ASSESSMENT COVER SHEET

Family Name: Given Name(s):

CHOUDHARY ROHIT

Student ID: Course:

1042406 Bachelors of Community Services.

Unit Code: Unit Name:

FLD303 Transition to Professional Practice

Lecturer: Assessment Number/Title:

Dr. Judy Esmond

Semester/Trimester and Year: Word Count:

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................3

Context of the Agency..................................................................................................3

Organisational Structure...............................................................................................4

Barriers to Transition to Professional Practice.............................................................5

Professional Processes for Transition..........................................................................7

Conflict Management....................................................................................................7

Stress Management......................................................................................................8

Performance Appraisal System in VisAbility................................................................9

Feedback of the Presentation.......................................................................................9

References.................................................................................................................10
 Introduction

Disability of any kind, physical or mental, can prove to be a huge barrier in

living a fulfilling life. It is important for the society to be considerate of the needs of

people with disability. This is the main idea behind VisAbility Australia. It a

community service organisation that has been chosen for this assignment. The

assigned revolved around exploring the purpose and inner working of the

organisation and to find out their organisational structure and service provision. The

work also aimed to find out the barriers of transition present in the organisation and

how the agency deals with conflict management and stress management for its

employees. Finally, the company’s performance appraisal system was also explored

in the assignment.

In order to find out the basic structure and the desired internal working of the

organisation, an interview was conducted with a worker currently working there. The

interview was conducted via phone, owing to the fact that it is recommended to keep

social interactions at minimum because of the covid-19 pandemic. The interview was

designed to explore the structure and service provision, barriers to transition into

professional practice, and the process of incorporating a new employee into the

organisation. In order to protect the privacy of the interviewee, the identity of the

interviewee would be kept confidential, as was promised to them before.

Through the information gathered through the interview and the resources this

report discusses all the aspects of the VisAbility Australia. This paper outlines the

main findings of the interview related to the transition into workplace for new

employees.
 Context of the Agency

VisAbility is a community service organisation that provides a range of

services to the disabled people. They define their work in the following words:

For over 100 years, VisAbility has been providing practical, emotional and

peer support services to Western Australians with low or no vision. Our

professional therapy and support services are available to you at any stage of

life, in homes, at school, at work and in the community. We tailor our support

into personalised solutions that will nurture your skills and confidence so you

can live your life to the full. ("About VisAbility", 2020)

The services provided by the agency include independent living services, children

and youth services, guide dog services, and accessible information services.

Independent living services provided by the organisation include low vision

assessment, mobility, employment support, social work, etc. They also provide guide

dogs, therapy dogs, and companion dogs to those in need. The organisation also

works on making information more accessible to people with disabilities such as

braille production, audio production, and library services.

Organisational Structure

As for the organisation’s structure, it can be divided into the following parts:

governance, corporate services, operations, and engagement and development. The

Chief Executive Officer of the organisation is Dr Clare Allen. Board of Directors

choose the CEO. Other than that, the top governance is done by executive

management and Board, Audit, and Risk Committee. The corporate services sector

of the organisation includes Financial Services Department, IT department, Human

Resources, Property Management Department, Business Excellence Department,

and Quality Audit and Compliance Department. Operations includes Gateway

Services, Grants Government Relations, Dr. Geoff Gallop Resource Centre, Guide

Dog Services, and Therapy & Professional Services. Lastly, Engagement and

Development includes Marketing, Social Enterprise, Guide Dog Products,

Telemarketing, Philanthropy, and Fundraising. The interviewee sent the following

figure to explain the organisation’s structure and services:

 Barriers to Transition to Professional Practice

It is important for an organisation to help transition new employees to the

workplace. Usually it’s a big step for the learners to transition into practice because,

as a learner, their responsibilities and challenges are different. They get frequent

feedback as a learner while as a practitioner, feedback is rare and infrequent

(Baumann et al., 2018; Goodlet et al., 2020).

The interviewee explained some of the most important barriers to transition to

professional practice in VisAbility. Since the organisation employees a range of

community workers and therapists for provision of a wide array of services, the

barriers can sometimes be unique to some workers and not the others. Overall, it

was found out that the lack of community workers’ experience in the field,

challenging workload, and issues related to diversity pose significant challenges

during the transition to professional practice in VisAbility. Many community workers

are not equipped to deal the challenges and workload during the transition into

professional practice. This proves to be the most challenging issue. Other than that,

the lack of exposure to different cultures can be a point of barrier for some because

community work requires to be culturally sensitive and aware about different range of

cultures of the employees and clients both. This is why diversity training is an

important part of practice in VisAbility.

Apart from diversity and lack of experience among community workers,

resident therapists also face some barriers when transitioning to their job when first

starting out at VisAbility. Given the range of services provided by the agency, it is

challenging for the new therapists to deal with the clients’ needs effectively. VisAbility

has supervisors that help therapists deal with the clients’ needs by holding regular
supervision sessions about each specific cases. Lastly, professional processes for

transition are in place in VisAbility in order to help employees of every department

transition into their new jobs smoothly. These processes are discussed in the

following section of the report.

