2. 2
Tableof Contents
Introduction/Background.............................................................................................................3
Consulting Procedure ....................................................................................................................3
Opening Note..................................................................................................................................5
Presenting Problem.......................................................................................................................5
Summaryof Gathered Data ...........................................................................................................6
Analysis/Diagnosis ........................................................................................................................7
Change Management......................................................................................................................7
Star Model Analysis........................................................................................................................8
Recommendations .........................................................................................................................9
Details of the Recommendations..................................................................................................11
Timeline....................................................................................................................................... 12
Proposed Timeline......................................................................................................................13
Appendix A………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………14
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Introduction/Background
The American Red Cross (ARC), is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency
assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. The organization was established in
Washington, D.C. on May 21, 1881, by Clara Barton, who founded the American chapter after learning of the
Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland. The American Red Cross gained solidsupport after assisting in two major
disasters. Based on the efforts of the American Red Cross, people began to recognize the positive impact that
the organization could have on people and communities.
The American Red Cross today is a nationwide network of more than 650 chapters and 36 blood
services regions dedicated to saving lives and helping people prepare for and respond to medical
emergencies. The dedicated individuals that make up The Red Cross are approximately 500,000 volunteers
that include FemaCorps and AmeriCorps members. There are 30,000 employees annually that mobilize relief
to people affected by disasters, train people in necessary medical skills, and exchange emergency messages
for U.S. military service personnel and their family members. The American Red Cross supports victims,
military families, firefighters, and law enforcement when needed.
The missionof the American Red Cross is to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of
emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors. The company culture is one
of helping people and at the start of the project, the consulting team identified that there was a low level of
moral among the employees. After probing further, the consulting team tried to clarify what the key factors
were that were contributing to the low morale. Based on the findings, the consulting team designed
recommendations that The American Red Cross could use to increase morale within the company to continue
the mission of helping people.
ConsultingProcedure
The consulting team was introduced to the client, The American Red Cross, through one team
member who had previous experience volunteering for the organization. After reaching out to Jon Brown, the
disaster program manager for territory 1, the consulting group received permission to conduct an
organizational needs analysis to identify if there were any problems within the organization. The first initial
4. 4
contracting meeting was arranged and the consultants met at one of many American Red Cross office
buildings in Los Angeles and interviewed Jon Brown to identify what he felt were some issues within The
American Red Cross.
In the initial contracting phase the consultants were able to ask Jon Brown in greater detail what the
consultants goal was throughout the project as well as what the client expected to gain from the consultants
in return. Some guidelines that were discussed were: detailing the amount of participants the consultants
would have access to, stressing the importance of having managers and supervisors as part of the
participants, clarifying that all data collected from the interviews would be kept confidential and anonymous,
outlining how often the consulting team would check in with Jon, to establish the expectation that the
consulting team would be presenting the data collected to The American Red Cross in a feedback session, and
to deliver recommendations. It was discovered in the initial consulting phase that in 2015 IBM had conducted
an engagement survey and the consultants were given permission to view the report and compare the results
obtained from IBM to the results obtained from the consultant's interviews (Appendix A). This was helpful
for the consultants to see that trust, growth & development, recognition, communication, and inclusion were
low within The Red Cross in 2015.
Based on the initial consulting phase, the team recognized that there was a low level of moral within
The Red Cross. The consulting team reached out to all of the participants one at a time to interview each
participant for an hour with the same six questions the team developed to capture the level of moral within
The American Red Cross. The questions touched upon topics such as: recognition, satisfaction with their job,
satisfaction with their leadership, satisfaction with their company, satisfaction with their coworkers, and how
their satisfaction could increase overall. Based on the answers received from each question, the team would
probe deeper to try to better understand the underlying problem. Each interview was an hour long and was
conducted over the phone with one member facilitating and two members taking notes.
After the interviews were finished, the consulting team analyzed the data and developed
recommendations based on the key issues identified that were contributing to the low levels of moral. The
team held a feedback meeting with Jon and incorporated recommendations accordingly. At the conclusion of
the feedback session, the analysis and recommendations were well received and a follow up meeting was
scheduled to present the findings to management in order to facilitate morale improvement.
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OpeningNote
The American Red Cross is currently in alignment with how the organization helps people and the
community. All participants that were interviewed stressed a collective opinion that they loved the outcome
of the work that they do. There was a ‘do-gooder’ approach that was apparent throughout all participants and
they genuinely believed in the organization and what it stood for. Many participants saw the direct effect of
their work within the community and were willing to stay and work for the American Red Cross for as long as
they possibly could. Many participants stressed positive feedback with the level of autonomy that higher
management gave to its supervisors in regards to how they managed their employees. Supervisors enjoyed
the ability to move around at work and stressed the ability take on various functions within the Red Cross,
making them more ‘deployable’ when needed to respond to disasters.
