Re-administration and management analysis
1. Introduction
The progress of organizations depends, increasingly, on the people who make them up. In a changing and competitive environment, adaptability and taking advantage of the best opportunities by companies and institutions, the rationalization of their activities and the increase in their productivity derive from the capacity of their employees and their cooperative action.
Against this background, a new conception of people management is consolidated that values creativity, innovation and flexibility; teamwork, the quality of customer service, self-assessment and its consequent continuous improvement; permanent training and a taste for a job well done, from the conviction that all this will result in the quality of the product or service provided by the organization.
To achieve the implication of the people that a quality organization requires, it is necessary to trust the staff, give them a broad degree of autonomy in relation to the activities they carry out, incorporate their contributions to the improvement processes, publicly recognize them and promote their development. professional and personal. This idea is the one that bases the realization of this work, to know what a re-administration process implies in an organization and the management analysis, and the bases on which both processes are oriented.
During the conduct of this research, there were several limitations, the main one was the little information available on the subject, as well as the limited availability of bibliographic texts that contemplated in their content the object of our research. On the other hand, there is information taken from reliable sources that ensure the veracity of the information contained therein.
2. Conception of the Readministration
Geraldo Caravantes and Westley Bjur, who with extensive knowledge acquired through their studies and with the practice obtained through consulting to companies of various kinds, deploy a broad conceptual framework on which an analytical study of organizations can be based, taking into account traditional management issues and issues of such importance to today's cutting edge managers, such as ethics and ecology.
The Readministration, so called by its authors (Wesley E. BJUR and Geraldo R. CARAVANTES, of the University of Southern California and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, respectively: «The readministration in action: the execution of changes oriented to success ”), not only presents the students of organizations with a rich, comprehensive and updated theoretical construction, but also proposes a method to put the concepts issued into practice, in such a way that an improvement in the organization can be achieved studied.
Bjur and Caravantes have proposed the concept of re-administration:
The Re-administration or Renewal Administration, as it is often called, supposes, among other aspects, evolution against revolution in organizational structures and the participation of the members of the organization, based on a new administration model.
Its authors differentiate it from:
Reengineering: since reengineering is an organization's survival response. Its frequent result is the dismissal of employees, which leads to loss of knowledge. The approach assumes the creation of new organizational structures from the destruction of old ones, in order to achieve dramatic improvements in the performance of the organization. Contrary to re-administration, which raises the active participation of employees in the change process. Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in performance measures that are critical and contemporary, such as cost, quality, service and speed, optimizing workflows and productivity of an organization.
It is an approach to planning and controlling change. It is a total process of readjustment of organizations in new and demanding conditions in an environment that is increasingly difficult to control, that is, it is one of the ways in which change can be operationalized. If repositioning has been determined in advance, reengineering will have its set of goals and environment ready.
Reinvention: since it is based on the concept of competition versus monopoly rather than on the public / private distinction. Its authors (Osborne and Gaebler) defend that the outsourcing of public services opens the door to competition, thus promoting the improvement of their conditions, in terms of cost and quality. Rather, it is about new cost planning.
Faced with the previous approaches, re-administration considers the following aspects as critical elements of good administration:
1. The need to understand the context, cultural, political and legal environments.
2. The importance of a clear mission and objectives.
3. Considerations regarding human resources and their development.
4. Obtaining socially relevant results.
3. How to move towards a renewing Administration?
The re-administration approach, frames an analytical study of the studied organization, taking into account mainly its administrative aspects, to create a new organization, in this way it works in an integrated way on all fronts, emphasizing the most fundamental, which it is staff and personnel management. An organization can never be better than the people who compose it. You can change the organization globally, but if you don't change the way people think and behave, you won't get qualitatively different results.
If you really want to build a new Administration model, in terms of personnel, you must design and implement a set of policies. Here are some clues about where and how to move forward:
Decentralize personnel management
First, a sincere decentralization of personnel management would be necessary. Centralization is not a friend of innovation. If we want to encourage change in our organizations, we must give line managers opportunities to experiment. Each administration or body, depending on its particular characteristics, must find the optimal degree of decentralization and, taking into account its organizational parameters and culture, must decide how and to what extent it decentralizes. In any case, a common principle that can be useful to all organizations is that of subsidiarity. Applied to human resource management, it can be translated into: "personnel decisions to be made as close as possible to where you work and where problems arise." Therefore,Only what cannot be done with the same quality at a lower level should be centralized. But to do this exercise well, it must be done from scratch, that is, with all functions fully decentralized. From there, only when it is shown that a function can be performed better at a higher level is it when it should be managed from above.
