Consultant's Role in Solving Management Issues at Skills for Tomorrow

This report analyzes the role of a consultant at Skills for Tomorrow (SFT), a governmental organization providing vocational training. The consultant was tasked with addressing management issues, particularly the low performance of the Harrisburg branch. The report identifies key problems, including interpersonal conflicts among managers, low admission rates impacting revenue, budget issues, and communication gaps. The consultant proposed solutions such as improved appraisal planning, budget management sessions, enhanced workplace communication tools, developmental strategies to improve service, increased recruitment, advertising, and flexible organizational policies. The report emphasizes the importance of feedback, negotiation, and open communication to improve SFT's performance and resolve its issues.

Running head: ROLE OF A CONSULTANT
Role of a consultant
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1ROLE OF A CONSULTANT
The essay concentrates on the issues that are faced by Skills for tomorrow (SFT). This
piece of writing basically analyses the role of a consultant who makes effort to solve the
issues of the management. SFT is a governmental sponsored organization tasked with helping
at-risk young adults’ attain the vocational training which helps the students to prepare
themselves for a successful career in many areas. This includes the training in automotive and
machine repair, construction, health care and information technology. The essay aims to
analyze the ways in which the external team of consultant tried to solve the moral issues that
were experienced by the entire management of SFT. The consultant identifies the root causes
of the problems and tries to solve the problems by erasing it from the roots. The essay
considers the major political and interpersonal aspects of the consulting relationship between
herself and the executive director. The essay’s first section consists of the problems and the
second part of the essay consists of the solutions to the problems.
After much discussion the consultant came to identify the issues that affected the
moral of the company. The initial problem was the problems between the mangers. The
consultant conducted a thorough research and by doing so it was found that SFT Harrisburg
consistently was placed in the lower half of the SFT locations. The yearly ranking of the
branch was always less and this acted as a threat to the executive director of the branch. This
was a government-aided organization and therefore the political body of the management
created a pressure on the organization. In an interview with the consultant the executive
director himself said that he needed to perform well. They were under the constant watch of
the authorities and the employees might lose their job anytime. The major problem was the
low revenue that was generated in the branch. After having a discussion with the executive
director the consultant was able to extract that that the interpersonal feature of director was
a major problem.

2ROLE OF A CONSULTANT
The consultant tried to go to the root of the cause of the issue. The root of the
problem was that there was low admission rate in the branch that affected the revenue of the
company. Apart from this the other problem that can be termed as one of the most important
issue is that pitfalls that lied in the parts of the executive director. This can be referred as a
problem in the interpersonal skill of him. He was unable to bind the team together as a result
there was low team work. This can be termed as one of the major cause of the problem. The
branch did not work as a team. The fixing on the budget issue was another problem. The
organization faced the trouble as there was a problem of budget in the organization. The
recruitment was comparatively less. This affected the moral of the organization. There was a
gap in the communication. These were the root causes of the organization that were political
and interpersonal in nature.
After having a long discussion with the executive director the consultant came up
with some effective solutions that would be of great benefit to the company. The first
suggestion would be to plan the appraisal accordingly. This would enable the organization to
head towards their success and resolve all the issues. The second solution would be to plan
the budget accordingly. The executive director does not plan the cutting of their budget. The
consultant recommended that the directors must take special sessions on the budget planning.
It has been found that there are many directors in the company so it can be done that all the
directors must sit down and decide upon the budget. The communication gap has been
observed between the managers. Therefore a development of the communication gap should
be improved in such case. To do so the communication tool in workplace should be applied
(Dainton & Zelley, 2017). This would increase the team effort and the entire team will get the
correct motivation to work. The low rank of the branch is a major problem. This can be
improved by adopting developmental strategies in the workplace (DeVito, 2015). The aim of
the organization should be improve the service and bringing changes in the strategy of the

3ROLE OF A CONSULTANT
service. The main service of the company is to prepare the students well for their course. The
faculty should be revised for this. It has been observed that the company had less recruitment.
The company should take more employees and they should bring about a change in the
curriculum. It is because of the low budget that the company could not take more employees.
They should find means and adopt effective strategies in order to provide better service to the
students.
Apart from this the other recommendation made by the consultant is to give stress on
the promotion and advertisement of the organization. This would increase the rate of
admission of the students and would solve the problem of budget faced by the organization.
This is therefore necessary for the organization (Kwan, Bali & Asher, 2016). The policies of
the organization should be altered as observed by the consultant. This is serving as a negative
aspect to the employees of the organization (Mauskopf & Earnshaw, 2017). It should be
made flexible so that the performance of the employees can be made better. The mangers
must take regular feedback of the employees. Feedback is an effective tool for any
organization. It can serve as the most important tool for the development of the organization.
This again refers to the interpersonal skills of the directors. He should consider the employees
as the most important part of organization. The theory of feedback and negotiation is
recommended in this context (Ting‐Toomey, 2015). At the end of the day they should be
happy so that they can deliver quality production. The management should be open to
change. This would enable the branch to put their rank in the higher position which was a
major issue. These were the major issues faced by the SFT management and by the
application of the recommendations given by the consultant would improve their position and
resolve their issues.

4ROLE OF A CONSULTANT
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