Business, Environment and Societies in the Tropics: MindChamps Report

This report provides a comprehensive business profile of MindChamps Preschool, a learning institution in Singapore. It details the school's services, curriculum, location, and facilities. The report analyzes the school's approach to developing an effective workforce, including goal setting, team culture, and reinforcement strategies. It also examines job design using the Job Characteristics Model (JCM), focusing on skill variety, task identity, task significance, feedback, and autonomy to enhance employee performance and satisfaction. The report references key academic sources to support its analysis of MindChamps Preschool's business practices and organizational strategies.

Running Head: BUSINESS, ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETIES IN THE TROPICS 1
Business, Environment and Societies in the tropics
Student’s Name:
Institutional Affiliation:

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SME business profile
MindChamps Preschool offers a good atmosphere where enrichment and learning
programs can be conducted for students ranging from 1 year and 8 months to 6 years of age. The
school aims to develop and mentor children socially, physically, spiritually and intellectually to
enable them to prepare for future obstacles (Snyder, 2014). The small class sizes enable every
child to achieve success. The school’s curriculum puts an emphasis on Child Psychology,
Theatre, and Neuroscience. The curriculum offers a wide range of activities that will facilitate
the transitioning of the children from pre-school to primary school.
Type of business: Learning institution
MindChamps Preschool is a learning institution that provides a serene environment that
encourages and motivates the development of children in the key areas of intellectual, social,
spiritual, and emotionally. These skills are imparted through daily activities and the S.M.I.L.E.S.
Environment which offer security and engagement (Snyder, 2014). The students are encouraged
to develop independent thinking through teacher-assisted and individual activities. Moreover, the
serene learning environment and well-structured classrooms foster the learning abilities of the
children and enhance creativity.
Core services

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The school offers a curriculum that will prepare the children for primary school. The
S.M.I.L.E.S. Environment offers security and engagement to the child while at the same time
nurturing their exploration capabilities. Further, the environment prepares the child’s brain for
future anticipations and optimal growth (Caswell, Chiem & Bell, 2010). Another important
component of the school’s curriculum is conducted at the children’s unique gym, Neuro-Mooves.
The gym enhances the development of balance, coordination, motor skills, right brain
connectivity, and left brain connectivity. The Narrative Intelligence session ensures the children
are successful in their reading activities (Snyder, 2014). Moreover, the session makes the
children gain an appreciation and love of books, and also develop the culture of metaphor and
story understanding.
Location
MindChamps Singapore Pte Ltd is located at 480 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh, Level 17 HDB
Hub East Wing, Singapore 310480 (Caswell, Chiem & Bell, 2010). The immediate environment
of the preschool is the Changi Business Park. The Business Park offers a conducive working
environment for innovative and forward-looking organizations. The park is home to top
technological companies, as well as financial companies including IBM, Huawei, Credit Suisse
and many others.
Facilities

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Some of the key facilities in the institution include a properly-equipped gym for the
children, a spacious outdoor learning environment, and modern classrooms.
Staff members and position
The school was founded by Mr. David Chiem who also happens to be the Group CEO
and Chairman of MindChamps (Snyder, 2014). Mr. Chiem has several well-trained and talented
teachers who undergo an intensive and compulsory 200 hours training period before they are
recruited. Also, the school has other staff members who support and supplement the learning
activities of the preschool.
Achievements
MindChamps Preschool is an industry leader seeking to positively impact the lives of
children and gains recognition as a leader in the education sector. So far, the school has garnered
both national and industry-wide awards. In 2015, MindChamps Preschool was recognized and
awarded for being Asia’s Top Influential pre-school brand (Snyder, 2014). This was the first
time the school got the award. Brand Alliance determined the school as the winner after
conducting online surveys, analysis of the brand, social listening, and face-to-face surveys.
Topic 1: Developing an effective workforce

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At MindChamps preschool, we value the idea of creating an effective work force.
Various essential activities enable the school to achieve an effective workforce. To start with, the
management sets clear and achievable goals for the employees. By so doing, the employees will
work diligently and achieve the performance level expected by the school’s management (Nelsey
& Brownie, 2012). The management is aware of the fact that setting mediocre goals leads to
mediocre results. Evidently, every staff member responds to the challenge by stretching their
performance capabilities.
The school has also created a strong team culture that integrates all the employees into a
cohesive, determined, and goal-oriented team. The management works hard to identify the top-
achievers and raise their performance levels. This helps to increase the top-performers’
contribution, as well as initiating training and mentoring programs meant to improve the
performance and skills of the employees as a whole (Bedwell, Fiore & Salas, 2014). At
MindChamps preschool, we imitate and learn from the best and utilize the good models which
will positively impact the performance of the workforce.
Also, the school achieves an effective workforce by aligning responsibilities and roles.
MindChamps Preschool creates a role for each worker based on their competence, or ability to
become competent. Also, the management insists on the importance of performing tasks
effectively and having a passion to excel. Aligning responsibilities helps the institution to gain a
milestone in key activities including learning and co-curricular activities. More importantly, it
helps in timely completion of assigned roles.

