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Week 5 disc./Assignment
Week5 Guidance –
Week 5 Objectives
· Discuss key issues that impact organizational restructuring.
· Identify key information that would impact organizational restructuring success.
· Develop a communication strategy to support organizational change.
· Evaluate the impact of toxic handlers in organizational change initiatives.
Municipalities that are currently contracting police service responsibilities to outside jurisdictions are now in a unique position to seriously consider re-establishing its own municipal police department that can easily result in an increase compliment of law enforcement resources at a significant reduction in costs.
By severing the police service contract, a municipality is now in a position to literally hit the “restart” key. By re-establishing its police department, the municipality is now in a position whereupon it is not bound by any existing or past labor contracts, policies and procedures, pensions or entitlement programs. The municipality can now start with a fresh approach to organizational management and budget control.
Today’s economy is significantly challenging numerous municipalities in relation to accumulated debt due to decreasing sources of revenue and a weakening tax base. One area that is negatively impacting several jurisdictions is the unsustainable costs associated with employee entitlement benefit programs that are protected and guaranteed by labor contracts. This includes generous lifetime pensions, COLA (cost of living adjustment), and medical benefits each of which are funded at the taxpayer expense. The contractual obligations associated with these benefits are now holding several cities hostage threatening potential bankrupting. The traditional assumed benefits such as pensions and health insurance are no loner the norm due to the unsustainable costs incurred by city jurisdictions.
Several cities and states are painstakingly attempting to renegotiate employee pension and retirement obligations to reduce the projected unsustainable debt liabilities. By forming a new police department, the municipality is no longer bound or mandated to provide or continue such lucrative and generous pensions.
Throughout the past two decades numerous municipalities throughout the United States willingly disbanded local control of their police departments by contracting police services to jurisdictional county sheriff departments. During this era, local governments were often frustratingly plagued with several unresolved internal challenges consisting of loss of control and accountability, increasing crime rates, consistent impasse with labor negotiations, sensationalized internal investigations, nepotism, political interference, and budgets. County law enforcement agencies quickly seized upon this opportunity. In order to expand jurisdictional control and power, tantalizing contractual mergers were offered to municipalities at a significant cost reduction. County agencies were able to offer policing at a reduced rate by consolidating specialized services and offsetting several administrative and support service costs to the county budget rather than directly charging the municipalities. To sweeten the offer, county law enforcement openly marketed as to how all of the liability and internal administrative challenges would no longer be the problem or financial responsibility of the contracting city. All of these would be assumed by the county agency. Such a deal!
As the popularity of contracts continued to expand and more municipalities agreed to take this deal, overhead costs assumed by the hosting agency were simply passed on to the next contracting municipality or simply absorbed and hidden within a county’s general fund. Local police departments were quick to sign on the dotted line relinquishing all capital property and control of their local police department. Failing to look into the future in the remote likelihood that the municipality should decide to reform its own police department, the startup costs alone would now hold the municipality hostage to the contract provider. Unfortunately, a false perception was echoed: Why would a municipality ever want to return to their own police force given this level of savings and transference of all levels of responsibility? This marriage will last forever…
During high periods of tax revenue generated from the inflated housing market, offsetting costs was considered the accepted norm of doing business rather than fairly assessing clearly defined charges back to the contracting municipality. In 2008, the nation’s housing market came to a screeching halt resulting in plummeting property values and record foreclosures. The once bountiful tax base that all governments had enjoyed now became a drying lake bed with increasing budget shortfalls for the upcoming fiscal years.
As county governments scurried to aggressively identify internal sources of revenue to offset increasing budget debts, focus began to concentrate on the financing aspects integrated within the policing contracts. Similar to the fundamentals that parallel the widely publicized “ponzi schemes”, revenue used to offset and reduce contracted police services had often been erroneously supplemented by county tax dollars. With the revenue tax source no longer flowing, a clear paper trail had materialized exposing that county taxpayers had been paying and supplementing contracted police services for other jurisdictions. In several jurisdictions, county officials were quick to seize upon this misappropriation of county tax dollars and began to audit the existing police service contracts provided by county law enforcement. As was suspected, supplemental services being provided within the contracts were being funded by the county. As the financial budgeting debts continue to spiral upward, the contracting cities are now being accurately billed and forced to pay for their full police service costs. County tax dollars would no longer supplement these generous cost saving contracts. Consequently, the costs for contacted police services are now sharply increasing and being passed to the contracting municipality. To offset the sticker shock and maintain the current dollar cost, a current trend is to now reduce police resources in order to avoid a dollar increase to the municipality.
As overhead service costs begin to be passed back to the contracting cities, the once lucrative projected cost savings to that city are quickly disappearing. Cities are now coming to the realization that it may in fact be cheaper in the long run to fund their own police department rather than contracting out through a larger organization.
Week 5 Preview of Readings, Discussions, and Assignments
Readings
1. Read the following chapters in your text, Managing Organizational Change:
a. Chapter 10: Strategies for Communicating Change
b. Chapter 11: Skills for Communicating Change
2. Recommended Reading:
a. Grenny, J., Maxfield, D., & Shimberg, A. (2008).
How to have influence
. MIT Sloan Management Review, 50(1), 47-52. (Document ID: 1570723531).
Discussions
To participate in the following Discussion Forums, go to this week’s Discussion link in the left navigation:
1. Restructuring
Imagine that you are an employee of a large organization about to go through a restructuring. Discuss the following issues and respond to at least two of your classmates’ postings.
· What information would you like?
· From whom would you prefer to get this information? Why?
· In what format would you prefer to get it: individually, in a group, through an office memo or email, other?
· What would be the best source (media) for you to get this information – consider the range of media from low to high richness? What would be the worst way of getting this information? Why?
· As a manager of change, how might you use these insights in terms of forming a media communications strategy?
2. Toxic Handlers
Read Table 11.5 from your text about toxic handlers. Select one of the following discussion focuses (a, b, or c) depending on your own
experiences.
a. Have you ever been or observed a toxic handler? If so, compose your discussion around these questions:
· How did this emerge?
· How long did it last?
· What were your/their greatest challenges?
· How did you/they manage the burnout factor?
b. Have you ever been helped by a toxic handler? If so, compose your discussion around these questions:
· How did this emerge?
· How long did it last?
· How helpful were they?
· What was the end result?
c. Find an article about a toxic handler. Provide a complete APA citation of the article, then compose your discussion around these items:
· How did the need for a toxic handler emerge?
· How long did it last?
· Did it seem to work?
· What were the challenges?
· What was the end result?
Respond to at least two of your classmates’ postings. Compare and contrast your discussions. What common features emerge?
Assignments
To complete this assignment, go to this week’s Assignment link in the left navigation:
Tyco
Read the case study: Tyco from the end of chapter 11 in your text. Answer the following questions in a three page APA style paper; include outside sources to support your answers.
a. Describe how the turnaround team may have used Gerard and Teurfs’ transformation skills to overcome the frustration of employees.
b. Tyco used vignettes to communicate changes in ethical behavior. Write a vignette that could be used by Tyco to assist in overcoming the cultural change barriers that companies like Tyco faced. What international issues might need to be taken into account in writing these vignettes?
c. Using Ford and Ford’s four types of change conversations, describe how Tyco would go through the process of communicating change to its staff.
d. Imagine that you were CEO of Tyco when the former CEO was still on trial for fraud. You are trying to rebuild the company’s corporate reputation. Write a script for your address to the shareholders after 18 months in the position. Pay attention to the appropriate use of metaphors in your “change conversation” to this group.
e. What issues emerge in this case in terms of communicating change with the outside world?