Change the role of the Human Resources Department
This deconcentration cannot take place while maintaining the same structure and operation of the Personnel departments. The central Human Resources function must play a new role, which is key to the success of the process. The new responsibilities of the personnel department are to develop strategies, provide support and training to the line, and evaluate the results of the process.
If any function cannot be delegated, that is the strategy. But it cannot be delegated not because it is a personal responsibility. The real responsibility for the strategy can only lie with senior management, which, in any case, will be technically supported by the corresponding functional specialists. This is a fundamental task of human resources technicians: designing personnel policies that respond to the organization's strategy and projects, ensuring their viability.
For their part, line managers must be involved in personnel matters and must make specific decisions that affect their collaborators. However, they do not have to be experts in the field nor do they have to know the applicable techniques. Therein lies the new function of the central department: advising and providing services at the request of the finalist departments, clearly configuring itself as a staff function. In the framework of the organization's strategy, it is the line managers who make the decisions.
The role of Personnel is to provide managers, their "clients", the services they require to carry out their projects.
A final function, which does not exist today, is the evaluation of the results. In organizations with centralized personnel management, the day-to-day absorbs all the efforts of the Personnel department, which cannot "waste time" evaluating the consequences of personnel decisions. The last key task of the central department is to evaluate human resource management based on its consequences.
To do this, the Personnel manager should ask himself: Are our personnel policies improving the skills of employees? Are they able to attract, retain and develop professionals with the knowledge and skills that the organization needs? Are they increasing the commitment of employees? employees with their work and with the organization? Are they being adequate and timely for the situation? What costs, in a broad sense, are these policies generating?
To finish this reflection on the role of the Personnel Department in an Administration, on the other hand, it should be made clear that the role of the human resources function is not, in any way, marginal or secondary. If you allow me the apparent contradiction, in a decentralized model of personnel management, its role is central, alongside senior management, supporting it in the design of strategies and in the management of change. However, this role also requires new profiles of personnel managers who, to put it graphically, lose the power to press the buttons on the payroll computer and must exercise their power through influence and leadership, over the base of commitments and consensus.
Manage professionals as such
Public bodies are increasingly going to be professional organizations. Despite the trend towards outsourcing services, in areas under direct public management the weight of professionals - understood as employees with university studies - will be increasing.
A professional is "a person who has a complex and specialized set of knowledge, and who has broad autonomy and considerable control over the conditions of their work" (Mendoza, 1995). From this description of the person and the professional's task, it can easily be deduced that professionals are not going to adapt without resistance to the values and human resources management of bureaucratic administration. The growing weight of professionals thus constitutes an added argument to rethink current personnel management practices towards a model that treats employees as adults and as people.
Motivate people and achieve employee engagement
This new Administration needs committed and enthusiastic employees. Employees must then be motivated and control techniques substituted for the achievement of each employee's commitment to achieving the organization's objectives.
Work can and should produce, at the same time, employee satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. Many studies show that real, permanent motivation is not found in external stimuli, but in the content of the work itself. Responsibility, autonomy, creativity and the challenges that derive from the task, as well as the support and management style of the superior, recognition of the organization and interpersonal relationships are the elements that generate a feeling of satisfaction in each employee or dissatisfaction.
In this sense, the role of managers is key. The way they direct their collaborators, the expectations they transmit, the information they channel, the trust they generate, the participation they promote or the responsibility they delegate, have more impact on the employee-organization relationship than any human resources policy.. But this implies, on the one hand, listening to the opinions, wishes and needs of employees and, on the other, improving management styles, testing new work systems and building frameworks for dialogue and negotiation.
From there, the commitment of the employees develops, supported on the basis of mutual trust between management and workers. It seems logical that an organization that provides responsibilities to its employees, encourages them to contribute and helps them obtain satisfaction, taking care that their development and professional self-esteem easily generate attitudes of commitment to the organization.
