Question 1
Housing Association is planning to build affordable homes as one of the milestones to reduce overcrowding. Financial distress is hindering the success of theprojectbecause there is no adequate funding to sustain the proposed developments. Housing Association is also characterised by poor planning and lack of proper project management strategies. The evidence of this is the fact that financial managers have prepared a development proposal, but the proposal does not have a business plan. The proposal itself is not comprehensive enough to include all the required details of the proposed housing projects because it has less than ten pages of ideas. Further investigation of the company reveals that the Housing Association Director allocated three days to Jewish employee for a task that has a standard period of three weeks. This occurred two weeks after the director had ordered the same employee to remove his skullcap, which he claimed that it was tainting the name of the company. These issues have created a negative image of the organisation, and the company has appointed me as a consultant to address these issues.
Reputation is one of the most essential assets that every corporation should maintain. Reputation is a constituent of intellectual capital that assists corporations and other companies in not only promoting their products and services, but also in marketing themselves, enhancing their customer base (Seitel, 2013). Negative public image may lead to the loss of customers, decline in productivity and possible community actions against the company. This is the main challenge, which the housing corporation is facing and failure to correct it will not only lead to poor performance and inability to reclaim its services. I believe that it is necessary for Housing Corporation to take steps in gaining stability and performance before the company experiences worse implications of poor reputation (Stradman, 2002).
The business proposal is the first document of any business project, and it is backed up by a business plan. The proposal should cover all the project aspects ranging from definition, background information, objectives of the project, limitations and solutions to limitations, financial requirements and their expected sources. Helm (2011) defines a business proposal as a developed strategy written to a prospective sponsorthat explains how a business will be established, and sets out the key steps that the investor will follow in investing in the project, and establishing the business. A business proposal explains all the steps from the business establishment, to the maintenance and monitoring of the same. Highlighting all these areas of the project requires a comprehensive report of approximately thirty pages, or a minimum of twenty five. Housing Corporation should revisit its business proposal document and add the missing parts to make it clear.
According to Griffin (2002), a business plan is a vital document before beginning to work of any project. A business plan is a strategized formal statement, which includes and entails the business goals, and the reasons for the establishment of the business, and the steps highlighting how it will be attainable. A business plan looks at all the available resources and opportunities, and also internal and external factors that will affect the business establishment and performance. Housing Corporation management team publicised their poor planning by coming up with a business proposal without a business plan. Perhaps the company might have had a plan of drawing a proposal for the housing project as the first step of project implementation. After the proposal has passed all the necessary steps, the management could then prepare a business plan based on the amendments of the business proposal (Smith, 2003).
Anthonissen (2002) investigated the necessity of combining the business proposal from a business a business plan. According to him, the business proposal and business plan should be contained in one document. This is true because the business proposal is meant to show the image of the final product. The Housing Corporation is planning to construct affordable houses to reduce congestions. The company has prepared a business proposal; hence a business plan should also accompany the proposal. If the amendments are made on the main proposal, the business plan will also be amended to be in line with the project proposal.
The viability of the business plan for Housing Corporation will be contingent upon a number of factors. The initial focus of the company management in preparing a viable business plan will be considering the uniqueness of their project. The main objective of the company is to reduce congestion in already existing housing facilities (Helm, 2011). This is unique because according to the company, no other housing organisation has come up with this initiative. The second factor that determines the viability of the plan is the availability of financial resources to sustain project development. Unfortunately, the company does not have adequate finances for the project development. This does not imply that the company will stop the project. The company will use external sources of funds such as loans, grants, sale of assets and savings (Smith, 2003). Financial managers will then make budgets that can be met by the available and reliable sources of funds.
A viable business plan considers market availability and ability to maintain existing customers. Housing Corporation should identify the present and prospective market. There is already overcrowding evidenced in few affordable houses. The company has already a large prospective market as long as it maintains the rent within affordable limits. Other criteria to evaluate plan viability are economic mood, timing and competition. The business will set their rent rates depending on the economic climate to ensure that people can afford. Timing will determine whether the houses will find tenants within the time-frame of the project plan or delayed. Timing also reduces chances of competition and lose of market command. Competition will also affect the company’s ability gain market demand. The more the number of housing companies, the lower the guaranteed profits (Blanpain, 2003). Therefore, a viable business plan should have a time limit within which it should achieve the project goals.
Identifying a strategic business direction for Housing Corporation is a crucial consideration. The first step of identifying the strategic direction of the business is to determine the business’ current position. This can be successfulthrough sseeking the services of auditors and market researchers to determine the company’s financial position competitive advantage and market share. The second step is identifying the company’s vision and mission. The vision of the company will reveal priority issues and mission will provide the milestones of the company. Third, consideration will be given to the objectives of the company. The objectives will trace the company’ strategic direction by defining what the company want to achieve in the long-run. The final step is determining the accountability of organisational members to various tasks. Budgets, strategies and action plans communicate how the business allocates time, resources and addressees priority issues (Griffin, 2002). Therefore, the parties who are accountable to these variables will communicate the strategic direction of Housing Corporation.
Question 2
This question will address employees’ harassment and discrimination in context to working settings, and how the British Law can be applied in working institutions to cater for employees’ rights. Institutional and individual discrimination are some of the major vices that characterise many corporations and organisations across in the UK, particularly, in the twentieth and the current twenty first century. In the twenty first century, however, various countries have been working with various international organizations to address these two forms of discrimination. Their main objective is to ensure that all employees within the organizations work in fair and just conditions. This discrimination has been developed in the organizations’ systems, practices, activities and protocols (Helm, 2011, p. 89).