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MindChamps Preschool also uses reinforcements to achieve an effective workforce. The
reinforcements encourage and enable the repetition of productivity. Moreover, the
reinforcements discourage counterproductive activities (Beck & Boulton, 2012). The
reinforcements at the school are divided into four main groups including extinction, punishment,
negative, and positive reinforcements. The positive reinforcements recognize good performance,
practices, and attitudes that enhance the school’s productivity. The negative reinforcements work
to prevent the employees from portraying unwanted behaviors or practices which may lead to
negative consequences (Darling-Hammond, Jaquith & Hamilton, 2012). Various punishments
are also given to employees who portray negative behavior and extinction refers to the firing of
the unproductive employees.
Topic 2: Job Design using the Job Characteristics Model (JCM)
The Job Characteristic Model (JCM) was created by Hackman and Oldman, who were
both psychologists in the organizational sector. The Model explains that the job design is related
to job satisfaction, work performance, and motivation. The management at MindChamps
preschool, therefore, uses this model to determine how the job characteristic affects employees’
performance. In another perspective, the theory helps the management to study a number of
factors that lead to job satisfaction for the employees and the school itself (Wood, Van
Veldhoven, Croon, & de Menezes, 2012). For this reason, the school improves its job
characteristic to include skill variety, task identification, the significance of a task, and feedback.

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Skill variety requires a worker to possess several skills and talents in order to perform a
given job. A variety of skills enables the employees to experience meaningfulness and
satisfaction in their jobs. Task identity requires an employee to perform a task to completion,
with visible and commendable outcomes. The employees tend to find a task meaningful if they
can see a visible and complete outcome (Mark & Smith, 2012). The school, therefore,
emphasizes the need to work on a given task to completion, rather than working in bits. Task
significance refers to the effect of a certain task to the people, whether they are people in the
institution or outside the institution. Many people would agree that a job holds significance if it
can positively impact other people, whether intellectually, emotionally, or physically. Having
understood that their performance will positively impact the world, the employees at
MindChamps preschool are motivated to work harder.
At MindChamps preschool, the management acknowledges the need for feedback.
Workers need regular and clear feedback on matters regarding their effectiveness and
performance. This not only works to give them appraisal but also boosts their motivation and
self-esteem (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014). Finally, Autonomy refers to the flexibility, freedom,
discretion, and independence offered by a job. Hence, an employee can determine his/her work
schedule and come up with the right procedure of completing the work. For this reason, the
school accepts the fact that workers bear a sense of responsibility and should be given their own
space to perform tasks. The employees do not need to follow the orders given by the supervisor,
or strictly follow the job procedures and manuals (Barrick, Mount, & Li, 2013). At MindChamps
preschool every employee has the right to feel responsible for individual actions.

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References
Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Li, N. (2013). The theory of purposeful work behavior: The
role of personality, higher-order goals, and job characteristics. Academy of management
review, 38(1), 132-153.
Schaufeli, W. B., & Taris, T. W. (2014). A critical review of the Job Demands-Resources Model:
Implications for improving work and health. In Bridging occupational, organizational
and public health (pp. 43-68). Springer Netherlands.
Mark, G., & Smith, A. P. (2012). Occupational stress, job characteristics, coping, and the mental
health of nurses. British journal of health psychology, 17(3), 505-521.
Wood, S., Van Veldhoven, M., Croon, M., & de Menezes, L. M. (2012). Enriched job design,
high involvement management and organizational performance: The mediating roles of
job satisfaction and well-being. Human relations, 65(4), 419-445.
Beck, A. J., & Boulton, M. L. (2012). Building an effective workforce: a systematic review of
public health workforce literature. American journal of preventive medicine, 42(5), S6-
S16.
Bedwell, W. L., Fiore, S. M., & Salas, E. (2014). Developing the future workforce: An approach
for integrating interpersonal skills into the MBA classroom. Academy of Management
Learning & Education, 13(2), 171-186.

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Nelsey, L., & Brownie, S. (2012). Effective leadership, teamwork and mentoring–Essential
elements in promoting generational cohesion in the nursing workforce and retaining
nurses. Collegian, 19(4), 197-202.
Darling-Hammond, L., Jaquith, A., & Hamilton, M. (2012). Creating a comprehensive system
for evaluating and supporting effective teaching. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for
Opportunity Policy in Education.
Snyder, A. (Ed.). (2014). What Makes a Champion!: Over Fifty Extraordinary Individuals Share
Their Insights. World Scientific.
Caswell, B., Chiem, D. P. A., & Bell, K. (2010). Pre-School Parenting Secrets: Talking with the
Sky. World Scientific.