Public Strategic Management - Integrated Development Plan Assessment Answer

Subject Name : Project Management & IT

Public Strategic Management & Integrated Development Plan Assessment

Introduction
Strategic Plan for Covid-19
Policies, rules and procedures
Strategies used by organization to ensure employee safety 3
Integrated development plan (IDP)
External factors that impact expected outcomes
Working of Monitoring and Evaluation framework cycle
Conclusion

Introduction

The aim of the report is to carry out a public strategic management analysis. This report will develop a strategic plan that will include all the components of a strategic plan to ensure employee safety for the next three years from Covid-19 in the organization. It will explain why the local government should produce an Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and will discuss how different stakeholders can help the local municipality to introduce a strategic development plan. This report will also choose a strategic plan for any organization or program within the public sector and will use a tool to discuss the external factors that will impact on the expected outcomes of the plan. Apart from this, it will demonstrate the use of a monitoring and evaluation framework to clarify how the cycle works.

Strategic Plan for Covid-19

In this difficult time, it is the responsibility of every individual to take precautions and be careful about their health. The strategic plan will include forming policies and procedures along with rules that are needed to be following while working in the company. The strategic plan will also discuss strategies for organizations to keep their employees healthy and productive.

Policies, rules, and procedures

It is important for the employees of the organization to remain safe for the effective working of the organization. Policies and procedures that are discussed will be applicable to those who are physically working in the organization.

Regular checkup: Employees coming to the organisation will be regularly checked whether their temperature is normal or not (Fanelli and Piazza, 2020:4).

Kit: Providing kit for precaution to employees so that they can work efficiently in the organization. Every employee is recommended to use this kit. Employees will be not allowed to wear their home clothes, bracelets, jewelry, and other accessories (Bedford et al. 2020:2).

Installing a sanitizing machine and body checkup machine: Every employee has to go through these machines before entering the organization. Employee health will be on priority for which body checkup machine will be installed so that the information of their health can be monitored and recorded.

Social distancing: The tables and working area will be rebuild in order to keep a minimum of 3 feet distance between the employees. Cabins will be manufactured for every individual along will sanitized tools and equipment (Bedford et al. 2020:2).

Change in the shift: Employees will be working in two shifts where half of the employee in organization will work in the morning shift and another half in afternoon shift so to avoid gathering of a large number of peoples within the workplace (He, Lin, Tang, Yang, Wang and Yang, 2020:5).

Canteen: Employees will be requested to carry their own food and water for their better health. Facilities will be provided to those only who are staying away from the house.

Reduced Workload: Decrease in the working hour so that employees can manage their personal life effectively.

Strategies used by organization to ensure employee safety

The organizations are using various strategies to ensure that their employees remain safe and their productivity and profit is not affected due to this pandemic. The organization should make the employees work from home (He, Lin, Tang, Yang, Wang and Yang, 2020:6). Most of the employees in the organization do work related to the IT department. It may include client relationship officers, employees managing organization portal, or officer that maintains the employee’s record. This step of organization will result in an increase in the flexibility of the organization operations. The number of employee are reduced that were coming to the company physically to work. This step will have positive results which will ensure both employee safety and organization growth (He, Lin, Tang, Yang, Wang and Yang, 2020:6). The organization should invest in improving and expanding the infrastructure of the companies. The scale of public infrastructure should be increased so that the social distancing can be followed. It will require a huge amount of money and infrastructure planning. A plan should be made for geographical segmentation so that the employee can work from their locality or from their city itself. Providing facilities to employees in areas where they feel comfortable will increase their productivity and will also save the time of their travel to the organization for work (Fanelli and Piazza, 2020:3). Location and sites should be selected for better feasibility of employees. Moreover, the organization should invest in technologies and should focus on collaboration with other hospitals so that monthly checkups of employees can be conducted. It will reduce the chances of major risks that can cause huge damage to the organization. The chance of employment to the people should be provided who are living in the same geographical area. Or residencies should be made where only the people working in a particular organization can only stay. It will be in favor of the organization in any type of condition. Developing a robust communication system will help the organization during any crisis. It will result in better customer trust, retaining material stability, and restoring employee confidence and morale. The organization can use lots of platforms for this such as social media platforms. Through this platform, the organization can inform their employees about the false news that are spreading due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this platform, they can make sure that their employees are safe at their place and whether they require any help or not (Bedford et al. 2020:2).