Professional Processes for Transition

The interview also shed light on how VisAbility handles the transition of new

employees. The new employees go through informal training in their grace period.

Those who are starting out their career right out of college have a formal training

program. They also get mentorship from senior employees who guide them about

their professional work. This is in addition to the certification that might be required

for their job. Other than that, diversity training happens repeatedly as well.

In order to manage stress in the employees, VisAbility provides counselling to

the employees and allows them to voice their concerns that may be causing them

stress through. This can be an anonymous or non-anonymous process.

Furthermore, mentorship programs and supervisors of caseworkers are also

designed to help employees channel their stress triggers and talk about them in a

conducive environment.

Conflict Management

Conflict management is one of the most important part of running a successful

organisation. High collaboration and low avoidance has been identified as the

successful approaches towards effective conflict management (Kay & Skarlicki,

2020). Conflict management needs to be culturally sensitive in order to effective for

all members (Brett, 2018). Poor conflict management can have drastic effects at
agency including decreased productivity of employees, reduced employee turnover,

increased absenteeism, and tension between employees.

Management of VisAbility attempts to minimise the conflicts between their

staff by following the conflict management process of the company with the help of

Human Resources. All conflicts that come before the management are resolved by

taking a number of steps by the management. First, the manager tries to understand

the conflict thoroughly. Then they facilitate communication between the two parties in

order to clear the facts of the conflicts and help them communicate their side to the

opposition. Then, the manager in charge of resolving the conflict brainstorms the

possible solutions to the given conflict. After consulting with the parties of the

conflict, the best resolution to the conflict is chosen. The manager comes up with the

plan of who will do what, when, and where. Finally, the implementation of the plan

takes places. This process is employed in order to resolve everyday differences

between the employees of the agency.

Stress Management

Stress management is also another important part of running an effective

agency. Employees tend to work better when stress is managed better and

management is responsive towards their needs (Tucker et al., 2013). When stress is

managed better, the employees are more productive and the healthcare costs are

also reduced (Lagrosen & Lagrosen, 2020; Lupien et al., 2009).

VisAbility provides counselling to the employees in order to help them with

their stress management. The agency also allows them to voice their concerns that

may be causing them stress through and attempts to mitigate their stress triggers in

the best way, considering the resources at hand. Depending upon the nature of
stress, this can be an anonymous or non-anonymous process. Furthermore,

mentorship programs and supervisors of caseworkers are also designed to help

employees channel their stress triggers and talk about them in a conducive

environment.

Performance Appraisal System in VisAbility

The performance appraisal system in VisAbility is the system that documents

and evaluates the performance of employees. Under the system, each employee is

given a clear and achievable set of goals or expectations, an ongoing feedback that

helps them meet those expectation, and measures through which their performance

against those goals will be evaluates. Supervisors and mentors are all obligated to

submit their evaluation criteria at the start of each cycle and a report of the

performance of the employee towards the end. Importance is given towards making

those goals relevant, achievable, measurable, and specific so that it is easier for

both the workers and the supervisors to follow these goals.

Feedback of the Presentation

The presentation about VisAbility Australia was to present the findings of the

interview about the internal systems of the organisation. The presentation covered

the above mentioned aspects of the organisation in detail. The feedback received for

the presentation was mostly positive. Most of the parts of the presentation were

accurate and were positively judged. The main issue identified in the feedback was

that the barriers to transition to professional practice were not adequately explained.

The feedback was incorporated in the report by adding more details about barriers to

transition of new therapists into the agency.

 References

About VisAbility. VisAbility. (2020). Retrieved 4 December 2020, from

https://www.visability.com.au/about-visability/.

Baumann, A., Hunsberger, M., Crea‐Arsenio, M., & Akhtar‐Danesh, N. (2018). Policy

to practice: Investment in transitioning new graduate nurses to the

workplace. Journal Of Nursing Management, 26(4), 373-381.

https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12540

Brett, J. (2018). Intercultural challenges in managing workplace conflict – a call for

research. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management,, 25(1), 32-53.

https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-11-2016-0190

Goodlet, K., Raymond, A., & Schlosser, E. (2020). A practical guide to feedback in

the workplace: Transitioning from learner to independent

practitioner. American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy, 77(15), 1196-

1199. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajhp/zxaa067

Kay, A., & Skarlicki, D. (2020). Cultivating a conflict-positive workplace: How

mindfulness facilitates constructive conflict managemen. Organizational

Behavior And Human Decision Processes, 159(1), 8-20.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.02.005

Lagrosen, S., & Lagrosen, Y. (2020). Workplace stress and health – the connection

to quality management. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 1-

14. https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2020.1807317
Lupien, S., McEwen, B., Gunnar, M., & Heim, C. (2009). Effects of stress throughout

the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition. Nature Reviews

Neuroscience, 10(6), 434-445. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2639

Tucker, M., Jimmieson, N., & Oei, T. (2013). The relevance of shared experiences: A

multi-level study of collective efficacy as a moderator of job control in the

stressor-strain relationship. Work & Stress, 27(1), 1-21.

https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2013.772356