In this case, there has been discrimination of an employee based on race. A Jewish employee has been instructed by the Housing Services Director, who is his boss, to remove his skullcap. The housing services director claims that the skullcap is portraying a bad impression to his colleagues and important people visiting the corporation. The director has also forced the Jewish employee to work under unrealistic plans. This is indicated by the fact that the director has assigned the employee a task meant for three weeks, but ordered him to complete it within three days. This can be termed as overworking of employees and basing unrealistic expectations upon them, which is not supported employee working codes (Griffin, 2002, p. 101).
The European Court of Human Rights is responsible for solving disputes that relate to dress codes in the work place. The court has not remained silent over similar cases. For example, on 15th January 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ruled the case of British Airways versus Nadia Eweida. Nadia was advised that uniform policy of the company required employees to conceal any items that are related to religion. The staff members were therefore required to wear them beneath their clothes. The employment tribunal handled the case earlier and ruled out that wearing religious items was not a Christian requirement, hence Nadia had to observe the British Airways dress code standards. The same case was rejected in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The European Court of Human Rights accused the domestic courts of failing to strike a balance of fairness between Nadia’s wish to manifest her religion and the wish of British Airways to maintain its public image (Peterson, 2012). The court, therefore, ordered the United Kingdom to pay Nadia non-pecuniary damages and expenses.
The Housing Corporation case can be looked at from the similar viewpoint. The Jewish religion requires members to wear a skullcap. Ordering the Jewish employee will be limiting his or her freedom of manifesting the religion. Looking at this from another point of view, the Jewish worker is a foreigner in the United Kingdom. The company for which he is working wants to safeguard its public image. It could be argued that the UK has a negative perception of the skullcap. Persistence of the Jewish employee to wear this cap may put the company at stake. Perhaps, this is the reason why the director is ordering the Jewish employee to stop wearing his cap. Sack (2010) argues that employment procedure involves the employer understanding the prospective employee’s background, including religious background. It is assumed that Housing Corporation investigated the employee’s religion and its dress code. Therefore, the legal position of Housing Corporation is to respect the Jewish employee’s dress code because the management is deemed to be aware from the time they hired him.
According to the law, employers should allow their employees freedom of expression based on their religious beliefs as long as it do not interfere with the freedom other workers.Blanpain (2003) investigated the concept of religious discrimination in business organisations. He found that most business organisations allowed their workers to wear golden chains, T-shirts displaying political ideologies and caps with companies’ logos. Religious items were, however, prohibited. It is therefore not logical for the company to justify its crackdown on the Jewish’s religious dress code.The management should embrace diversity in the work place by hiring people from diverse backgrounds while ensuring equality and natural fairness (Helm, 2011). Unless the skullcap
The second complain concerns the director allocating too little time to a task that requires twenty-one days. This is worsened by the fact that the director allocates the task to the Jewish employee. The question that everyone would else would ask concerns the reason why the director decided to frustrate the Jewish employee and not any other worker. Unfairness and racial discrimination presents itself further through the acts of the director. If the employer attempts to do the task, it means that he will have to work for longer than usual hours to compress the twenty-one day task in to three days’ work (Peterson, 2012).
A similar case was handled in Barber versus Somerset County Council (2004. Barber was employed as a teacher in a local school. Barber was also a Head of Department in the same school. There were changes in the school administration that resulted to abnormal increase in number of hours that Barber worked. This was stressful to Barber, who raised his concerns to the head of the school. The head did not consider Barber’s concerns. Barber suffered from depression and finally developed a mental breakdown. Barber filed a case against his employer. The House of Lords ruled the case against the employer after finding out that it was his negligence that led to Barber’s mental breakdown. The employer was judged liable for negligence and Barber compensated with an amount more one hundred thousand pounds.
The UK Working Time Regulations of protects workers from being overworked by employers who want to satisfy their business priorities. The regulation does not allow employers to force employees to work for more than fourty-eight hours a week. The employee has the option of requesting the employer to increase the amount of working hours after working for seventeen weeks (Jones, 2012). The employer does not have power to force the employee to work for more than the standard working hours.
In conclusion, the problem of negative reputation of the company can be addressed by the management changing its leadership organisational strategies. The company should come up with a business proposal that is comprehensive enough to highlight all areas of the project. This proposal should be backed with a business plan. The company should also observe the British Employee laws and avoid discrimination based on race and religion. The company management should also be informed that overworking employees is illegal and may attract legal actions.
References
Anthonissen, P. 2002. Crisis Communication: Practical PR Strategies for Reputation Management and Company Survival. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Blanpain, R. 2003. Employee rights. London: Rutledge.
Griffin, G. 2002. Reputation management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Helm, S. 2011. Reputation management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Jones, J. 2012. “Employee Rights.”National Labor Relations Board.Retrieved from http://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employee-rights on May 22nd, 2013.
Peterson, G. 2012. “Highlights and recent changes Working Conditions Act.”European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.Retrieved from https://osha.europa.eu/fop/netherlands/en/legislation/highlights-and-recent-changes-working-conditions-act on May 22nd, 2013.
Sack, S. 2010. The Employee Rights Handbook: Effective Legal Strategies to Protect Your Job From Interview to Pink Slip. Sydney: McMillan Press.
Smith, J. 2003. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Seitel, F. 2013. Rethinking Reputation: How PR Trumps Marketing and Advertising in the New Media World. London: Rutledge.
Stradtman, L., R. 2002. Online Reputation Management For Dummies. New York: Harvard University Press.
