Improvements:

Based on the analysis above, there are four main areas in which XX/MEGT should improve their organisational structure.

1) Connect upper management to the LTO and the ELICOS sector in general. It is important that MEGT policies and procedures are not handed down blindly. Whilst compliance is essential, ways must be found to adapt necessary processes to work effectively and practically within the context of the LTO. Perhaps getting a senior staff member to spend a week work-shadowing people in all aspects of the LTO would help them get a better sense of key differences between XX and MEGT. Structurally speaking, this would strengthen the line of communication between these currently disparate levels of the company.

2) Repopulate staff, especially at management levels, once current financial concerns have abated. There is a growing risk of high turnover on the management and admin side of the company as workloads increase. This is not sustainable, so senior management need to recognize the pressure that staff have been working under and not use this as an excuse to unofficially downsize; as the situation improves so must the working conditions.

In particular, the span of control of the Education Manager is too broad a responsibility for a single manager, year round, so their needs to be at least seasonal support.

3) Increased crossover between Education and Admin/Marketing

Siloisation is always a risk with an LTO, so providing opportunities for staff on both sides to appreciate what the other does can help build a shared sense of purpose. Staff are so busy at the moment there seems to be little time for this, but I think a brief presentation by our marketers during a staff meeting or a chance for Admin staff to see lessons first hand would greatly benefit the LTO.

4) Balance increasing teacher costs

Laying off experienced (and expensive) teachers would damage both the culture and expertise of the LTO, so it is necessary that when such teachers opt to leave, they be replaced with someone on a cheaper step⁹. The benefits of this are not only financial; less-experienced staff also bring curiosity and enthusiasm to the job and can inspire those more entrenched than themselves. This dynamic in the staffroom helps keep energy levels high, impacting on students’ experiences in a positive way.

Conclusion

The culture of the LTO remains a real strength despite the takeover. It is this that the students identify with and, along with high educational standards, helps us satisfy the vast majority of our customers. MEGT have brought much needed maturity and to an extent stability to the LTO, but not all aspects of policy applied are relevant to the school and a better understanding of the differences between MEGT and XX, and their respective industries, needs to be achieved. Budget cuts resulting from recent spending and lower student numbers are designed to ensure the survival of the enterprise, but should not come at a destructive cost, as rebuilding the LTO would prove a mammoth task if the culture and talent were to evaporate.

These are challenging but interesting times at XX English and in the ELICOS sector as a whole. The key to success will be our capacity to work together by promoting better communication across the company as a whole and to retain the advantages of being a medium-sized LTO while further exploiting the potential benefits of being part of a larger, more-established organisation.

Bibliography:

Charles, D, 1993. "The Fronted Organigram: Questions of Management in English Language Teaching". In Boswood, T., Hoffman, R., & Tung, P. (eds). Perspectives on English for Professional Communication. Hong Kong, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong. pp. 217-224.

Goffee, R. & Jones, G. 1996 ‘What Holds the Modern Company Together?’ Harvard Business Review on Managing People. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Handy, C. 1985. Understanding Organizations. 3rd edition, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.

McNamara, C. 1997 - 2007. Overview of Organizational Life Cycles. In White, R., Hockley, A., Van der Horst Jansen, J., & Laughner, M. 2008. From Teacher to Manager. Cambridge University Press.

Pickering, G, 1999, "The Learning Organisation: An idea whose time has come?” ELT Management Number 27.

Robbins, S.P. & Judge, T.A. 2013. Organizational Behavior. 15th edition, Pearson Education Limited.

Senge, P.M., Kleiner A., Roberts C., Ross R.B. & Smith B.J. 1994. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies for Building a Learning Organization, New York: Doubleday

White, R., Hockley, A., van der Horst Jansen, J., & Laughner, M.S. 2008. From Teacher to Manager. Cambridge University Press.

1 For more historical information, see Appendix 1.1

2 The organisational chart shows that the Campus Manager is temporarily serving in a dual role until the Assistant Education Manager completes a course of study and is able to assume the title of Education Manager (EM). For the purposes of this analysis the Assistant EM is in effect the EM, as the Campus Manager does not directly manage the teaching staff.

3 These coordinators have a full teaching role and are paid a bonus for completing certain administrative tasks. They are not part of the official organizational chart.

4 At present the Melbourne campus is about two-thirds the size of Sydney Campus in terms of teacher and student numbers.

5 Particularly exam courses like IELTS and Cambridge.

6 In fact, this is a strength of XX/MEGT, with regular events built into our annual calendar.

7 Charles turned the conventional ‘pyramid’ structure (with the Board of Directors on the top) on its side to reflect the equal roles of all members in the organisational structure. Garratt went a step further by completely inverting it to suggest that senior management were there merely to support the efforts of customer-facing staff.

8 An example would be the formalised nature of MEGT’s induction procedures, which are based on the assumption that we have advertised for and hired a permanent employee, where in reality ELICOS is a much more fluid environment in terms of staff. A teacher may come to teach just 4 hours at the school and arrive immediately before class, but in theory they have to go through a long induction process with a large amount of paperwork (completing 12 separate documents), which is completely impractical in reality.

9 Step in this case is the level at which a teacher is paid on a scale of 1 to 12.

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