Perhaps it is worth remembering here that the organization that seeks the commitment of its workers does not do so for altruistic reasons, but rather knows that a firm commitment will generate increases in quality and productivity and will save control costs.
Develop internal communication and participation
Complementing the above, betting on people requires investing in communication: improving transparency, distributing information at all levels and establishing new channels to guarantee dynamic information flows. It also implies equipping oneself with systems that guarantee adequate upward communication, that stimulates employee participation: practicing an open-door policy, generalizing consultations with employees regarding issues that affect them or creating mechanisms to encourage ideas and suggestions.
Bet on staff training and development
Any organization, whether it wants it or not, influences the development of its members, facilitating or hindering their personal and professional growth. Personnel management is going to be, more and more, a management of competencies. The goal to achieve is to acquire and develop the skills that the organization needs. That is why the administrations must today bet on learning. That means investing heavily in employee training and creating an environment conducive to learning. It is to give training to employees, and also support for the implementation of new knowledge.
But, in addition, we have to turn organizations into learning spaces. We must break the dichotomy school equals learning and business equals work. Training should be brought closer to the job, normalizing it, making it something everyday and not something specific that takes place in exceptional moments. For this, it will be necessary to experiment, convincing managers that with their example they can be the best trainers, creating tutor figures to guide new professionals, carrying out coaching sessions or personalized advice, distributing written or telematic materials for the self-training of workers or generating work groups among employees who share common problems.
Training must be integrated and be the privileged support of the human resources management strategy. Administrations must provide themselves with a true Training Plan that responds to their needs and support their projects. The ultimate objective of the training actions will then be to improve productivity and organizational development. This must be carried out under the leadership of senior management and the commitment and leadership of line managers. With this, training will no longer be seen as something external to the organization, as an escape from the environment, and will come to be understood as a message and support from the organization, aimed at developing the knowledge and skills that the organization needs and transmitting values. that make up your corporate culture. It will be, in short, a formation for change.
Evaluate employee performance
Human resource management is a leadership function. It is therefore the managers who must assume responsibilities and leadership in decisions regarding employees. This statement is true on a theoretical level, but it can only truly be so when managers, on a regular basis, evaluate their collaborators and convey to them the recognition and criticism for the work carried out.
The usual vicious circle of the inhibition of those responsible for everything that affects their subordinates can only be broken with the introduction of adequate performance evaluation systems. Performance appraisal can be, and has been, introduced in public administrations. However, this is a tool that, due to its great strength, must be incorporated into management, and cannot be just a specific appendix without support in daily practice. An adequate performance evaluation system is supported by a Direction By Objectives, which allows individuals and teams to set goals on which they will be accountable periodically. This should be complemented by setting professional development goals for each individual and with a task of monitoring and personalized support from managers.The assessment should be something continuous, but it seems appropriate to look for a specific moment and form that gives it a certain symbolism, in the style of an annual review interview between boss and collaborator.
What should the results of the performance evaluation be translated into? In the first place, in feedback, that is, in recognition and in demanding responsibilities. In addition, the results of the evaluations should be a determining element in the professional career, both in the form of specific training, as well as the assignment of tasks and projects, as well as in the provision of jobs. Finally, it should be translated into variable remuneration in those organizations where the service provided allows it.
Integrate the professional career into an organizational framework
Another element that requires an in-depth reform is the administrative career. This should not be seen only as a "right" of the employee, but as an aspiration of every worker, which is also useful to the company, provided that it takes place within an organizational framework. This means that professional careers must be defined and managed within a human resources strategy and policy. The Administration cannot be a territory to be discovered by adventurers full of supposed merits and good contacts.
This is one of the most complex and difficult issues in personnel management. The definition of a new, more flexible career system that is important to the evaluation of performance and professional competences, requires improving the relationship between training and career and equipping ourselves with instruments for evaluating performance.
A final reflection on career matters is the need to build alternatives to the hierarchical career.
Especially for professionals, but also, for example, for informants or administrative staff, horizontal career plans must be defined that allow professional development and pay growth, without this forcing them to assume - or invent - hierarchical responsibilities.
