District A case analysis

The business manager’s excellent choices

The business manager for the school district made excellent choices while arranging to purchase new kitchen appliances for the catering business and a new bus for the transportation service. Modernized kitchen appliances will be faster at cooking, easier to clean, and better at preserving food.

Keeping community members involved

It was a wonderful idea to keep the community members who were hired to work in the food and transportation industry because doing so will encourage improved and ongoing community involvement. If the people are employed, this will help support ongoing community stability and economic growth.

Preserving wages and perks

The residents’ wages and perks were preserved by the prudent leader. This will encourage the employees to work harder. Benefits like health coverage encourage the employees to be more work engaged and be satisfied with their work position (Zahra, Iram & Naeem, 2014). The workers’ effort will, therefore, make the business more productive.

Poor decisions and failures

Describe what the school district leader did poorly or failed to do in this situation

Outsourcing and its negative implications

Outsourcing the food services and transportation from external contractors was one poor decision that the school district leader. Outsourcing would bring a lot of negative implications for the food and transportation operation. It may cause loss of management control (Mella & Pellicelli, 2012). Outsourcing may also create the risk of exposing private data to the vendors.

Dismantling the departments handling food and transportation services

The dismantling of the departments handling food and transportation services was also a wrong decision made by the school district leader. The department was involved in the proper management of the budget dispatched each year by the union. The staff involved in both department made sure that the money allocated benefited the community and yielded profits.

Actions to correct the failures

Identify and discuss three important actions that the School District Business leader should take to correct things that he did poorly or failed to do

Involving employees, the locals and superintendent in decision making

Involving employees, the locals, and the superintendent in decision making-The school district business leader should have included the locals and the superintendent in decision making. This would help in making right decisions and coming up with practical conclusions that would benefit all parties involved (Coghlan & Brannick, 2011).

Keeping services in-house

The leader should keep the services more in-house than outsourcing from local vendors- This is because it would discourage the employees to work efficiently since the food and transportation service is not a community project anymore.

Strategic planning for the departments

The school business leader should not dismantle the food and transportation department but should create a strategic plan to build and develop the departments to be more profitable and productive.

Effectiveness of the actions

Explain why each of these actions is likely to be effective

Improved decision making

Decision making is a critical issue in change management (Svara, 2015). Consulting employees on right strategies will ensure productivity in the business. Including the locals in the community working for the food and transportation operation is also an efficient way of boosting the overall success of the company.

Efficient in-house operation

The in-house action in the food and transportation operation is more efficient because the employees will come with a set of standard, hence will be able to work efficiently. Implementation of new ideas will help in the smooth running of the organization and as a result, contributing to organizational success.

Strategic planning for improvement

The food and transportation department should not be dismantled but should be planned strategically to improve productivity. The food and transportation operation is using outdated and old infrastructure. The kitchen, for example, should have new kitchen equipment as proposed by Ms C to improve on the efficacy at preparing food. On the other hand, the transportation operation should plan to buy a new vehicle to reduce the cost the department is incurring when servicing.

References

Coghlan, D. and Brannick, T. (2011).Doing Action research in Your Own Organization. London, Sage.

Mella, P. and Pellicelli, M. (2012). The Strategies of Outsourcing and Offshoring. American International Journal of Contemporary Research, Vol. 2 No. 9, Pp. 1-12.

Svara, J. (2015). Aligning Personal and Professional Ethics: A Strategic Approach To

Ethics Education. Journal of Management Systems, Vol. 25, Number 2.

Zahra, S., Iram, A. and Naeem, H. (2014). Employee Training and Its Effect on Employees’ Job Motivation and Commitment: Developing and Proposing a Conceptual Model. Journal of Business and Management, Volume 16, Issue 9, PP 60-68.