Integrated development plan (IDP)

Local government is the sphere of government closest to the people. Many basic services are delivered by local municipalities and local ward councilors as the politicians are closest to communities. Developmental local government is a local government committed to working with citizens and groups within the community, to find sustainable ways to meet their social, economic, and material needs and improve the quality of their lives in order to better the community as a whole. It targets those members and groups within communities that are most often marginalized or excluded (Adonis, 2018:1). With the local government making use of integrated development planning as a means to address problems and issues within municipalities. This integration is formed by means of the decision-making process that follows an inclusive root of consideration for range. With the two integrated a range of issues are able to be addressed in terms of economic, environmental, poverty, and gender and socio-economic issues. With the local agenda 21, an agreement can be reached, as an opportunity to agree upon a long term of a quarter of a decade as to transpose a concern for the future. This will form a partnership and working relationship between the civil society and the municipality, this means that an outcome of a sustained environment will mean equity between generations. IDP helps to strengthen the way South Africa is governed which is in a democratic way and also institutional transformation, because decisions are made in a democratic and transparent manner, rather than by a few influential individuals (Ruwanza and Shackleton, 2016:12). A vehicle to facilitate communication In terms of local government, it provides a platform for interaction among all the role players such as public officials, councilors, citizens, the private sector, and other role-players involved. This improves and promotes a strong network, alliances, and partnership to truly see the vision of developmental local government. It also goes to the extent that it facilitates communication amongst the different spheres of government; by this, it enables intergovernmental coordination. A tool to alleviate poverty IDP must be able to address socio-economic issues in South Africa with regards to the 3rd sphere of government –municipalities/local government. The outputs of integrated development planning must reflect improved living conditions of the poor of the poorest communities, just like a policy that is intended for a course and result in the desired. Stakeholders can help the local municipality indirectly to produce a strategic development plan. They can organize various events, activities, and campaigns to address issues like poverty, unemployment, and socio-economic issues. They can help the local people by providing them a better life and environment to level through developing a strategic plan (Municipality, 2017:10). The stakeholders can help the local municipality in the implementation and preparation of the developed plan.

External factors that impact expected outcomes

The organization DSD (Department of Social Development) is selected within the public sector. DSD is a government organization in South Africa that is responsible for providing welfare service, protection, and social development services to the public. It provides its social assistance for the development of people living in South Africa. This department plans and executes those plans for the development of the country and its people (Gray, 2016:5). The tool used to discuss the external factors that will impact on the expected outcomes of the plan is PEST analysis.

Political factors: Due to the impact of unstable governments, these factors are disturbed. Many people in the government are honest and do their work with full sincerity. In the development process, the government plays an important role. Unfortunately, there are some corrupt officials in the government who cheats people and makes wealth and money for the people whom they represent. When politicians are corrupted, development in various sectors like roads, education, health, clean water, and power generation is impossible (Castaño-Leon et al. 2016:3).

Social factors: Development of various places in South Africa is also affected by many social factors. These factors include lack of social motivation drive, war, within large families, unproductive social functions, negative social culture like drinking and gambling, and poor education and training. Education plays a vital role and people in many countries are not able to send their children to school even at the basic level. In addition, water quality has also impacts on people’s lives (Karakhan, A. and Gambatese, 2018:7).

Economic factors: There are a number of economic factors that affect the outcome of the strategic plan of DSD. This factor includes, low income of the country, low amount of capital and fewer savings, poor investment in infrastructure, economic growth of the country is low, and lower investment from outside countries. Some of the development factors also impact the expected outcomes of the strategic plan which include low productivity of the workforce, high illiteracy rate, low human capital, low level of healthcare, and less attractiveness to investors (Castaño-Leon et al. 2016:3).

Environmental factors: Environment factors are the factors that no one can control. They are unpredictable and uncontrollable. These factors can extremely impact the outcome of the strategic plan. Some of the factors are climate-related diseases (such as malaria, Chagas diseases, and dengue fever), lack of natural resources (resulting in the low economic base for the country), climatic hazards, and many more. Another factor like being landlocked with bad neighbors also impacts this organization as it deals with the development of people and helps in boosting the economy of the country (Karakhan, A. and Gambatese, 2018:7).

Working of Monitoring and Evaluation framework cycle

There are various frameworks that are used for planning M&E. the basic chain in which the monitoring and evaluation framework follows consist of activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts.