Base remuneration on professional quality, effort and results
Compensation sends a key message to employees about the kinds of behaviors and attitudes that are welcomed by the organization. In this sense, the traditional egalitarianism of the bureaucratic Administration is deeply impoverishing, since it is seen by officials as the confirmation that the organization does not value in a special way the people who work best.
Although it is customary to give too much importance to remuneration as a justification for all personnel problems, the remuneration model used must be thoroughly reviewed. A new remuneration system could be based on a combination of the evaluation of the position according to traditional systems, but incorporating a component of remuneration for skills and experiences acquired. This component would allow, in the style of the teachers' six-year terms, a salary growth linked to the improvement of professional skills, which would encourage continuous training and versatility, without implying changes in the functions to be developed.
On the other hand, a variable component, related to individual or group performance, seems advisable. For senior management and for positions whose results are clearly individualizable, it would be linked to individual performance. On the other hand, in most positions in the Administration it might be more advisable to relate the variable salary with the results of the unit, which would reinforce cooperative behaviors and internal social control. Likewise, variable remuneration could incorporate a parameter linked to efficiency objectives and, specifically, to saving resources. This formula, based on gainsharing experiences, could encourage employees to use resources more efficiently.
4. Application of Readministration in a Company
Visited Company: «Farmacia Santa Rosa CA».
Location: Punta de Mata - Anzoátegui State
According to information supplied by one of the owners, Dr. Nubia Albino, the company started at a loss (not in the strict sense of the word), in mid-1998. Few customers and high drug prices were the determining factors of this situation. Management decided at the beginning of the year 2000 to apply a «Salvage Plan» after its study and analysis. This plan was devised by Management, and what suggests that it is directly related to re-administration, is the fact that it was carried out in part based on the opinions of the employees about what they considered to be working well and working poorly within the organization.. During the process, the staff was kept informed, and they also participated actively during its development. From this plan they have achieved:
- Contribute to the training and development of staff, since the pharmacy managers (Heads of Pharmacy of the two branches) participated in the Pharmacology Conference held in the State of Mérida in 2000, in addition the other pharmacy employees have attended pharmacology seminars given in Monagas State.
- Obtaining socially favorable results. One of the objectives set out in this plan was to improve the conditions of the work area, in this way it was decided to expand the premises (Pharmacies), this part has been allocated to medical services, which constitutes an innovation for these pharmacies, since who had always worked under the same administrative framework, in which they only contemplated laboratory activities for the formulation of drugs and the sale of them as well as other drugs in general. Now they offer specialized medicine services and have assigned a specific area to attend to emergencies. This change has not been in vain, the response of the clients is enough to summarize the acceptance they have had to the new changes.This was also influenced by the fact that an advertising strategy was designed and implemented (advertisements on radio, newspapers, and local magazines) to make the public aware of their drug offers and the new service they provide.
- Influence the work environment, now the employees feel more capable, which has positively influenced their efficiency, obtained recognition by customers towards the employees who work directly with them, they affirm that they have excellent service.
- Proper management of the stockholders' equity of the two branches (financial resources).
During and after the process, no employees were laid off, rather new jobs were created (upper and lower levels of command).
5. Management Analysis
The objective of this economic technique is to identify and weigh the factors that contribute negatively and positively to the achievement of the objectives of the company, becoming the basis for economic technical control, planning and decision-making. The information generated by this analysis is the most solid basis for the preparation of short and long-term plans that respond to the economic objectives of the employer. Likewise, it is the ideal tool to economically evaluate the impact of different technologies, at the level of an activity or in the entire company.
The best way to solve a problem is starting with the correct description of it, if the current business problems are the growth and profitability of the company, this technique will correctly describe its technical and economic components to improve its proper functioning or it will be the beginning of the solution of the problem.
The administrative management of a company is a dynamic process where past, present and future coexist. In this process, analysis of the past (management), forecasting and evaluation of future alternatives (planning) and the implementation of the plan in the present are actively combined.
The management analysis process can be summarized in a series of actions:
_ The collection of physical and economic data.
_ The allocation of expenses and income.
_ The homogenization of the calculation currency.
