Dubai Electricity and Water Authority: Consultation Essay

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) is a state-owned corporation, which was established in 1992 by Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid, the former president of Dubai. The corporation came into being following a merger between the Dubai Electricity Company and the Dubai Water Department, which before then provided electricity and clean water, respectively, to the citizens of the country. Both corporations had been established in 1959. Just like DEWA, the two companies were equally state-owned. However, their performance as independent corporations was not very desirable, a situation, which prompted the government of the day to merge them to facilitate centralized leadership. Today, the corporation is among the best performing business in Dubai. It has successfully managed to provide electricity and water to over 1 million customers situated in different parts of the country.

As it stands now, the company is one of the biggest public corporations in Dubai if its size, the number of people it employs, and the customers it serves are anything to go by. Currently, the company employs more than 9,000 employees who are committed to ensuring that its customers acquire the greatest value from the goods and services it offers. Besides, the company serves more than 6,000 customers from different parts of the country. To serve its clientele better, the company usually operates several subsidiaries in addition to its headquarters office. For example, the corporation operates the Emirates Central Cooling Systems Company as a subsidiary. This finding illustrates that the organization is big enough to cater for the needs of its concerned population.

One of the major strengths of DEWA centers on its talented and highly experienced employees. The company’s workforce is comprised of highly knowledgeable workers who can push the company ahead of its rivals. From the company’s website, it is evident that it recruits high-qualified staff people to ensure that the quality of its services is excellent. Besides, the company has a continuous training program for its workforce. The continuous training scheme ensures that workers remain updated concerning the emerging issues, hence making them more productive. In addition to the strong workforce, the company also prides itself on its financial might. Many of the assets it owns are financed through its profits and not from the debt capital. The company employs the customer-oriented services strategy to ensure that clients’ needs are adequately met. Under the mentioned strategy, customers’ demands are prioritized to ensure that no gaps are left when it comes to fulfilling the market requirements.

Communication in DEWA is at the heart of the organization. It involves communicating the organization’s goals to employees. Communication is an essential element of DEWA’s management. It aims at ensuring that everyone in the company is aware of its goals and the strategies in place to achieve them. Also, communication not only allows employees to air their grievances to the management but also facilitates prompt problem resolution. The existence of a sound communication system in the organization ensures that executives of the company make informed decisions regarding various issues affecting it, thus increasing the quality of the services offered.

However, although the company boasts of its strengths, it also has some weaknesses, which have caused it great problems in the past. Such problems can be diagnosed and/or addressed through the company’s organization development (OD) agenda. Among the problems that the firm has experienced in the past include:

• Employee diversity issues
• Resistance to change
• OD Diagnosis

Planning

Based on your request for advice by DEWA’s managers on how to deal with the identified issues using the organization development (OD) approach, we will visit the company to collect the relevant data concerning the problem. To collect enough data for analysis in the subsequent stages, I (as the contracted OD Consultant) will need about 30 days to gather the data concerning the problem of diversity and resistance to change. In the first 15 days, the consultant will gather relevant data using observations. In the next 15 days, the consultant will assemble data qualitatively using structured interviews, which are quick and easier to undertake (Kawabata & Gastaldo, 2015).

During the period under consideration, I plan to meet the CEO of the company in person. Next, I will meet functional managers from the human resource department to investigate the issue of employee diversity and resistance to change. The chief human resource manager will be interviewed at his office while the other 10 functional managers will be interviewed at their workplaces. Lastly, 10 junior employees will be interviewed to gain insight into the problem from the employees’ accounts.

One of the most important points that I will consider crucial when collecting the data is the need to obtain data from employees of different organizational levels (Carnall & Roebuck, 2015). If the information comes solely from the executives, there would be some elements of bias (Kalargyrou, Kalargyrou, Costen, & Costen, 2017). The other important aspect to consider during this phase centers on the interviewees’ privacy. Privacy of the data collected from the junior employees is paramount since they might face discrimination from the managers if they give negative information about the company. Lastly, I will consider the literature regarding the identified issues to ensure that I support the proposed courses of action with evidence.