Figure 1: Monitoring and Evaluation Framework

This framework links the planned activity which is being conducted or proposed to achieve the introduced objective or goal with the predetermined results in terms of impact, outcomes, and outputs. This framework is used to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the whole plan. The framework allows the expert to analyze and organize the information in a structured way. It gives clear and specific thinking about the objective of the plan and encourages it to do it. It the framework, the activities are listed at the bottom and impact at the top (Rios, 2017:11).

Activities: These are the main elements of the project which are carried out for its implementation. Activities are the vital part of a project which carrier it to the result or output. For example, conducting a training program for improving the productivity of employees. In this, a training program is an activity for increasing the employee’s skills

Outputs: These are the products or complete projects. For example, 90 percent of employee’s productivity is increased due to the conduction of training sessions. Here, the output is an increase in productivity to 90 percent (Markiewicz and Patrick, 2016:8).

Outcomes: There are changes that can be seen during the short time scale. For example, no people attended the training session from the total number of people who were informed about the training.

Impacts: These are the changes that are long-lasting as per the situation. For example, an increase in the skills of employees due to training sessions (Rios, 2017:11).

M&E is a part of the project which is implemented during the designing of the project when the objects and goals of the project are decided. The M&E framework describes how the project results are measured as well as helps in finding whether the objectives and goals of the project are achieved or not (Markiewicz and Patrick, 2016:8). It measures the progress of the project or an ongoing plan. They access the activity quality and form the basis of intervention modifications. This framework cycle provides the required data to guide and allocate planning and resources, to implement and design projects and programs and if necessary, reallocating resources for better results. Monitoring and evaluation are two different processes but are linked together to get improved results (Marquis et al. 2016:9). These are important for understanding the needs to make informed decisions about the operation of their programs, donors with the information, implementers, providing planners, and policymakers. M&E framework uses indicators for measuring the impacts, processes, outcomes, and outputs.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the report has carried out a public strategic management analysis. It has developed a strategic plan that will include all the components of a strategic plan to ensure employee safety for the next three years from Covid-19 in the organization. It has also explained the importance of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) in relevance to local government. IDP helps to strengthen the way South Africa is governed which is in a democratic way and also institutional transformation, because decisions are made in a democratic and transparent manner, rather than by a few influential individuals. A vehicle to facilitate communication In terms of local government, it provides a platform for interaction among all the role players such as public officials, councilors, citizens, the private sector, and other role players involved. The report has discussed ways of how different stakeholders can help local municipality produce a strategic development plan that is outcome-based. The stakeholders can help the local municipality in the implementation and preparation of the developed plan. It has also chosen a strategic plan for organization or program within the public sector and has used a tool to discuss the external factors that will impact on the expected outcomes of the plan. Apart from this, it has demonstrated the use of a monitoring and evaluation framework. The M&E framework describes how the project results are measured as well as helps in finding whether the objectives and goals of the project are achieved or not. Monitoring and evaluation are two different processes but are linked together to get better results.

References

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Fanelli, D., and Piazza, F. 2020. Analysis and forecast of COVID-19 spreading in China, Italy, and France. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 134, p.109761. Gray, M. ed. 2016. The handbook of social work and social development in Africa. Taylor & Francis. He, Y., Lin, Z., Tang, D., Yang, Y., Wang, T. and Yang, M. 2020. Strategic Plan for the management of COVID-19 in pediatric hematology and oncology departments. The Lancet Haematology, 7(5), pp.e359-e362. Karakhan, A., and Gambatese, J. 2018. Hazards and risk in construction and the impact of incentives and rewards on safety outcomes. Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, 23(2), p.04018005.

Markiewicz, A., and Patrick, I. 2016. Developing monitoring and evaluation frameworks (No. BOOK). New York: Sage Publications. Marquis, J.P., McNerney, M.J., Zimmerman, S.R., Archer, M., Boback, J., and Stebbins, D. 2016. Developing an assessment, monitoring, and evaluation framework for the US Department of Defense security cooperation. RAND Corporation-National Defense Research Institute Santa Monica. The municipality, D., 2017. Integrated Development Plan (IDP). IDP), 2012, p.1. Rios, O. 2017. A monitoring and evaluation framework for South-South Cooperation. South African Institute of International Affairs. Ruwanza, S. and Shackleton, C.M. 2016. Incorporation of environmental issues in South Africa’s municipal Integrated Development Plans. International journal of sustainable development & world-ecology, 23(1), pp.28-39.