_ The calculation of results.
_ The analysis of results.
The objective of these rules is to standardize the criteria for ordering and imputation of data, its monetary expression and the calculation methodology. Highlighting its importance in the final objective of the analysis of results, taking the information provided by the management analysis on the best decisions about the use of the company's resources. This methodology allows improving the company's plan based on the conclusions emerging from the analysis and comparison of the expected results and those obtained in the year under review.
Generally, the entrepreneur begins by using management analysis as a tool to know the technical and economic result of an exercise, this allows him to evaluate the factors that intervened to achieve this result. With this system it is possible to compare the efficiency in the use of inputs, the dimensioning of the structure, evaluate the applied technology and its technical and economic results.
The results of the annual management also provide the possibility of analyzing the evolution of the company over time, allowing the incorporation of the necessary changes in the production system that better satisfy business objectives.
Through group comparison, within a common methodological framework, you can evaluate the situation of the physical and economic results of the activities carried out in the company with other companies. The work multiplies the information in the group discussion and comparison, greatly increasing the possibility of expanding the analysis, improving the quality of future provisions. These changes and the decisions to be made during the administrative process, when ordered methodologically, become the company's plan. The relationship between the plan and the control can be exemplified by the idea that a plan is the future "management" of the company and that the management analysis is the "plan" carried out. Where, evaluate the differences between what is planned (plan) and reality (control),It is the most important part of the management analysis.
The management analysis is an annual control tool, allowing to analyze the decisions made when preparing the plan for the year if they were correct or not, if the data used to characterize or size the activities were the most correct. The causes of the differences found between what is expected and what actually happened are highly variable, for example: wrong price or yield estimates, weather problems, etc. The most valuable thing about management is the real probability of evaluating differences within a framework of technical and economic analysis. This fact generates experience and information to make better decisions and generate better plans.
If its use is limited only to the analysis of your information from a historical point of view, unlike its use as a control element of a plan, its usefulness in the company is drastically limited. Starting with the management analysis in the company may be the beginning of making business management more efficient, but it is not the only tool to take into account to achieve better business management.
Planning must be incorporated into the company, as well as controls of greater periodicity than the annual management analysis, such as financial control, seasonal physical production controls, stocks, etc. The management of a company must use economic techniques that allow planning and controlling the objectives set for the proper development and operation of the company's activities.
6. Conclusion
According to Geraldo Carvantes and Westley Bjur, the re-administration (or as they also call it the renewal administration) are the changes that are made within the company that are planned towards success. Taking into account the organizational structure and also the participation of those who make up the company, based on a new administrative model describing their need to understand the context, cultural, political and legal environments, the importance of their mission and established objectives, development of human resources and their obtaining of results. To carry out a new model, the following steps are followed: decentralization of personnel management, change of the role of the human resources department, manage professionals as such, motivate people and achieve employee commitment,develop internal communication and participation, bet on staff training and development, evaluate employee performance, integrate professional careers into an organizational framework, base distribution on professional quality on effort and results.
Management analysis is another of the many methodologies that are used for the administrative process. It is defined as an economic technique that identifies and weighs the factors that influence the achievement of the objectives that are set by a company, building a model that is based on economic technical control, planning and decision-making. Where the realization of an analysis can be carried out through the following steps: compilation of physical and economic data, imputation of expenses and income, homogenization of the calculation currency, calculation and analysis of results.
Readministration and management analysis are two processes or techniques that are used in the performance of the administration, although they are directly related, they are different and are carried out by unequal methodologies. They differ in that re-administration is based on changes to seek success while management analysis identifies and discards the factors that negatively influence and takes into account the positive factors in order to achieve the proposed goals. They are similar in that both what they seek is efficiency in the organization, the proper functioning and performance of the activities of the company in order to carry out the functions for which the organization was created.
7. Bibliography
• De Abreu, Carlos Ricardo. "Readministration". Business Department. School of Economics. ULA.
• López Carmona, Francisco José. "The age of information".
• Bañón, Rafael and Carrillo Ernesto. «The new Public Administration» www.gvales / publications / magazine / rvea23 / mariano-6.html
• Anonymous. Management Analysis in agricultural companies.
