Application Assignment -Week 2 -Personal Example

The readings this week really made a connection with the organization design of my current employer and our road to change.  I work for Nevada HAND, Inc. (NHI), a nonprofit organization that essentially builds apartment complexes to house only low-income populations.  HAND, stands for Housing And Neighborhood Development.  

Organization Overview

Unlike most nonprofits we are fortunate to receive most our funding from local jurisdictions and investors through housing grants and tax credits.  For example, here is a quick overview of how one of our developments comes to live:

1.      Land for development gets donated by the City of Las Vegas (or other jurisdiction)

2.      NHI applies for grants from investors or local jurisdictions

3.      Once funding is received, HAND Construction , an entity affiliated with NHI, builds the apartment complex

4.      HAND Property Management, an entity affiliated with NHI, is in charge of leasing the property; property staff is also managed by this department

5.      Compliance Department - this group is in charge of ensuring residents of each property meet all federal income guidelines to qualify to live at an NHI property. This is how NHI is able to serve only low-income individuals

6.      Property opens to the public 

 

A MultiBusiness Organization

After reading the piece by Lorsch, A Note on Organizational Design, I identified NHI as a multibusiness organization.  We currently own and/or operate 38 affordable apartment complexes that house seniors and families.  I applied Figure E, on page 16, to illustrate the way I see our organizational design. Picture is below (I apologize for the small size; had some technical challenges with this)

 

The reason I picked this figure is because while we have a central corporate office, each apartment complex works a separate business unit.  We also share resource between properties, especially since there is a high turnover of property management and maintenance staff.  

Our challenge with Differentiation

As I explained in the Organization Overview, we have a system in place for the way we develop our projects.  This system has not seen a significant change throughout the years.  I believe this has allowed us to learn from our mistakes and really excel in the area of differentiation, with each department understanding the tasks it must follow.

“The negative side is that the greater the differentiation among units of an organization, the more difficult it becomes for members to communicate across unit boundaries.” (Lorsch, 1975)

This quote defines one of the main problems we are currently experiencing.  For example, recently a property manager hosted a game night for residents, but she opened the event to the public in order to generate leads for new residents.  The following day there was another game night planned by the Resident Services department at the same property.  Both events were held as scheduled and staff provided refreshments for attendees.  Resources and labor were doubled here due to the lack of communication between departments.   Both departments should have combined forces and held the event together in one night; “Working smarter” as Frederick Taylor pointed out in our readings last week.

Star Model & Built-to-Change

As the Star Model points out the foundation of each organization has a number of components that are interconnected.  At NHI the five dimensions of the Star Model have remained the same for many years.  Our Strategy is best described through our mission to serve low-income populations.  Our Structure is established with the Board and Corporate offices as the head business unit.  Our Processes have both vertical and horizontal flows depending on each department.  Our Rewards, give employees the same options for benefits, savings plans, and a set salary scale.  Finally our People, is the area where we have grown the most over the last 5 years.

As an organization we are experiencing a number of growing pains.  In 2010, our President and CEO engaged a consultant to help us change our communication strategies between departments.  Since then we have established committees to help us plan and be more efficient.  However, communication continues to be a challenge, as I described in the property manager example earlier. 

“Even the most advanced change models will stumble when they face organizational designs and management practices that are inherently anti-change.” (Worley & Lawler, 2006).

I would not describe NHI as anti-change but I think our management team needs to understand the need for change first, before they can help implement it in their individual departments.  Most of our employees are finding change to be a stressful process.  Our corporate office staff has been the most resistant to any change in the last two years.  This is due to the fact that many employees at corporate have been with the organization for more than 10 years and are used to working in a certain way.  As an organization we need to dig deeper into the basic components of our organizational design, before we experiment with more changes that may not improve our overall strategy.