Psychology

This essay covers the organizational diagnosis of St. John Ambulance using the organizational level model of diagnosis where by the organizations general environment, strategies, leadership, cultures, effectiveness, productivity and stakeholders satisfaction have been considered.  It also shows recommendations to the stated findings on how the leaders of the organization should consider taking to ensure better performance of the organization. St. John Ambulance is one of the largest and leading organizations that offers first aid training and provides first aid services.   It has a membership of over forty thousand which consist of adults, youths and children who are seen on daily basis in their uniforms helping the public throughout the country.  The organization trains more than five hundred thousand people per annum on health and safety as well as first aid.  It also offers treatment and care services to over one hundred and twenty thousand patients on a yearly basis.

It is very professional and objective for any organization to have a mission, a vision and core values since they form basis on which the organization will carry out its activities. The mission of the St. John Ambulance is to offer charitable, efficient and effective first aid services to the local communities to offer training and products that will satisfy health and safety as well as first aid need and to encourage people in all ages to develop their personalities via training and by being members of the organization.   Their vision is to ensure that every body who may be in need of first aid receives it from people around them hence no person should suffer due to lack of well trained first aid providers.  The people of the organization ensure that they give care to people who are in need, they value and welcome the people who provide their time and talents to serve others, they work in, with and for the community, they put other peoples needs first, they promise and deliver, they show commitment to people around them via their various skills, they encourage and they respect any trust placed on them.

St. John Ambulance uses the contingency theory of leadership.  This is due to the different and diverse situations, tasks, people, organizations as well as other variables of the environment that they come across in their day to day charitable and business activities.  They have to deal with corporate governance, people management and children protection, training for first aid, clinical governance and covering public events.  For instance, there is a Chief Commander who has the duty of ensuring that all the policies of the health and safety environment are made. The Chief Commander then delegates assignments to County Commanders who administer procedure and policies in their counties. It is notable that all employees and volunteers are given equal opportunities to carry out their duties.  In some circumstances one is expected to be their own leader by endeavoring to behave in the right way without supervision. For instance, in maintenance of a healthy environment both globally and locally everyone should be committed to reduce wastage and pollution.  The theory is appropriate for the organization since leaders either directs, supports, coaches or delegates depending on the situation in which they need a task to be carried out (Bolden et al, 2003).

Generally, the organizations employees and volunteers have a responsive and fast moving culture that has enabled them to deliver the services needed by the public.  The driving force towards the best performance of their duties is the aim of helping humanity by ensuring safety and health. The organization is divided into various functions where by each employee and volunteer is placed in a particular function and given a particular role to play.   This is one of the reasons why the organization has increased productivity. Moreover, most tasks are done by a team of individuals who have various skills in carrying out duties.  This gives the employees as well as the volunteers, motivation since they have an empowerment of making decisions within the team and at the same time they feel valued since they are given tasks to successfully finish.   For instance the Community First Responders is a unit of individuals who are given the responsibility of ensuring emergency patients are taken care of before the ambulance services are provided.

For years, St. John Ambulance has strived for efficiency so as to earn effectiveness.    There has been a lot of progress made toward achievement of the set goals.  The organization has strived to train their workers all over the world which has enhanced accomplishment of most of the tasks in the least amount of effort and time.  Moreover, the organization has been able to support all its charitable activities by using their hard earned resource without seeking assistance or going bankrupt.  The organization has also been able to achieve the goal of forming local branches all over the world. These branches have taken the initiative of arranging events and campaigns to uphold health issues to all humanity as well as offering all services provided by the mother company.  Further, the organization is never discriminative it embraces and welcomes anyone who wishes to work with them regardless of their age, gender, race and nationality.  It also allows the physically challenged to participated in their activities since they accept everyones talents and time offered to serve.  With all these efforts and determination the St. John Ambulance has been able to save and change many lives regardless of the challenges that come their way.

Although, the organization has been able to achieve most of the aims set, there are areas that the organization would check on so as to make more impact in the lives of people.  For instance the management should consider reducing the amount they charge to offers training to individuals and also give organizations discounts so that they can be able to sponsor more of their employees to attend the training programs.  This would ensure that all the people in the communities have the skills to deal with first aid cases.  The organization should also consider establishing institution of higher learning, where they can offer medical courses at more affordable costs.  They could also consider sponsoring bright  and less fortunate students to those institutions and then give them jobs and allow them to volunteer to work anywhere in the organizations medical centers and hospitals in the world.  Finally, the organization management should consider encouraging organization to hire trainers from St. John Ambulance to ensure that incase of any emergency there is someone who can deal with them well.  This will enable death reduction and uphold the virtue of disaster preparedness.

Attending the organizational development course sessions enabled me to acquire knowledge on many issues that ordinary managers overlook when dealing with their human resources.  Firstly, I learnt that any organization needs organization development which involves planning and applying all efforts possible to ensure increased viability and effectiveness.  Secondly, an organization cannot undertake it operations without communication, which entails transferring of information from one person to another using the right form and mode of communicating.  Lastly, an organization requires OPD which involves getting to know the process areas as well as the capabilities and maturity of the employees to carryout their duties effectively.  From the course I also came across areas that caught my interest and attention hence making me want to learn more about them. They include organization culture, leadership strategies and future trends.