Good practice example: a Portuguese experience

(Case study provided by AidLearn)

This case study illustrates how the pilot action was implemented in four small / micro organisations working in the social economy field in different areas. One is an organisation (12 employees) who sells products and equipments for agriculture and gardening. Another is an organisation (14 employees) who receives and educates children untill 12 years old, with family problems. The third is an association (6 employees) that helps and treat people with helth problems and the fourth is an association (1 employee) operating as a home day for senior people, which gives them support in terms of social activities. The individual contacted (by phone and/orpersonally) in the organisations were, respectively: a Board Director and the Administrative and Finance Manager; the Board Director; One Board Director and the Administrative and Finance Manage and the Board Director and the Social Assitant.

Involvement in the pilot testing

The organisations were involved in the TSESME toolkit evaluation, namely at the final pilot testing phase. This phase was focused on the application of the offered organisational and individual tools, the results and recommendations and the training seminar that targeted some of the detected training needs.

• Competencies/performance evaluation;
• Quality management (rules and principles);
• Employees qualification, motivation and training;
• Enrichment and diversity of the employees jobs;
• Salary grids and salary incentives and its influence on employees motivation;
• Employees responsibility and initiative;
• Information technology (networks, e-mail, Internet, Intranet);
• Organizational structure and its influence on employees attitude concerning their collaboration and participation;
• Internal information and participation policies;
• Structuring functions and general procedures.

• Using the work material, such as diagrams, technical instructions, etc..;
• Locating and selecting information from various sources (Libraries, Internet...);
• Evaluating the management and work exigencies;
• Developing new ideas, concepts and orientations;
• Adapting to the new working methods and new technologies;
• Running simultaneously multiple activities;
• Accomplishing the internal quality rules;
• Using hardware equipment;
• Being familiar to software / computing;
• Foreign languages knowledge;
• Interpersonal skills and conflict management;
• Leadership.

Training Seminar

• General aspects concerning Social Economy (SE);
• Mission and strategy of an SE organisation;
• People management;
• Organizational management and development.

The methodology was an active one, in order to increment the attendees’ motivation. It was included: (1) Oral presentation of the different matters, using Powerpoint; (2) Some individual exercises of auto-diagnosis; (3) Case studies and (4) group exercises /brainstorming.

Progress of the training

During the training seminar the attendees have shown special interest in what concerns organisational structure, functions and procedures. It was shortly detailed the process of how to describe a function, how to define tasks, and how to cross this information with competencies. In what concerns this last concept, the participants also have focused their attention, especially in what concerns the use of competencies to recruit new employees ant to plan and prepare training sessions. Salaries and incentives has been one point in which all of the participants showed some resistance due to the fact of their institutions have constant financial difficulties and also because there seems to exist a preconceived idea that in non-profitable organisations it is almost a “crime” to pay good salaries and have salary policies focused on professional objectives. Leadership and interpersonal skills have also disputed attendees’ attention, and they had some fun doing the auto-diagnosis exercises.

Feedback

In general terms the attendees have seen the toolkit as an important way to obtain useful information. They have been very positively surprised with the fact of having the possibility to obtain forms and questionnaires/inquiries which are given as examples in the toolkit. The participants had some expectations considering everything involving structuring, organizing, describing activities, evaluating procedures, etc.

Conclusion

Present experience will provide impact in the organisations concerned, albeit at different levels. One of the 4 organisations involved, that has quite a stable internal structure and the qualification level of the staff can be considered medium/high, will clearly benefit and used the toolkit in its regular work.
In what concerns some internal procedures and activity support documents elaboration, we believe that another organisation will also use some of the information provided. In the case of the third organisation, the conclusion to make is that its responsible has been conscious of the need to provide the Association with an internal qualified person, who can really understand the new methods presented and implement them on the field. Concerning the last organisation, due to its availability and level of TIC’s mastering will have more dificult to beneficit from the tools provided.

To summarize the TSESME toolkit and especially the individual tool, can be seen as a good method that provides general feedback and generic suggestions about specific training needs and provides a good basis for discussions with training institutions (trainers/consultants) for the definition of a training programme. Additionally it encourages managers, HRD managers and employees to think about the importance and need for vocational training in general and also points out relevant training fields and can be seen as a starting point for raising awareness. Nevertheless, in the social economy field, due to its particular characteristics, some organisations still need a face to face consulting approach so that they can maximize the potential offered by the TSESMEtoolkit.