Data Collection and Analysis

Findings from the Analysis

I, Oscar Byrum, the OD Consultant, had an initial meeting with the representatives of DEWA Corporation (the client company) between 15^th March and 30^th March 2017. Subsequently, my team and I also gathered considerable data through the structured interview process with various staff. We then analyzed this data in detail and examined it in the light of relevant OD theory. We have arrived at the following conclusions:

• The following are the areas that the company is strong in/is doing well, and must continue to keep doing, or try to do even better:
  • Employee Development and Training: DEWA has a continuous training program, which is designed to impart additional skills to employees. Carnall and Roebuck (2015) identify employees’ development and training as one of the key factors that lead to better performance. Training refers to the implementation of a continuous instruction program aimed at imparting the relevant job skills to the workforce. Employees who undergo training are often highly remunerated or even promoted to higher positions in the company. Issues such as better remuneration and promotions act as incentives to push employees to undergo such training sessions.
  • Hiring highly qualified staff: In the past, the company has not only recruited highly qualified individuals but has also strived to retain them. The company requires its employees to achieve the highest levels of education. The HR department recruits the employees of the firm based on merit. Any vacant position in the firm is publicly advertised in the local newspapers for the prospective candidates to apply. Under its corporate culture, all new employees are oriented into the firm to prepare them for their new tasks.
  • Reward Mechanism: In addition to training its employees, the company also pays its workforce high salaries to mitigate their absorption by rivals. This strategy helps the company to retain the best talents, which positively influence customer satisfaction. Employees’ reward mechanisms are designed in a way that they encourage employees to work industriously for the success of the company. The rewards not only come in the form of monetary benefits but also come as other paybacks such as promotions of the most industrious workers, retirement benefits for employees, medical insurance, and other non-monetary settlements. Fritzenschaft (2013) asserts that firms should pay their employees competitive salaries to guarantee the retention of the best talents.
  • Promotion from within DEWA should keep up with its promotion strategy, which involves promoting the best-performing workers. Fritzenschaft (2013) argues that managers and other top executives should be promoted from within the workforce, as opposed to outsourcing them. The promotion from within strategy in DEWA is facilitated by the existence of a continuous training program, which equips junior employees with the leadership skills necessary for their elevation to managerial roles.
• The following are the areas that need improvement to maintain the company’s current market position.
• Diversity management within the organization
• Change management

Action Planning and Decision on Interventions

We (my team and I) recommend the following OD interventions to help the company address the areas identified for improvement:

Conclusion

DEWA is a public company, which is headquartered in Dubai. The corporation provides water and electricity services to the citizens of Dubai. Ever since its establishment in 1992, it has strived to achieve customer satisfaction by employing highly qualified employees and offering continuous training to them. The company came into being because of a merger between the Dubai Electricity Company and the Dubai Water Department. Currently, the firm employs over 9,000 workers who serve customers from the firm’s offices, which are located in different parts of the country. In the past, the company has been lauded for its superior services, which have earned it a positive reputation. However, in the recent past, the company has experienced workforce diversity issues. It has also been having problems when implementing changes. Consequently, the company hired an OD consultant to help advise it on the strategies that it could employ to mitigate the highlighted challenges. Our investigations in the company revealed that indeed the company has experienced challenges in managing its workforce and that its employees have been reluctant to embrace changes. To remedy the problem of change management, we recommend the following courses of action: employee training and the adoption of continuous change, as opposed to radical changes. To contain the problem emanating from workforce diversity, the following courses of action are recommended: functional flexibility and the adoption of a strong code of ethics. The highlighted courses of action have been explored in detail in this paper.

References

Carnall, C., & Roebuck, C. (2015). Strategic leadership development: Building world class performance. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fritzenschaft, T. (2013). Critical success factors of change management: An empirical research in German small and medium-sized enterprises. Berlin, Germany: Springer Science & Business Media.

Gidwani, B. (2012). Talent management: A psychological approach and core business issue to inculcate diversity management. International Journal of Management Research and Reviews, 2(12), 2061-2068.

Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kalargyrou, V., Kalargyrou, V., Costen, W., & Costen, W. (2017). Diversity management research in hospitality and tourism: Past, present and future. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(1), 68-114.

Kawabata, M., & Gastaldo, D. (2015). The less said, the better interpreting silence in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 14(4), 18-54.

Lančarič, D., Chebeň, J., & Savov, R. (2015). Factors influencing the implementation of diversity management in business organizations in a transition economy. The case of Slovakia. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 28(1), 1162-1184.

Obidallah, W. (2017). Business process and service change management in service oriented virtual organizations. Web.

Velasco, R., Villar, R., Lunar, R., & Velasco, V. (2016). Diversity in the workplace: Evidences from gulf college, Oman. Journal of Asian Business Strategy, 6(4), 73-84.