Happy Valley Case free essay sample

Camp Happy Valley is a summer day camp which is located in London, Ontario. It formed in 1965, and as a not-for-profit organization. Camp Happy Valley engages in create a positive and safe atmosphere for children to increase their experience. Sue Johnson is the director of this camp and work for hiring the super staff team. Adam Cameron is the programmer for Happy Valley. The process of hiring and training staff was low efficiency, and the camp’s morale was depressed. Camp Happy Valley needs to make some decisions as soon as possible to improve this situation. There are three problem areas faced by the Happy Valley. First of all, the process of hiring staff for Happy Valley is ineffective. Another problem area is that the process of training staff is too tedious and no organization. Lastly, ineffective management is also a problem category. Firstly, the procedure of checking reference new candidates was too complex. We will write a custom essay sample on Happy Valley Case or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This is a lack of fit between organizational process and people. Meanwhile, many employees felt the process of training was so boring. There is a lack of fit between organization process and people. Finally, the span of management is out of control. This is a lack of fit between organization structure and tasks. The Happy Valley was required to achieve three goals to promote efficiency. First, Happy Valley needs to improve the procedure of hiring staff. Second, Happy Valley needs to create a positive and interesting process of training. Third, the Happy Valley needs to change the unreasonable structure of staff assignments. There are three alternatives suggested to address the problems. The first alternative is that Happy Valley needs to make a complete plan to use an organized process to hire staff. Another alternative is to simplify the administrative tasks, and change the procedure of training to let it becomes more interesting and useful. The third alternative is to optimize the management structure of Happy Valley. Improving the efficiency of staff training would be the most appropriate alternative. A successful training process will allow employees to have a better understanding of the work and the environment of the Happy Valley. The quality of the training is more significant for employees who have never done kind of job before. If the implementation fails and the team spirit of the staff is still very weak. Johnson give out a moving speech at the end of training, and hold a staff party to improve the relationship among the team members, and let them work with a team spirit. Overview Camp Happy Valley is a summer day camp which is located in London, Ontario. It formed in 1965, and as a not-for-profit organization, it become an accredited member of Ontario Camping Association. Camp Happy Valley engages in create a positive and safe atmosphere for children to increase their experience. Sue Johnson is the director of this camp and work for hiring the super staff team, while Adam Cameron, who is a first-year student at The University of Western Ontario, is the programmer for Happy Valley. Happy Valley recruited many staff because of the high staff turnover and the competitive environment. However, the process of recruiting and training staff was low efficiency, and the camp’s morale was depressed. Camp Happy Valley needs to make some decisions as soon as possible to improve this situation. Problem There are three problem areas faced by the Happy Valley. Ineffective process of hiring staff is a main problem category for Happy Valley. Employees are a very important part of the Happy Valley, but there are a lot of loopholes in both processes of recruiting new staff and returning staff. On one hand, many potential employees were not checked by the super staff member timely, at the same time, a lot of them found new jobs in other places; they lost many outstanding staff members. On the other hand, the super staff team did not make a clear decision to arrange who would interview whom during rehiring return staff. It wasted huge amount of time. The process of training staff is too tedious, and no organization is another issue for Happy Valley. The result of training would directly impact the motivation of staff and the morale of the camp. Nevertheless, the procedure of training employees has many flaws. Firstly, the Happy Valley wasted a lot of time during the super staff training, and it let the process of administering the workshops became very hasty and inefficient. Meanwhile, staff felt bored during the training. They were too tired to throw themselves into the training. There was no doubt that some employees had no team feeling. They did not think of the collective sense of honor. Parents complaint to head office about the poor attitude of the camp staff. In addition, ineffective management is also a problem category. To begin with, the span of management is out of control. In order to maximize the efficiency, the managers need to think about how many staff that they are able to supervise directly. Johnson, the director of the camp, was directly responsible for managing the whole super staff. The efficiency of management would decline. Moreover, Cameron was the only employee in program director part of the super staff team, and it was difficult for only one person to develop the entire program. Cause There is a lack of fit between organizational process and people because of the procedure of checking reference new candidates was too complex. Reference checks need be a clear division of work. Super staff did not