Abstract
Dubai municipality is one of the most vital sectors for the roots of development in the country. The government puts much effort in ensuring that the system remains active and consistent in providing of knowledge and learning courses to the employees. Therefore, the human resource department has a task to ensure technical competence framework. This paper intends to provide a wider scope of the employee performance management system as a means to foster a performance culture where individual employees work is aligned with the strategic direction of the organization. This thesis provides a wider scope to means directed towards increased learning and development in Dubai Municipality.
A Learning Organization
The advancement of man is the groundwork on which a country is established. This arrangement cannot be regarded comprehensive devoid of first developing the populace, who are considered as human assets. This can only be achieved on the ground of a well established learning system. Dubai municipality is centered on the provision of academic courses directed towards achievement of complete transformation, performance, innovation, and interdependence. The government for a long time has been trying to produce a strategic plan aimed at achieving excellence in strengthening and focusing on empowerment of Dubai Municipality employees. The employees are the key to the creation of a high performance culture in the learning organization. Therefore, creation of a comprehensive employee performance management system will foster the primary objective of ensuring learning and development. This thesis intends to provide a mechanism for improvement of the section of human resource management as a means to create learning and developing municipality.
The company’s profile
Reviewing the company’s profile the municipality, the company has over 11, 000 employees including laborers and 2129 staffs. The professional team is guided by the municipality vision, mission, and core values. The vision of the municipality is to create an exceptional city that provides the real meaning of triumph and comfort of living. The mission is working to plan, design, construct, and control the municipal infrastructure and other interrelated amenities and services through appropriate investment in human resources. The core values in the company are the employee as the real asset, stakeholders are perceived as committed partners, and lastly the company values the need for transformation.
Organization Chart of Dubai Municipality
Director General
The entire Municipality is headed by a chairman to whom all the six departments outlined above answer and submit their work to. The main jobs of the sub departments is to create, plan, build, and design the municipal infrastructure development strategies and other closely linked facilities and amenities through apposite investments in the human resource available in the organization.
The department of Human Resource Involvement in Learning
In Dubai municipality, employees has dissimilar functions all directed towards the ultimate goal of learning. The employees are extensively trained and are expected in the same way to transfer the same knowledge in the provision of services to the DM citizens through the various forms of consultancy. In addition, employees are expected to have the necessary knowledge as a means to provide credible knowledge to the citizens. The employees are also expected to simply complicated messages to a rank that can be comprehended by the client they are serving. It is also possible for employees to produce audio visual aids that can assist in the progress of learning and development. Through the numerous interactions with clients, the staffs are required to hold on to the ethical perform and sensitivity to the clients understanding. This is crucial in fostering an organization based on audience analysis hence tailoring of the message becomes easy and more effective. Therefore, the human resource department should concentrates on creating a system with improved proficiencies and enhanced edification skills.
Dubai municipality human resource department is also actively involved in the recruitment process where qualified individuals from the university are seriously interviewed and ultimately employed on the basis of their merits. This indirectly will help in the creation of organization stuffs that have the right qualifications to pass on knowledge to others. The human resource department is also responsible for the creation of comprehensive training programs so that they can effectively contribute to the needs of the society. Among the most effective programs that the society benefits from are effective secretariat skills, E correspondence, contemporary planning, execution and follow up skills, and customer service skills. In addition, the municipality helps in acquiring of personal development and self & time management skills.
The Formal Organization of Learning
In achieving the organization goals, the organization has to have a comprehensive learning procedure and objectives. Employee development through training and edification is the basic source and tool for learning. Since the municipality is committed to provision the best quality services, then employees are bound to have comprehensive all around knowledge in dealing with clients. In response to this, Dubai Municipality ensures they attract a valuable, well experience, and extensively trained employees to face career challenges and obstacles. The employee handbook guides the training and recruitment of workers. Dubai Municipality is extensively involved in diverse projects and issuance of services. In developing services and enhancing competencies the Municipality is aligned with the strategic plan of the emirates of Dubai.
Dubai Municipality seeks to be the best management encouraging employees to be creative by establishing organizational suggestion schemes to acquire employee’s ideas and experiences and ultimately share them with for better prospects. Also, the municipality has a website where employees and clients can write their suggestions and complains. Learning will, therefore, be fostered by the open communication. Dubai Municipality is a firm that continually ensures that its individual employees, team wise, and the whole organization receives consistent learning and development. The foremost intention of consistent learning is to ensure continuous transformation so as to enhance employee capabilities and increase their productivity. Productivity is the main tool for profitability and increased efficiency in the organization.
The learning ability and knowledge level of the organizational members serves as a competitive advantage for the municipality; it is the responsibility of the human resource practitioners to understand to comprehend and direct how these capabilities can be developed. Also, the human resource managers should organize for learning opportunities, training sessions, and use rewards such as incentives to encourage employees to participate in learning programs. These motivations will ultimately help in the creation of a learning culture in the municipality. Treating of employees as assets helps in creating team work learning in the organization.
The leadership styles in Dubai Municipality influence the learning process in a great way since it familiarizes employee with the national and international standards required for increased development. Unlike managers who mostly specialize on providing managerial services by extreme exercise of power, motivational managers influence the learning process positively. Dubai Municipality mostly practice a system that allows for visionary development and well specified goals hence the employees prepare themselves psychologically to receive the necessary edification directed at achieving the municipality goals and objectives. The high level of discipline of the leaders in the organization ensures employees unleash their full potential and capabilities hence determine the level of training and edification.
