitoring and regular reviewing The identification process embraces examining and recognising various issues that may pose threat to organisational environment in terms of health and also recognising employees that are exposed to such hazards. Evaluation and prioritization step focuses on establishing probability of occurrence and its severity and ranking them on the same basis. The prevention step mainly comprises determination of multiple alternatives so that the risk is eliminated or controlled as per the situation. Implementation process entails selecting and applying the most suitable risk management alternative. The entire system should be closely monitored and assessed frequently so as to ensure its efficiency (EU-OSHA, 2014). 4.2 Reviewing effective implementation of safety regulations The safety hazards that were recognised in the ABC Company are manual hazard, gravity, electricity, equipment malfunction, extreme temperature, radiation, biological infection and psychological hazards. Manual hazards includes muscular strain as a result of continuous sitting or standing in same posture; gravity related hazards are slipping, tripping, bruises, fracture and other injuries at workplace; electric hazards comprise shock, fire from spark and electrocution since employees mostly work in computer and other electronic devices; equipment malfunction such as air conditioner may result in suffocation; extreme temperatures often result in severe health condition; biological infection consist of virus or bacteria transmission from infected employees and psychological hazard comprises negative psychological impact on employees as a result of bullying and work related fatigue (NSW government, 2011). ABC Company ensures that preventive and/or elimination measures regarding the pre-described hazards are always available in the firm. The company has an in-house physician so that medical support is provided immediately. Additionally, the physical equipments such as systems, ACs and live wired are checked regularly. The company has a strict policy against workplace misbehaviour so that psychological hazards are avoided. 4.3 Organisational health and safely policies In ABC Company, every organisational member is provided equal amount of responsibilities for ensuring success of health and safety policies within the firm in a comprehensive manner. The management has published a written code of conduct in this regard and reviews the same from time to time. The policies of the firm comprise certain obligations on the part of employees and management. These are: a) Employees should ensure health and safety of their own as well as that of their colleagues and other members of the firm. b) Employees are recommended to be on leave in case of sickness so that risk of contamination is avoided. c) Employees are encouraged to attend various safety drills and health oriented trainings so that they can take preventive measures themselves. d) Employees must turn-off their work equipments while leaving organisational premises and regularly check for issues such as live wire and spark (NSW government, 2011). e) The firm is liable to take punitive measures in case employees were found involved in hazardous activities. f) The firm will also not be responsible if employees deliberately injure themselves. 4.4 Practical application of health and safety policies and procedures in the company a) The company encourages employees to intimate their immediate manger in case they or any other individual feel sick in the office. Medical aid should be provided to the aggrieved individual immediately. In case of serious ailment, the employee should be sent to the in-house physician. b) Employees are provided definite number of sick leaves and are expected to use them as and when necessary. No employee is forced by the firm to be at work while they are sick. Employee’s personal health and prevention of contamination are given equal priority in the company. c) Every week safety drills and health related training is conducted in the company premises and it is mandatory for all the employees to attend the same. d) Quarterly inspection of devices and health inspection is undertaken by the firm for safety of its employees. e) The punishment related to deliberate participation in hazardous activities will result in suspension and/or termination depending upon seriousness of the incident (NSW government, 2011). Reference list Ahmad, S. and Schroeder, R. G., 2002. The importance of recruitment and selection process for sustainability of total quality management. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 19(5), pp. 540-550. Ahmed, P. K., Loh, A. Y. and Zairi, M., 1999. Cultures for continuous improvement and learning. Total Quality Management, 10(4-5), pp. 426-434. EU-OSHA, 2014. How to carry out a risk assessment. [online] Available at: [accessed 17 December 2014]. Haigh, B. and Morris, D.S., 2002. Cycles of Control: Worker Participation in Sociological and Historical Perspective Sociology. Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 11(3), pp. 22-34. Lakhe, R. R. and Mohanty, R. P., 1995. Understanding TQM in service systems. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 12(9), pp. 139-153. Mullins, L. J., 2007. Management and organisational behaviour. New York: Pearson Education. NSW government, 2011. How to manage work health and safety risks code of practice. [pdf] NSW government. Available at: [accessed 17 December 2014]. Pearce, J. A. and Robinson, R. B., 2000. Strategic management: Formulation, implementation, and control. New York: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. Talib, F. and Rahman, Z., 2010. Critical success factors of TQM in service organizations: a proposed model. Services Marketing Quarterly, 31(3), pp. 363-380. Talib, F., 2013. An overview of total quality management: Understanding the fundamentals in service organization. International Journal of Advanced Quality Management, 1(1), pp. 1-20. Read More