INTRODUCTION:
Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council was established in 1973. The development is not very long but the Council inherits the social welfare teaching from Hong Kong Anglican Church that has been based on almost for 160 years, in which the Council learned to allocate the gained resources to render the social service to help the deprived groups lead a respectful life and explore more of their potential. Also, the Council promotes the support and caring spirit among the members of the society including commercial organizations, groups and schools, individuals and volunteers, joining hands to build a caring society. The Council provides diversified service to the society, and the service targets come from all ages and levels between infant from natal and elders of over 100 years old. Currently, there are over 200 service units of the Council distributed over the Hong Kong and Macau which form a comprehensive service network.
History:
Responding more effectively to the societal needs, the Church officially set up the Council in 1973 worked as a welfare arm of the Church, being responsible for co-ordination, development and provision of different social services. The Council succeeded from the Church which played the prophet role in the society and started providing suitable services, for example the youth service in the 70s, the child and elder services in the 80s, the integrated service and quality management in mid 90s. Also, the first innovated Tung Chung Integrated Services was pioneered by the Council. Meanwhile, the Council is the very first organization who implements the Total Quality Management in the social welfare sector. In late 90s, the new arrivals from the mainland and employment counselling service are the main work focus of the Council. The first New Immigrant Integrated Service Centre and the Youth Integrated Employment Service Centre were also established by the Council. Until the 21st Century, the Council also provides the elderly service to meet the pressing needs and develops the rehabilitation service to meet the society needs.
Vision and Mission:
“Individual Caring, Overall Concern” is the service pledge of the Council which encourages the co-workers to work hard and drives the Council to become one of the most pioneered social welfare organizations. It is aimed at enabling the Council to understand the needs of the deprived groups in advance so as to take the lead to co-operate with the members of each stratum and groups and provide the quality service for the needy. The Prayer of St. Francis is the motto of the co-workers, also the song of the Council. The co-workers do not only sing the song but also put it into practice.
Aims and Objectives:
It’s aim is to provide for mutual information, help and counsel between the organizations, schools and panishes. Initiate any new projects that may be necessary to meet new needs and opportunities. Assist individually and the agencies, to apply for government subvention, Community Chest allocations and other respective funding resources. Furthermore, recommend working guidelines, for all member agencies in accordance with the approval of the Executive Committee.
Clinical Services:
There were over 200 service units in Hong Kong and Macau, including member agencies and direct services units. The services nature are distributed as child care service, children and youth service (children and youth integrated service, school social work service), family and counseling service (marriage and counseling service), rehabilitation service (employment service), community service, wellness service, elderly service, training, and other services such as consultancy service and adult education.
Rehabilitation Service:
As I was arranged to visit the Rehabilitation Service in DAC Cum Hostel, it is a home-based training and support service by providing various services (training, hostel and community care service) for the mentally handicapped and other disabled person. The environment of the hostel is comfortable and the staffs are nice. Their work is meaningful, the rehabilitation service helps the needed person lead a life with dignity as develop their potentials and take part in the community affairs. The services include daily living care, life skills training, door to door household training activities, health care and body check, counseling service, occupational therapy service. The service also provides community supports network service for family and carers which include educational and social activities, volunteer network, hotline, nursery and short-term hostel service.
Organizational and Management Structures:
The structures of the Council is a Bureaucratic structures. The head of the Council is from the General Synod, then Welfare Council and Executive Committee. The Executive Committee is formed by many functional sub-committees. And then the Director, below the director, it is a divisional structure. The Regional Director (East kowloon, West kowloon, Hong Kong Islands, and New Territories), the Head Office, the Corporate Development Director, the Services Director, and the Member Agencies.
The Head Office includes three main departments which are very important for the Council, which are Financial Department, Human Resources and Administration Department, and the Development Department. And the Corporate Development Director support the Council to maintain high quality of services, this branch includes the Quality Management Director, Training and Development Director, the Chief Information Officer, the Service Coordinator, the Communications Department, the Corporate Legal Services Department. For the Regional Director, the Services Director, and the Member Agencies, it is the operational parts of the Council, to provide the clinical health care services for the public.
Models of Management:
The Council has been adopting the integrated approach to integrate the independent specialized service operations, so that integrated management approach is used to provide one-stop service for the service users. The Council adopts a macro view to integrate the quality management, the contents mainly divide into 3 parts: strategy, management system and result. Starting from making the strategies to carrying out the management system in which each of the system can be integrated to be a master system. When implementing the policies in the system as a whole, the quality documents become the main support. Also, the quality management is one of the important sections which encourages participation of the co-workers.
Traditional management functions are described as planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Strong management skills have been highly valued within health care organizations. However, more recently the demand for leadership skills has prominence. Transformation is an appealing notion in terms of bringing about innovation and change, from traditional management functions towards collaborative management. Social changes, technical updated, economic factor, political and environmental reason, in healthcare system generally, to consider the opportunity to shape the system itself. It is suggested that to building shared visions, creating positive working environments, fostering creativity and innovation, and transcending traditional perspectives (Daly, 2004).
The Council started from 2003 also setting up a crisis group to manage the sudden crisis. They have 2 kinds of crisis management: central crisis management, and self-suicide and infectious control management. On the other hands, the Council promotes staff’s awareness of occupational health and safety. The injury rate was greatly reduced and with an encouragement result.
