Al Mafraq Juvenile Welfare Centre (JWC) is a social and educational institution that providing rehabilitation care for juveniles who assigned there by the law. The center focuses on assessing, evaluating, and adjusting their behavior. The center is taking into consideration the causes of their delinquency, to provide them with adequate behavior training to reinstate them again in society. We choose this organization as a case study because it is a very important government organization in the society, the personality of the managers has big influences on the employee and the reputation of the center.
The center considered one of the modern correctional institutions in terms of style of buildings and institutional care and equipment and provided all the services and programs for the juvenile. The goal of the center is to diagnosis the status of the juvenile and draw a plan to deal with him during the period he was the center. We choose this organization first because we volunteer there, so we knew many things about it and second because it is an interesting organization to know. In addition, we fascinated with how all sectors work together collaboratively to make the organization successful and to its goal, which is to protect the juveniles, and directed them to benefit the community.
Also, the juveniles center has several partners, including government agencies such as the Ministry of social affairs, Abu Dhabi Education Council, Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, Health Authority in Abu Dhabi, and General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments. Also, civil institutions as a community to work together to improve juveniles life such as General Women’s Union, family development foundation, the National Rehabilitation Center, and Zayed Higher Foundation. The main goal of the organization is to provide social, psychological and educational care and education profession and that fit the needs of children with the juvenile “physical and mental” which helps the formation of their personalities and develop their talents, and their preparations to be still useful members of society.
The history of Al Mafraq JWC opened in 1995 for delinquent juveniles. As mentioned in the Gulf News, “It hosts around 172 juveniles, distributed into four buildings, with a total number of 43 rooms in each. The center also has a department for minor females to develop their behavior and implement several educational, psychological, and health programs”. ( Gulf News,2014)
A vision of the juvenile center is to be a specialized developer center for developing positive juveniles’ values and behaviors. In addition to that, the mission for this organization is to encourage juvenile values and moral values to ensure that their behaviors mended. In addition, implement certain actions to achieve good behaviors required in all criminal cases. Provide programs to support the families for their positive participation in developing their children’s behavior. Finally, the values of this center are the following, first, preserving the confidentiality of any information and data they provide or about them. Second, respect them and give them feelings of self-worth. Third, deal with them in the level of justice and equality regardless of their nationality, race, or severity of their cases. Fourth, Provide time for effective communication with the juvenile family. Fifth, be honesty and clearness to know their rights.
The organizational structure is the Contain of juveniles affair branch that carries out protect and welfare activities, ensure safety, supervise their transportation, solve internal problems, and submit a report to centers director. Secondly, juveniles archive branches for their data and documented them. Follow up the length of stay, and review the cards and file before discharging. Also, prepare lists and reports and submit them to the Centers Director. Third, juvenile examination Branch that focuses on examining juveniles’ health condition and follow up. Forth, the support services coordination branch provides the center needs from human resources, supplies, funding, and services and estimate a budget for all the above. Moreover, it supervises facilities to inspect the level of performance and address any deficiencies.
This organizational do care much to rise culture issue between the juveniles either citizen or resident and who works there should be aware of these things. The center providing any idea that supports juvenile thought that match with the society religion, language, tradition all these through set some programs and activities related to
About the management-employee relations, I had interviewed one of the psychologists there. She said that “as an employee and as I’m working in the juvenile department, I have a direct supervisor who is from the police department. In the center, when I have any problem or any concern, I need to speak through channels of ranks. The first one is my direct supervisor, who is “Lieutenant” then “Major” then “Lieutenant-Colonel,” and finally, the highest rank is “Colonel.” We have to respect every step, but so far, I am so satisfied because we work as one team and as one family, at least in my department juvenile boy sections.
The organization fulfills its corporate social responsibility by giving it is employee some time meeting together in the ceremony way, and whenever anyone has a promotion, it allows them to make a party for thirty mints at the end of the day.
The message does the organization convey through their logos, was the reputation for excellence and best practices in juvenile welfare by having cooperating between Abu Dhabi juvenile center and University of Salford by bovid training for all staff there to raise juvenile welfare and rehabilitation capability to one of best practices and mentor the development of policies and procedures. And all newspaper and UAE TV channels spoke about it.
There I a hero in this organization, Lieutenant General HH Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, who does care about children right and providing good services to rehabilitate them to go back to the society as good people. I think the leadership style is transformational since he promotes change. The society places a great responsibility on the leaders of such organizations as Al Mafraq Centre, for they promote the public good and increase civic participation. The leaders of the center consider that their primary tasks are to establish the right direction, maintain the unity of the employees, and keep their commitment on a high level with the consideration of the specificities of their organization.
The leaders use strategic human resource management, in the frame of which they effectively motivate both volunteer and non-volunteer staff, establishing distinguished reward systems for them and assigning different tasks. The leaders of the center strive to increase the value of the work of their subordinates. They employ technologies to facilitate the work of the staff and make it less routine and more meaningful.
The leaders also effectively collaborate with their team and allow it to participate in strategic planning and making important decisions. They also maintain a high level of activity. The leaders of Al Mafraq Centre understand that it is the personal passion of the employees that keeps the organization working, and they do their best to preserve that passion. Additionally, the leaders communicate with profit and non-profit organizations, seeking support and new volunteers for the center. Social webs are also used for spreading information about the center and seeking support.
The organization’s personality
The staff of Al Mafraq Juvenile Welfare Centre is professional, and it is clinically trained to increase the welfare and rehabilitation capability of the juveniles, who reside in the center. The employees are friendly, passionate, and considerate, as well as respect and understand the policies and procedures of the center. During the hiring process, the HR managers of Al Mafraq give their preference to outgoing, socially-oriented personalities with a high level of emotional intelligence and necessary skills.