know the exact numbers of references that they need to check. It became the responsibility of whoever has a chance to do the reference checks, so the process became disorganized. A lot of time was wasted. Many candidates found the jobs in other places while they were not checked by the Happy Valley. Meanwhile, because of Happy Valley did not have a formal process during hiring returning employees, the procedure was very chaotic. As a result, a lot of defects came out during the procedure of selecting staff. There is a lack of fit between organization process and people because the process of training was boring. It was so monotonous that the supervisor always speaking. A large number of employees felt tired after they went through the process of training. They thought the training was useless, so they lacked a positive attitude and staff spirit for their jobs. Moreover, the administrative tasks were tedious, and it also wasted the time. Therefore, the quality of training was unsatisfactory. There is a lack of fit between organization structure and tasks. Due to the lack of proper arrangement and the profound understanding of the organizational structure, there was only one director to supervise all super staff. There were nineteen people in the super staff team, and they were divided by four sections of camp. It is extremely difficult for Johnson to manage all of these super staff and sections. In addition, it was also irrational that there was only Cameron in the program section. These four different sections had their own function, and they involved in different parts. Although he had accumulated a wealth of experience during working in the Happy Valley in the past four summers, he only worked at the swim department in the past four years. Cameron was only a first-year student of the university, and there were a lot of things he needed to learn with his enthusiasm. Goals The Happy Valley was required to achieve three goals to promote efficiency. First, Happy Valley needs to improve the procedure of hiring staff. Second, a positive and interesting process of training will let the staff work with more enthusiasm and team spirit. Third, the Happy Valley needs to change the unreasonable structure of staff assignments to make the management become more effective. Action Alternatives The first alternative is that Happy Valley makes a complete plan to use an organized process to hire staff. The plan will let each super staff member know what they are responsible for, making them do their own job. Every member should know clearly about the numbers of candidates that they need to interview, and the number of references they need to check. Consequently, the efficiency of hiring process will get a great improvement. Another alternative is to simplify the administrative tasks, and change the procedure of training to let it becomes more interesting and useful. Instead of only let the same person speaking, Happy Valley can create some activities that relate to the training like simulating the environment of camp, and let all staff involved in it. As a result, employees will get lots of practical experience and also enjoy the process. The morale of the camp will also be boosted. The third alternative is to optimize the management structure of Happy Valley. For the top management part, Happy Valley should select another director like Johnson from the 19 people of the super staff team. This new director and Johnson can manage two departments of the super staff separately. For the super staff part, Happy Valley should select another programmer from the normal staff that who has the rich experience of this area. Thus, the efficiency of management will improve with the change of the structure. Recommendation/Implementation Improving the efficiency of staff training would be the most appropriate alternative to choose because the process of training is very important for developing the ability to work. The quality of the training is more significant for employees who have never done kind of job before. Meanwhile, a successful training process will allow employees to have a better understanding of the work and the environment of the Happy Valley. It will also increase the group cohesiveness at the same time. Therefore, this alternative will help Happy Valley to boost the camp’s morale, which is the most important goal that managers want to achieve. To implement this alternative is not difficult. There are some steps that need to do as following: Step 1: Johnson needs to hold a meeting with the super staff team to discuss the ways to simplify the administrative tasks and the activities they will do for training of super staff on June 1st. Step 2: After a one-week training of super staff, they need to hold a meeting for making a plan of the process of training all employees on June 7. Step 3: Dividing all staff into different groups after a simple process of talking about the manual. The employees will be trained in their own group, and achieve the goal, which is given by the super staff with their members. The time of training is from June 20th to 26th. Step 4: Finding 30 children as volunteers to participate in a three-day free simulative camp, and the staff will involve in this activity. The time of the activity id from June 28th to 30th Contingency If the implementation fails, and the motivation and team spirit of the staff is still very weak. They could let Johnson give out a moving speech at the end of training. After the speech, they could hold a staff party. The relationship among the team members will be improved. After that, all staff will be working with a motivation and team spirit.