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Prevention became the official agency for at-risk youth in North Carolina. DEJA manages all criminal and delinquency problems in the entire state which covers all 100 counties in North Carolina. The department is made up of several different areas; however, this proposal will focus on the counseling industry. Providing Quality Counseling and records management is the main service that’s provided. The department has a new Quality Management process that’s conducted once a year on the district and done quarterly on employees specifically. These processes consist of a team of managers and mom lower level employees reviewing case load files.
This is done to manage organization and services recommended per the judges’ recommendations. The problem area will not focus on the entire department but involve the main district which is known as District 10. This district’s located in one of the largest cities in North Carolina, Raleigh. This is also where the central office for DDCD is located and where the sources of the problems seem to reside. This districts been ridiculed for several issues over the pastier. The issues range from not providing quality service to families, professional environment ND maintaining departmental standards.
If quality management was to improve in this department productivity would increase in a dramatic way. Some gains that would be noticed would be a higher moral with the staff. Also, the department would be somewhat protected from being sued for not providing a quality service. Since the industry is directly related to court mandated counseling it can be difficult to get a tremendous amount of customer satisfaction, but some people who aren’t disgruntled will offer feedback. Morale is at an all time low and the turnover rate is steady rising due to inner office turmoil.
Problem Statement Recently the 10th District office of the Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention came under fire for not providing quality service, professionalism and maintaining departmental standards. A recent quality control report shows that this specific district does have issues, however the report is inadequate to other issues specific to this district. As long as this information is ignored the department will continue to lack quality services and not meet the department’s standards. The 10th District is comprised of quality employees that can learn to enhance work skills when measured on n equal platform.
The final outcome will hopefully represent “Leading Building and Sustaining Performance and Excellence”. Analysis The 10 District is plagued by a number Of issues that have a drastic effect on the departments moral and turnover rate. The department’s been scrutinized for not providing quality service to clients. The problem is that the service counselors provide is not directly related to the counselor per say. The counseling that’s provided is a culmination of other agencies that aren’t apart of our office. Many of the clients are court mandated to participate in unseeing from outside sources with-in the county network.
The department doesn’t provide ongoing training for the counselors. When employees are hired with the department two days of training are offered in the counseling area. Many of the employees went to this training year’s ago and it’s only offered once during the employment. Also, the training isn’t offered in an environment that’s conducive to remembering it easily because the information is literally forced on the employee. The employees understand that it’s safe to assume the only reason the training is offered is to cover the department in case of a law suit.
The department often forces employees to participate in one (1 ) hour policy trainings and then have everyone sign a log stating that he or she fully understands what the training was about. High caseloads are the next area for concern with-in the department. According to census. Gob Wake County is one of the most populated counties in North Carolina at 897,214. Durham County is located adjacent to Wake County and has a population of 267,593 people. According to the most recent county data books Durham had a total of 1 014, while Wake reported 3,399 delinquent juvenile complaints. (jussive. State. NC. ) The table below provides an example of how the counties are divided along with the number of complaints for the given year. This is just a few counties out of the total one hundred counties that are in North Carolina; COUNT” TOTAL NUMBER OF COMPLAINTS Alliance 608 Durham 1,014 Knuckleball 3,399 Wake 2,432 Rowan 648 Wayne 639 Knows 967 Scotland 348 A “juvenile complaint” is equivalent to the term “Criminal Charge” in the adult court system. The amount of complaints is important because the numbers signify the difference in the amount of juvenile offenders requiring counseling in the specific county.
The problem arises because DEJA has certain requirements in reference to how the cases are handled. These requirements are often based on a time line of when the counselor should have accomplished certain events during the longevity of the case. Due to the number of complaints being so large the counselors are overwhelmed with high case load numbers. My fellow counselors have learned to expect this as apart of the job however; the standards are the same for counselors in areas like Durham County.
The areas with low case loads can easily meet these requirements and the department isn’t taking this into account. In a recent review the counselors of Wake County were told “they are expected to maintain policy standards despite high case loads and changing conditions”. The final problem consists of maintaining a professional environment. Addressing this issue is embarrassing to say the least because my agency only hires college graduates. The problem with professionalism is not a problem directed at your everyday staff but the management team.
Its important that the management team is described for future knowledge. The 10 District offices have a hierarchy designed as follows; please see diagram below; ICC= J even ill Court Counselors The management team meets every week to discuss operation issues and make decisions regarding the office. The problem is that each of the three supervisors has employees that they try and confide in after the meeting is adjourned. This starts a trickle down effect because the so called confidential information is then passed all around the office.
We’ve had times when supervisors made negative comments about an employees work performance and every employee in the office knew about the comments but that employee. The DEJA central office has recently performed site reviews f our District and met with each employee to ask questions about management. In an article by Maureen Mortality called “Few managers handle workplace conflict effectively/’ she stated ‘When managed poorly, conflict can become unhealthy and may result in huge organizational cost-lost productivity, low morale and high turnover.