The American Red Cross has a clear hierarchy that enabled employees to know who to go to for help
and feel supported by that leadership, because they share the ‘do-gooder’ mindset. The organization
understands the value of volunteers and the support that they add to the organization in obtaining its overall
mission. The American Red Cross has developed training and offered resources for volunteers to obtain the
knowledge needed to be successful in order to fully impact the American Red Cross.
Presenting Problem
As indicated above, the presenting problem at the American Red Cross was found to be low levels of
employee morale. Meriam-Webster defines morale as “the mental and emotional condition (i.e. of
enthusiasm, confidence, or loyalty) of an individual or group with regard to the function or tasks at hand, a
sense of common purpose with respect to a group, the level of individual psychological well-being based on
such factors as a sense of purpose and confidence in the future”. For the purposes of this research, morale is
similarly defined as job satisfaction, outlook, and feelings of well being of employees within the workplace.
Psychology Research and Reference, Inc. identified key components of morale as:
1) Job satisfaction
2) Satisfaction with supervision
3) Satisfaction with rewards and recognition
4) Satisfaction with coworkers
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5) Satisfaction with the organization and general management
Healthy levels of employee morale is essential for the success of the organization and has been
proven to have a direct effect on productivity (Neely, 1999), in addition to a number of other organizational
processes and outcomes such as return-on-investment and turnover. Levels of employee morale in the
American Red Cross have been reported as considerably low according to information collected from all of
our interviews, in alignment with the results of IBM’s company-wide survey administered in 2015. This
survey indicated only 39% of employees would recommend the American Red Cross as a great place to work.
Low morale impacts the organization by creating high turnover and impacts the employees by creating low
job satisfaction, feelings of frustration, burnout, and disengagement is some cases. It is important for this
organization to take appropriate measures in addressing these issues to create a positive work environment,
maintain satisfied workers, support a healthy organizational function, and be able to achieve its business
objectives.
Summaryof GatheredData
The six interviewees were asked six main questions exploring information on addressing the main
components of morale mentioned above. In addition, an open ended question was asked inquiring how
various levels of satisfaction within this organization can be improved.
A high number of recurring themes included:
● Culture shifted from humanitarian to metrics driven and corporate, creating conflicts with
the fundamental missions of this organization
● Disconnected leadership perceptions on day-to-day job requirements
● Ambiguity: unclear delegation, lack of job clarity, roles, responsibilities, and structures to
follow
● Ineffective inter-departmental communication & collaboration
● Expectations are set too high with unrealistic goals
● Understaffed and over-worked creating high turnover
● Employees are feeling burnout due to the need for 24/7 connectivity to work
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● Lack of effective training, poor onboarding, and no active recruiting
● Poor employee development opportunities
Analysis/Diagnosis
A recurring topic discussed by interviewees was the dissatisfaction of workers with the new
corporate culture, highly metrics driven objectives and visionat the ARC. In 2007, the ARC went through a
fundamental restructuring of the organization’s processes, strategies, and objectives to operate through a
lean and metrics-based model, in order to survive the loss of donation funding that resulted from the
economic downturn. There was a change in the executive leadership running the new ARC and interviewees
referred to this change as shifting from a humanitarian-focus driven company to a metrics-driven company.
Interviewees indicated that this change was in conflict with the very fundamental mission and visionof the
Red Cross that inspired the employees to work for the ARC.
ChangeManagement
Following the analysis of data, it is proposed that the low morale can be caused by insufficient change
management measures around planning, communicating, implementing, and sustaining the new structure,
culture, and vision. This ineffective change management has lead to feelings of ambiguity, resistance and low
levels of morale. For a large-scale organizational change to be successful, the reason behind the change needs
to be emphasized to obtain buy-in from employees.
Furthermore, there needs to be planning and resources in place that support the new objective and
structure of the ARC. The lack of support has left employees feeling that the earlier humanitarian missionno
longer exists. Interviewees stressed that they feel proud of what they do by helping people and communities,
however they feel the new structure has steered away from this mission, by focusing on numbers and
metrics. In order to address the resistance and discontent with the change, the Star Model was used below to
categorize various aspects of the findings. Following the analysis, we will provide recommendations to help
improve morale.
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Star ModelAnalysis
Morale in organizations involves attitudes and perceptions towards the job, work environment, team
members, managers and the organization as a whole. There is no single factor that contributes to low morale
in this case, rather a combination of related factors that can influence each other. These factors are broken
down in the following table using the Star Model.
The Star Model is widely used to help organize the information and provide logical explanations for
organization analysis. This framework consists of a series of components that are controllable by
management and can influence employee behavior and attitude (i.e. morale).
Below we have attributed key factors found in the data to their corresponding components of the
Star Model.
