Good practice example: a Turkish experience

(Case study provided by Gazi University)

This case study illustrates how the pilot action was implemented in nine small / micro organisations working in the social economy field in different areas. One is an organisation (7 employees) who tries to increase the social welfare of the people from Akören town and also tries to solve the social, educational, economical, related to the civilization problems of the Akören town. This organisation is managed in Ankara. Another is an organisation (7 employees) who tries to increase the social welfare of the people from Bozkır town and also tries to solve the social, educational, economical, related to the civilization problems of Bozkır town. This organisation is also managed in Ankara. The third is an association (7 employees) that provides cultural development and cooperation between the people from Konya province. This organisation is also located in Ankara. The fourth is an association (7employee) who tries to increase the social welfare of the people from Ilgın town and also tries to solve the social, educational, economical, related to the civilization problems of the Ilgın town. The fifth is an association (7employee) who tries to increase the social welfare of the people from Harmanpınar town and also tries to solve the social, educational, economical, related to the civilization problems of the Harmanpınar town. The sixth one is an organisation (7 employee) who coordinates about the education, culture, sport, science, and provides the solidarity about these subjects between the people in Siirt province which is located South east of the Turkey. The seventh one is an association (7 employee) who are interesting in the problems of the engineers and arthitectures who are working in Siirt province. The eighth one is an association (7 employee) who wants to develop and improvement the Siirt province. The nineth and last one is an agency (1 employee) of the all of the Turkey spread organisation who tries to protect and to present the enviromental and cultural values. This agency tries to maket his tasks for Siirt. The individual contacted (by phone and/or personally) with the Board Director in the organisations.

Involvement in the pilot testing

The organisations were involved in the TSESME toolkit evaluation, before the final pilot testing phase. This phase is especially 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.
In the Organisational Questionnaire there have been detected needs in the following areas:

  • Evaluation of competencies/performance development;
  • Quality management (rules and principles);
  • Employees qualification, motivation and training;
  • Enrichment and diversity of the employees jobs;
  • Skills improvement;
  • Salary grids and salary incentives and its influence on employees motivation;
  • Employees responsibility and initiative;
  • Knowledge about 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.

In the Individual Questionnaire there have been identified needs concerning the following situations:

  • Progressing team work skills;
  • Developing the using the work material, such as diagrams, technical instructions, etc..;
  • Arriving, locating and selecting necessery information from various sources (libraries, Internet...);
  • Evaluating the management and work needs;
  • Developing and sharing new ideas, concepts and orientations;
  • Adapting and using the new working methods and new technologies;
  • Running simultaneously multiple activities;
  • Carrying out the internal quality rules;
  • Being familiar to software / computing;
  • Foreign languages knowledge;
  • Interpersonal skills;
  • Conflict management;
  • Leadership;
  • Using hardware equipment;

Training Seminar

Based on the results, it was decided that the main areas to approach during the two days training seminar would be:

  • General aspects related to the social economy field;
  • Human resources management in the small social organisations;
  • Management in the small organisations of the social economy;
  • Leadership in the small organisations of the social economy;

Active teaching method was selected. This method includes:

  • Oral presentations;
  • Powerpoint presentations;
  • Some individual exercises of auto-diagnosis;
  • Case studies;
  • Group exercises /brainstorming.

Progress of the training

The attendees have shown special interest in organisational structure, functions and procedures during the training seminar. All of the attendees followed the training seminar with a great hungriness. Function describing, tasks defining, information getting, managing crisis and solving problems processes are described very shortly. Besides ıt has been told that social economy is a justice economy. 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 and to plan and prepare training sessions. Leadership and interpersonal skills were also an another interest focus fort he trainees, and they had applied the auto-diagnosis exercises with a great interest.

Feedback

Generally the attendees have accepted the toolkit as an important way to obtain useful information. They have been very positively effected with the fact of having the possibility to obtain forms and questionnaires/inquiries which are given as examples in the toolkit. Although the participants had some expectations considering everything involving structuring, organizing, describing activities, evaluating procedures, etc. They had told that their mind have been changed by this seminar. They are now looking the world more wider. The attendees have also pointed out that this seminar was very useful to gain for their self-confidence.

Conclusion

Present experience showed us that organisations are deeply impacted in the seminar. The 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. Some internal procedures and activity support documents elaboration. All of the organisations will also use some of the information provided.
If we need summarize the TSESME toolkit and especially the individual tool, can be seen as a good method to provide a general feedback and generic suggestions about specific training needs. The toolkit also provides a good basis for discussions with training institutions (trainers/consultants) for the definition of a training programme. Besides it encourages managers, HRD managers and employees to think about the importance. The toolkit stimulates the SME to demand for vocational training in general. The toolkit also points out relevant training fields and can be seen as a starting point for raising awareness. On the other hand, It has been detected that the social economy enterprises in Turkey has particular characteristics. For that reason a lot of organisations need a face to face training so that they can maximize the potential offered by the TSESME toolkit.