Management change and Quality Systems:
The Council provides diversified social service and also values the service quality. Since 1980s, the Council has gradually set up the quality service culture. In 1996, the Council was pleased to join a programme called “quality journey”, and carried out the total quality management and kept improving persistently.
During the process of re-organising the management structure, the Council received the subsidy from Hong Kong Social Welfare Department “Business Improvement Project”. Therefore, the Council started to restructure in 4 aspects: service operations, human resources, financial resource and content flow. Setting up the Regional office to coordinate community based service planning and implementation, in order to provide higher quality social service.
The Quality Department lead by an experienced director who implemented the quality management, dedicated to enhance the service quality of each service unit as well as to provide professional consultancy service for the field. The Department also successfully helps the unit get accredited and won various awards.
In order to uphold the principle of being valuable, the effectiveness of the service is required to be measured. Having measured, the service would be allocated the resources according to their performance. To measure performance, the general practice is to choose some recognized indicators. The Council started from 2001 implemented the measurable indicators which further reveal the efficiency of the quality management. To further carry out the quality management plan, the team provides tailor made quality management training and consultancy service for China, Macau and Hong Kong. They include ISO9001:2000, Environmental management, Occupational safety quality management etc. which all contribute to experience the efficiency of the total quality management.
Human Resource Management:
There is a Human Resources and Administration Department under the Head Office in the Council. And the Department mainly responsible for the recruitment of the staff, providing its members with payroll and benefits, and administrating their work-life needs.
By responding and developing the harmonious culture between employers and employees, the Council joined the “The Employer of The Year Award 2004”. The judging panel of the organizer based on nine distinct employer elements and randomly chose over 100 staff members from the Council for the final selection. Love and care are what the council have been sustaining, and won the recognition from the judging panel in the selection process.
The Council conducted the staff satisfaction survey in January 2005, total 1384 questionnaires have been issued to staff with a return rate of 86%. The questionnaire included six domains, namely planning and communication, role of staff, agency culture, agency operation, supervisory relationship and training. The overall satisfaction rate is 72.4%.
Financial Management:
There is a Financial Department under the Head Office in the Council. The department mainly is to manage the financial affairs, particularly the differences between income and expenditure.
According to the Financial Report of 2004/2005, the incomes of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council are mainly from the Social Welfare Department Subvention (70%). And others incomes are from Lotteries Fund, Jockey Club, Community Chest, and Fee Assistance. The total incomes are HK$ 459, 813, 498 for the whole year.
And the expenditures are distributed all to the clinical services (child care service, children and youth service, family and counseling service, rehabilitation service, community service, wellness service, elderly service, training, and other services). The total expenditures are HK$ 446,361,766 for the whole year.
Discussion and Comments:
Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council was established in 1973. And over the thirty years, the organization pace and related to the organization performance, led to an emphasis on building the adaptive capacity of people, structures, processes and organization strategy.
Change is a natural and continuous process according to the open systems theory. Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council is process a transformational change. During the process of re-organising the management structure, the Council started to restructure in 4 aspects: service operations, human resources, financial resource and content flow. Setting up the Regional office to coordinate community based service planning and implementation, in order to provide higher quality social service. According to Lloyd, Johnstone & Dwyer (2002), the organizational development approach emphasis democratic and humanist values, participative processes, a spirit of inquiry and a focus on personal and organizational growth. It relies on a climate of trust, openness, and commitment to the organization’s mission and values. Organizational development methods revolve around participative and democratic decision-making, education of organizational members and a focus on the primacy of organization goals. Organizational development methods have been criticized for having too strong a focus on structural redesign, and for the amount of time required to effect change in this participatory style.
For the organization environment, as it developing the harmonious culture, the staff satisfaction survey can show that most of the staffs have job satisfaction. According to Mickan and Boyce (2002), human resource theory adopts a closed system perspective on empowering individuals to be responsible for maintaining and improving their work. This theory highlights the way in which individuals can contribute their full creative potential towards an organization, with the appropriate and supportive structures and management processes. Health care organizations can empower and motivate individuals to provide quality patient care, through supporting continuing personal development. Performance management systems are used to motivate and manage employees. Managers often emphasis the importance of developing interpersonal communication and collaboration skills to maximize individual’s motivation and contributions. Given sufficient training and autonomy, employees can identify and solve their own problems. So to achieve continues quality improvement.
Conclusion:
Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council was one of the most prominent social welfare organizations, also being the one which provides with the most comprehensive social welfare services organization under the Anglican Communion. The vision of the Council is “Individual Caring, Overall Concern”. The Prayer of St. Francis is the motto of the co-workers. Currently, there are over 200 service units of the Council distributed over the Hong Kong and Macau. The incomes of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council are mainly from the Social Welfare Department Subvention. And the expenditures are distributed all to the clinical services. In 1996, the Council was pleased to join the programme called “quality journey”, and carried out the total quality management and kept improving persistently. The Council started to restructure in 4 aspects: service operations, human resources, financial resource and content flow. Setting up the Regional office to coordinate community based service planning and implementation, in order to provide higher quality social service. The Council process the transformational change, and it make real difference. Afterward, Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council won various awards. As leading change requires vision, courage, creativity, effective communication and a clear plan. The Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council as a health care organization in Hong Kong is very successful.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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