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Organization Design Components Key Factors
Strategy
The organization’s direction and long-term
vision. Here the direction of the organization is
set
· Lack of strategy for innovation, growth and expansion
· Poor talent management strategies
· Using metrics as the sole strategy to drive programs
· Poor communication strategy
· Disconnected decision making strategies
Structure
Roles, responsibilities, and relationships among
functions
· Misalignment or lack of understanding regarding roles and
tasks
· Rigid and hierarchical decision making structures
· Infrequent inter-departmental communication and
collaboration
Processes
Decision-making, integrative roles, and cross
functional collaboration. These processes create
the flow of information
· Disproportionate distribution of resources
· Ineffective inter-departmental communication and
collaboration
· Lack of accountability (due to lower expectation standards
in non-profit sectors)
Rewards
Compensation and recognition, goals and
measurement systems aligned with rewarding
employees
· Rewards and recognition/ compensation based solely on
metrics achievement
· Accomplishment of work rewarded with additional work
(from other departments)
· Not enough relevant recognition systems
· Unattainable goals and metrics
People
Organizations human resources involving hiring,
performance reviews, training and development
· Understaffed and over-worked resulting in burnout and
high turnover
· Lack of effective training, poor onboarding, and no active
recruitment efforts for volunteers
· Lack of customized training depending on locations
· Poor development opportunities (i.e. promotions)
According to this model, the five areas should be connected and aligned to promote successful
decision making and behaviors in an organization. We will now discuss recommendations tailored for the
ARC to help align these five components of the business structure.
Recommendations
The American Red Cross has the opportunity to take a number of measures to improve morale and
other aspects of organizational functioning. Below are the prioritized recommendations for the long term and
short term, followed by a more detailed description of information with examples for our various
recommendations.
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Prioritized Recommendations
Short Term Long Term
1. Communicate - The Mission And Vision Initiative
Strategically communicate the humanitarian
missionin town-halls, social events, newsletters,
company emails etc. to regain buy-in
1. Strategize - Your Approach
Establish strategic approaches for Change
Management, communications, leadership
training (i.e. on thing such as goal setting and
metrics establishment)
Redefine success metrics and
rewards/recognition approach (i.e. hard AND
soft performance criteria, peer reviews)
Rethink reward and recognition approach
(reward goal achievement with recognition and
not additional work)
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Develop new rewards and recognition measures
based on employee surveys
2. Recruit - Volunteers
Increase collaboration with volunteer
recruitment agencies
2. Recruit - Volunteers
Allocate more resources for volunteer
recruitment, training, and advertising in key
places (i.e. Targeting retiring baby boomers)
3. Develop - Trainings And Resources
Develop onboarding training outlines
Update onboarding trainings to decrease new
hire turnovers
Utilize quick and pre-made trainings (i.e. project
management tools such as RACI charts, team
management trainings)
3. Develop - Your People
Investing in employees, directly and indirectly
increases employee satisfaction and morale
Coaching training for employees and managers
Further development opportunities such as
learning spanish, goal setting training, and team
building activities to facilitate group cohesion
Details of the Recommendations
1) Increase resources and emphasis on active volunteer recruitment
Leverage new volunteers to support employees/ workload by measure such as collaborating
with volunteer program agencies, advertising in strategic places for retiring baby boomers, and
college students, etc.
2) Communicate
Communicate about the humanitarian mission through different channels (for emotional
investment)
o In public forums, town hall meetings, company events, newsletters
o In one-on-one dialogues between managers and direct-reports
o Through electronic media (i.e. emails, video links) to rapidly reach across territories,
reinforcing the message often and in a timely manner
Encourage interdepartmental communication and collaboration by building effective
communication channels
o Active fun intranet social networking platforms
o Interdepartmental events/team-building activities to improve familiarity between
departments
3) Project Management
12. 12
Standardize using RACI charts for all projects to clarify roles and responsibilities, and increase
accountability
Ensure regular process check-ins during a program to support employees & managers
4) Train
Design and communicate sufficient and standardized trainings such as onboarding trainings, for
various levels of employees
Provide developmental trainings such as Spanish language, or Project Management training to
allow for employees to development (increases engagement)
Establish clear onboarding outline strategies for new employees , enabling them to learn the
tools and skills needed for their success
Train managers on providing frequent and effective coaching and open feedback
Train managers to effectively facilitate effective calls and meetings to be engaging and not
rushed (i.e. weekly meetings)
5) Reward
Define new success metrics based on hard and soft performance indicators
Incorporate various types of formal and informal reviews (i.e. coaching, interactive peer review
& kudos programs) to also reward and recognize soft but important performance indicators such
as helping behavior, attitude etc.
Assess how employees would like to be rewarded for accomplishing objectives
Timeline
The recommended activities are designed to implement on an on-going basis. Below is a chart
outlining the sequence and dispersion based on their priority.
14. 14
References:
1. Neely, G. H. (1999). The relationship between employee morale and employee productivity. National Fire
Academy.
2. http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/industrial-organizational-psychology/job-satisfaction/morale-i-o/
3. http://www.redcross.org
4. http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=dissertations