All the employees are trained to be patient and considerate to their wards. The staff does their best to provide the juveniles with culturally competent care and engage them in identifying the best way to meet their needs. They teach young people to understand their rights and struggle with stereotypes and disapproval. The staff is focused on providing patients with high-quality services. The employees realize that they play a significant role in the process of rehabilitation of these young people, and they strive to make the experience less hard and painful for the juveniles, as well as reduce the stress.
What kind of people succeeds/fail in this organization?
Who can succeed in this organization as an employee has to have a variety of personality traits such the conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness? For example, the psychologist has to have all these traits in order to know how to deal with and absorb juvenile anger to reach their mission of juvenile rehabilitation. Also, she needs to build trust, and if she is not having a trait of agreeableness, how she could deal with the case to have a good bridge to provide good help. This all will depend on the type of personality the employee has to have, which plays a big role in the success of the organization.
There is fair enough in this organization in the representation of gender and women given the:
- The opportunity to excel and be empowered. There are many female social workers, psychologists, police, and managers. There is no differentiated in promoting or allowance or salary between male and female
- The organization’s expectations of its employee’s qualifications by hiring who have a Master’s degree, Bachelor’s degree or High school degree, and the priority for the locals. Seeking people with the certification of Dietitian, Social worker, Psychologist, School/teachers, Sports coach, Military coach, and Police officers
- The job descriptions in this organization have many roles such as,
- Accept the reality of the juvenile the way he/ she is not what he/she supposed to be.
- Provide help for the juveniles who need care and help to go on toward a better future.
- Provide the protection to juveniles such as, their physical and mental health also to protect them from different types of abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual abuse).
- Reinforcement and raise the competence of the stuff.
- Teamwork in all sectors in order to improve care and rehabilitation services to the juveniles.
- To keep the privacy of the information (confidentiality) and what have they saw.
The center accepts only specially trained staff. For instance, clinical staff and psychologists can be accepted only if they have the necessary qualifications to work with juvenile offenders. Police officers need to take a special training course before starting their work.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Al Mafraq Juvenile Welfare Centre considers maintaining corporate social responsibility its important task, which is required by the society to fulfill. It has adopted a comprehensive strategy of fulfilling its corporate social responsibility. According to the strategy, growth and advancement are balanced with the welfare of the employees, environment, and society. The center is human-oriented, and its actions are consistent with the task of development. The strategy requires the center to establish harmony in the interactions between the employees, as well as between them and their employer.
All legal operations performed by the center are based on credit and honesty. The center protects the rights of the juveniles and employees, respects the country’s laws, fulfills the contracts appropriately, and struggles against corruption. It also obeys moral and religious laws. Al Mafraq maintains continuous improvement of the quality of its services, adopts advanced development strategies and contemporary psychological methods, ensures the safety of the juveniles, and strives to facilitate management procedures. The center does not perform any actions that are harmful to the environment. It takes care of the proper liquidation of garbage. The center does best to increase the social awareness of the employees. Al Mafraq supports technical advancement and progress. The very reason for its existence is to promote the public good by helping the juveniles and benefit society.
Concepts
Throughout the time of its existence, the organization has developed the following important concepts. The center embraces democratic and transformational leadership, promoting change, agreeableness, openness to new experience, a strong sense of direction, and collaboration of a leader with the employees. The managers strive to improve the group dynamics among the employees. To do that, they try to learn more about their team, identify aggressors and blockers quickly, define the roles and responsibilities in a maximum clear way, use team-building exercises to tear down the barriers between the employees, encourage and promote group communication, and pay attention to the warning signs in the employee relationships. These measures not only serve to improve the group dynamic but are also good conflict-preventing and conflict-solving measures.
The center has adopted clan organizational culture as the most suitable type. Clan culture ensures proper collaboration between the leader and the employees, increases employee commitment and gives the staff stronger attachment to the organization. The organizational climate of Al Mafraq is people-oriented, which ensures the safety of the workplace. The organizational citizenship behavior of the employees is altruistic since they desire to help the patients. The decision-making process in the center is democratic, even when it comes to strategic decisions. The managers are responsible for securing responsible, friendly, and effective communication between the employees.
The Attitude to the Employees
The organization effectively manages its diverse workforce without any discrimination by race, gender, religious beliefs, or age. It is known for its streamlined, high-quality HR strategy. The experienced staff members are responsible for providing support for the new hires. The company has developed a sophisticated reward system for its employees. Each half a year, the managers compose a performance review for each worker and compare this review to the center’s standards. If an employee has failed to achieve the standards of satisfactory performance, the managers help them to improve. Good performance is classified as satisfactory, outstanding, or excellent.
If the performance is not only consistent with the standard but outstanding or excellent, the worker gets a reward. The reward is usually monetary and consists of a salary increase. Additionally, there are honor positions of workers of the month and worker of the year. Non-paid staff (volunteers) can receive the status of a volunteer of the month or year. The center has an employee assistance program. It helps the staff to overcome personal problems, which may affect their performance at work. The organization provides social referral services and short-term counseling for the employees and their families. In general, the center pays enough attention to the conduct, performance, and well-being of its employees.
Conclusion
Juveniles center but much effort nowadays to achieve its goals and make it effective. If I was the CEO of this organization, I would make a change for the employee to have designed room or releasing stress room for every one of my employee and has the right t to spend one hour there. How would you address the shortcomings of this organization – How will knowledge of organizational behavior benefit you as a CEO when you work on making this organization a top-rated organization? What would leadership style be best suited for this organization? Provide your recommendations from an organizational behavior perspective.
References
Sabry, S. (2014). Project to raise welfare of delinquent juveniles. Gulf News. Web.
Al Mafraq Juvenile Care Center introduces youth to Kafa’at Program (2013). ME NewsWire. Web.