Many managers bounce between the extremes of avoidance (hoping it will magically go away) or taking action in extreme ways (punishment, anger blame, accusations or lashing out)”. Recommendations In looking at recommendations for the problem areas of the 10th District nonuser’s office several items must be considered. This office doesn’t deal with manufacturing or the creation of products; it operates as a service to the community-court system. Initially was under the assumption that, “Failure Mode Effects Analysis,” would be the most feasible initiative to utilize.
After researching and noticing “Failure modes and effects analysis (FAME) is a step- by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a design, a manufacturing or assembly process, or a product or service. Ideally, FAME begins during the earliest conceptual stages of design and continues wrought the life of the product or service”. (ass. Org) It’s apparent that the problems in the 1 10th District will require an initiative that can address several issues with-in the department.
Six Sigma appears to be the most effective initiative designed with the ability intervene and not necessary be used on the forefront of company design. Six Sigma was first introduced by DRP. Joseph Curran a leader in Japanese Quality. Saran’s ideas led to corporations adopting Six Sigma and other quality management strategies. “Six Sigma is a methodology that provides businesses with the tools to improve the capability of their business processes. This increase in performance and decrease in process variation leads to defect reduction and vast improvement in profits, employee morale and quality of product.
Six Sigma is a rigorous and a systematic methodology that utilizes information (management by facts) and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company’s operational performance, practices and systems by identifying and preventing ‘defects’ in manufacturing and service-related processes in order to anticipate and exceed expectations of all stakeholders to accomplish It’s understandable that Six Sigma Was originally thought to only work within the manufacturing environment for which it was created.
The methodology known as ‘transactional Six Sigma” is proving to be a useful tool in environments that focus more on people and less on product. (Kennedy, Smith) Six Sigma can deal with the problems for the 10th District by utilizing the DYNAMIC method. DYNAMIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. This methodology is always applied to processes which are already established but are “experiencing issues that cause delay, quality reduction, and a skewed pattern in cost/benefit analyses”. Assimilation. Rig) If the department utilizes this approach It will more than likely fulfill lack of quality issues mentioned in the problem statement. Think Six Sigma initiative can be catered to address the issues more effectively than any other management initiative. The DYNAMIC can be used in the following way; 1 . Define-figure out the defects of the 10th District 2. Measure-collect data to find out how often various defects occur 3. Analyze-after the data is collected determine who’s better at providing the service 4.
Improve-team will implement new ways based on retrieved data to implement new processes 5. Control-team teaches all employees the new standard for accomplishing the goals. The Six Sigma approach will give the Chief and management team the guidance they need to manage effectively. Recent turnover in the position of Chief and supervisors hasn’t left them any time for training. The management team could use some polishing in the daily operations of our company. If guidance is offered then many of the issues can greatly improve. Measuring the initiative within the organization is going to be crucial.
The objective of the Six Sigma methodology is to implement a measurement- eased approach that focuses on improving processes and reducing process variation through Six Sigma projects. In order to track the measuring processes of the 10th District counselor’s office process maps will be used. Analysis of the processes which the maps represent can help you increase service satisfaction by identifying actions to reduce process cycle time, decrease defects, reduce costs, establish customer-driven process performance measures reduce non-value-added steps, and increase production.
Also it will be necessary to put benchmarks in place to track the project at various levels. Benchmarking also makes the team aware of any changes that need to be made before the initiative gets off track. “Benchmarks help to communicate what is possible to internal team- members who may not have an external focus”. (mortared. Com) Reflection This assignment allowed me to look at quality from a different perspective. Initially I only thought about the finished product, but now I’m more knowledgeable regarding the service industries approach to quality. Mound myself being very intrigued by the effects of quality in reference to the global economy from the early years during World War II with DRP. Joseph Curran and W. Edwards Deeming. Curran, “revolutionized the Japanese philosophy on quality management and in no small way worked to help shape their economy into the industrial leader it is today. DRP. Curran was the first to incorporate the human aspect of quality management which is referred to as Total Quality Management”. (summary. Com) W. Edward Deeming provided a new comprehensive theory for managing organizations and human enterprises. Deeming believed that a system must have an aim and that for an organization to be managed effectively, the aim must be clear to everyone”. (Landlubbers,Phil) This assignment expanded my views on noticing flaws in quality early in the process. As well as looking at the effects of quality in respect to revenue and service’s delivered. I’ve come to understand that processes do exist to help organizations in trouble with quality and other areas also. Six Sigma stressed a very important area that I feel my organization lacks which is training.
I think training can save an organization from loosing valuable time, resources and money in the long run. Training also empowers employees to invest in the company because they feel that the company has invested in them. In elation to my career I’ve learned to seek the reasons why certain things exist and instead of complaining about them try and offer suggestions to solve the problem. I wish that my management team could have taken this class so they could have been exposed to this information.