Alcanzar, Inc. is an organization founded five years ago to provide specialized

Question

Alcanzar, Inc. is an organization founded five years ago to provide specialized treatment services to persons with drug addiction in Bernalillo County. It began through the efforts of social worker, Alicia Melendez, the founder and original executive director.

The agency mission statement is as follows

“To provide caring and comprehensive recovery and support services, linking persons with addiction to creative solutions, and to be a leader in creating client-centered service delivery models.”

The agency has grown rapidly in five years. In the beginning it had only three employees: Alicia (an LCSW) who provided all the therapeutic services, a case manager and an administrative assistant. All services were performed in a three-room office close to downtown Albuquerque. The original funding of $125,000 was from the New Mexico State Legislature. In the second year of its existence, the agency was incorporated as a non-profit agency and a board of directors was formed.

The early years of the agency were characterized by low paid, highly dedicated employees who worked long hours. Decisions about growth, procedure and day to day operations were made without much formal process and often by Alicia, her staff, and a client advisory group in an informal way. Client satisfaction surveys consistently showed that the service provided at that time was of high quality.

Gradually over the five years of its existence, the agency grew due to additional funding and the subsequent addition of professional and support staff. A new facility was leased in the north valley area of Albuquerque to hold the growing program.

The staff eventually grew to include an executive director, three program directors, an office manager and twelve full and part-time direct service workers (therapists and case managers). A community prevention program with four additional staff was added as a compliment to the treatment program and provides education to elementary and middle school students throughout the county.

Alicia, the founder and original executive director left the agency six months ago after a struggle with the Board over policies and agency structure issues. Her desire was to maintain the original informal approach to decision making and procedure, feeling that this had been vital to the provision of quality client care. The Board argued that more formal policies regarding decision making and procedure were required due to growth and the legal mandates of funding sources.

The new executive director, Laura Martinez, has spent much of the last six months developing formal policies and procedures, a formal bureaucratic organizational chart and a personnel handbook. The new director’s style has included decision making without input from staff or clients, the use of directives in memo style (often via e-mail) and staff meetings with agendas dominated by policy and procedure training.

The client advisory group continues to meet but has not been asked for input into decision making. The client satisfaction surveys have been abandoned and there is no current effort to evaluate effectiveness of services. The “no show” rate for clients seems to have increased substantially, whereas the agency had a proud record of a previous rate of 12% or less over the first five years. A staff support group that was started in year three has been cancelled and new quotas for therapists requiring a minimum number of client encounters per week have been established. This quota was imposed presumably to fulfill the requirements of the increasing number of contracts funding the agency.

Employee satisfaction has been at an all-time low since the hiring of the new executive director. One program director and three direct service staff have resigned due to concerns over the perceived low level of client care over the last six months. Employees have held two meetings outside of work to discuss the current dissatisfaction and have sent a letter to the executive director with their observations and complaints.

The executive director has approached the board with the concerns presented to her by the agency staff. She has indicated her intention of following established policy and procedure to deal with the dissatisfaction and other issues.

The board’s decision, after discussion of the current observations and complaints of the staff, has been to hire a consultant to analyze the current agency status and to make recommendations to them and the executive director.

Provide an analysis of the current agency status

-include which elements of traditional perspectives on organizations apply to the agency currently

- other ideas/concepts from social work body of knowledge that give you a deeper understanding of the current agency status.

Provide a Recommendations for an agency structure that is consistent with the core concerns of social work and the agency mission statement

-include elements of traditional, and/or alternative organizational paradigms in your proposed agency structure (give specific examples)

-other ideas/concepts from social work body of knowledge that support your proposed agency structure.

Explanation / Answer

Currently the agency is going through difficult phase because of changes in its original work method. Low self esteem within the staff can be seen. The influence of decision making in organizational leadership and management activities that impact creativity, growth and effectiveness, success, and goal accomplishments in agency.

Teamwork; Leadership; Management; Decision-making; Policy; Communication; Organizational growth; Ethics and leadership activities are lacking in the agency which had led to the current situation with the employees.

Creating a negative environment, avoiding recognition, non involnment of staff and customers leads to the negative impression on everyone about the agency. This is what exacty happened in this case.

Solution to this is Keep policies consistent, treat everyone fairly and be "present." Jump into the trenches with your employees, regardless of their level. When managers are present, they show that they view employees as equals. Ruling from an ivory tower feels isolating and elitist.

An organization, by its most basic definition, is an assembly of people working together to achieve common objectives through a division of labor. An organization provides a means of using individual strengths within a group to achieve more than can be accomplished by the aggregate efforts of group members working individually.

Traditional theories regarded organizations as closed systems that were autonomous and isolated from the outside world. The term "open systems" reflected the newfound belief that all organizations are unique—in part because of the unique environment in which they operate and that they should be structured to accommodate unique problems and opportunities. Organizations differ greatly in size, function, and makeup. Nevertheless, the operations of nearly all organizations—from the multinational corporation to a a newly opened delicatessesare based on a division of labor, a decision-making structure; and rules and policies. Decision-making structures, the second basic organizational characteristic, are used to organize authority. These structures vary from operation to operation in their degree of centralization and decentralization.

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