The New Methods to Ensure Consistent Learning in Dubai Municipality
For Dubai Municipality to achieve maximum benefits of a learning organization, it require to for comprehensive methods to foster and harness knowledge to increase the employee capabilities and productivity. First is the creation of knowledge management in the organization. Knowledge management is involved in acquiring and communicating knowledge. Also, knowledge management also refers to the improvement and re-utilizing of knowledge. Knowledge management also encourages full utilization of employee brains in the course of doing their work. Dubai Municipality needs to develop knowledge management strategies such as making available knowledge at the appropriate time and place where the knowledge can be applied effectively so as to achieve amplified organization performance. Explicit knowledge has different forms ranging from words, sentences, documents, and organized data to computer programs.
Incorporating knowledge management in planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling of employees, processes, and systems in the Municipality ascertain that its knowledge assets are enhanced and efficiently employed. Knowledge assets refer to printed documents, knowledge stored in electronic repositories, employee perception to handle their jobs, and team based knowledge. The knowledge management team will, therefore; enhance acquisition of knowledge, creation, refinement, storage, transfer, sharing, and utilization of information. Also, KM function in the organization is to operate in these activities and processes through the development of methodologies and systems that support them and motivates employees to engage in these activities. The cycle of organization learning is entirely dependent on the willingness of the employees to learn. Therefore, creating a knowledge management system is one of the greatest steps towards the creation of highly motivated employees who are willing to learn new concepts and ways of serving the clients.
Evaluating the Learning Organization
The most fundamental rationale for providing learning and development is to guarantee that the organization’s employees are able to carry out their current roles effectively. Evaluation of employee performance is, therefore; mandatory so that the Municipality can know the current position in creating a learning organization. Evaluation is simply the comparison of the current and real state of employee development to the promised or the anticipated results. Also, the organization should perform evaluation strategies so that they can assist make conclusions about what intercession should or should not be repeated in the future, provide evidence of their investment in human capital, and to demonstrate the values learning brings to the organization.
In case of training, the human resource manager should collect systematic and impartial data to equip him or she with the necessary information required to draw conclusions about their effectiveness in a particular set training. Evaluation can be done to several parties including an individual, the trainer, and the entire organization. Evaluating an individual provides an opportunity to them for giving feedback to their trainers on the benefits of the program. Trainers can depend on the feedback to evaluate their effectiveness in delivering of knowledge to the employee. There are various models that the organization can use to evaluate the learning progress of the employees.
The Kirkpatrick model of evaluation is outlines a detailed method of evaluating the performance. He divides the evaluation strategy into four segments. The first segment is called the reaction. The reaction is the general feeling of the employees engaged in training or learning session towards the program. They may feel that they adequately equipped with the necessary knowledge to satisfy the customers, whereas others may feel that the method of elaboration were not quite effective. The subsequent segment is called learning. At this sector, the level or extent of learning of trainees is measured on the basis of their attitudes and perspective of the information and skills taught. The third section of evaluation deals with the employee behavior since it measures the extent to which the employees conduct themselves after they have attended the program. The final segment deals with the results of the training or learning program. Result gained in an organization is viewed from the perspective of to what extent has the business gained profits, increased return on investment, sales, production quality, meeting of schedules, reduction in cost, reduced conflicts, and adherence to safety measures. The method is simple and clear hence easy for the HR practitioner to use effectively. Measuring of the excellence of workers can only be done using the intangible sectors such as evaluation of the employee’s communication skills and asking the trainees to fill evaluation forms. In addition, evaluation should be done in the beginning and after the program is completed.
Recommendations
Dubai Municipality should look forward to establishing a more intense learning process in the organization. To achieve this, the company ought to employ a knowledge management team to deal harnessing, processing, and dissemination of knowledge to the employees. This team should be integrated with the human resource department so as to reach all employees in all sectors of the Municipality.
The company should make training mandatory for all individuals in the system as a means to ensure that they improve on their productivity, efficiency, and profitability. The mandatory training should be more diverse in providing learning and development activities to enable employees to maximize their potential, therefore; creating a diverse and well equipped employee.
The opportunities of learning should be more consistent and frequent to ensure that employees continually gains competence knowledge. Moreover, the opportunities should also make sure they are equipped with the appropriate content and adhere to an appropriate method of delivery to ensure maximum effectiveness. Teamwork is also essential in promoting innovation. Learning and development activities should be delivered in such a way that practical benefits to the organization can be observed and to allow the workforce to be able to channel their knowledge and skills to the benefits of all the key stakeholders.
Conclusion
Dubai Municipality is a complex organization its goal to ensure maximum and continuous development in the country puts learning in the organization as its first priority. Being a learning organization entails many factors including consistent training programs and evaluation of the effectiveness of these programs in achieving its goals and objectives. Prospective employees may be persuaded in the course of providing an assortment of education and development prospects. Increased learning activities will actively enhance employee productivity, efficiency, and ultimately increase profitability. Therefore, Dubai Municipality should employ a knowledge management team in the human resource department to ensure consistent acquisition of more advanced and effective knowledge is passed on to the employee.
References
Abed, I. l., & Vine, P. (2006). The United Arab Emirates. Dubai: Trident Press Ltd.
Barnes, S., & Barnes, S. J. (2002). Knowledge Management Systems. Andover: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Cook, J. A., & Staniforth, D. (2006). The Learning Organization in the Public Services. Philadelphia: Gower Publishing, Ltd.
Dubai Municipality. (2006, January 31). Dubai Municipality Profile. Retrieved from www.dm.gov.ae: http://www.dm.gov.ae/DMEGOV/dm-mp-organisation-chart
Russ-Eft, D. (2009). Evaluation in Organizations: A Systematic Approach to Enhancing Learning, Performance, and Change. Wisconsin: Basic Books.
