Background
In Abu Dhabi, establishment of transportation department was having a single objective of unified governance of all transportation aspect in a single authority house. All of the transportation channels and medium like air transport, ports and land transportation, maritime and public transport – aimed to be controlled by a single authority. So, General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and the Department of Civil Aviation, the Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA) and Department of Seaports (SPA) were put together and responsibilities were delegated.
Introduction
Established in 2006 under Law no. 4, the Department of Transport is aimed at fulfilling all requirements of commuting and governed by one single organizational unit (Kahlifa, 2006). Its purpose is to control and navigate all activities that take place in the commuting services in air, land, sea in respect to public transport. Being a sole entity, the Department of Transport is aiming at providing high standard services and building its infrastructure while keeping an international environmental standard in view when it aims at acquiring ISO standard certifications. As the department is structured, the local and federal government agencies are also involved in the process to initiate adherence to rules and procedures.
Vision
To deliver an effective transport system that contributes to the economic growth, quality of life and environmental sustainability of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Mission
Regulate, plan and develop an efficient and well-integrated transport system that serves the public interest by enhancing mobility and delivering safe, secure and environmentally responsible Aviation, Maritime, Public Transport and Highways sectors.
Values
Department of Transport is working according to six core values which reflect the way we manage our daily business, enabling us to accomplish our tasks in an effective manner, and these values are:
- Excellence
- Commitment
- Integrity
- Cooperation
- Transparency
- Efficiency
Strategic Objectives According to the Strategic Plan
- Human Resources Services
- Coordination of plans and policies, regulations and strategies
- Monitoring and oversight of the economic sector
- Economic Development of the sector
- Waterways management
- Governance and Management Framework
- Public Transport capacity
- Transportation means change
- Integration of multiple forms
- Quality
- Security and safety
- Tools and information for policy design
- Development of the network and increase its accessibility
- To maintain and develop the roads
- Efficiency of the network
- Safety
- Environmental Protection
DoT Contribution to Abu Dhabi Vision
In plan Abu Dhabi 2030, trade and transportation was focused. The transport department is not only going to help establish a diversified economy but also facilitate the development of a number of areas such as tourism etc. Once the integrated transport system is purposefully examined, it is obvious that the needs of the people are being met with diligence ensuring the sanctity of the community welfare.
DoT Partners and Stakeholders
EFQM focuses on the stakeholders and partners to identify the duties and responsibilities in the Department of Transport in Abu Dhabi (Adjd-Web, 2009).
Transport System in Abu Dhabi
The transport system is divided into three areas, land, sea and air which call for relative roles and responsibilities of respective stakeholders to achieve their objectives.
Roles of the Aviation Sector
The role is to develop and supervise aviation economic regulations and to coordinate with GCAA (GCAA-Web, 2011) regulations and to evaluate performance and promote the development of aviation sector.
Roles of the Maritime Sector
To develop, coordinate and oversee maritime regulations along with ADPC’s strategic planning efforts while evaluating performance to promote development of maritime sector.
Roles of the Land Transport Sector
The role is to develop, provide and oversee a hired vehicle and to monitor, evaluate, mange traffic and oversee the implementations of highways infrastructure development plans. These roles also integrated a monitor and performance evaluating module in it as well.
Market Needs
The Department of Transport devised a strategic plan to take charge of its new activities and the strategic planning will be subject to external and internal audits and assessments based on the organizational environment. The organization is aimed at acquiring knowledge in social, technical and legal realms so that the overall performance is in accordance with its macro environment and not against any social boundary. It believes that Learning organizations always take the lead in the corporate world as they continue building up their strengths as per the market requirement.
The data gathered from the market is analyzed to reveal the most optimum conditions to do business and to establish a state-of-the-art service provided to clients that the customers appreciate and marvel the level of customer service that they are getting. A good business strategy is always revealed profitably and reputably in the market which is the primary focus of the organization here. The department was formed under a market need for a unification of all commuting sources to be managed by one single entity, so as the commuting sources differ, the need of strategy development requires a wider perspective and definitely as per the requirements of the market and the service.
Strategy Development
Understanding internal performance and capabilities
To formulate a strategy, it is important for an organization to know what they are capable of and what they can actually perform, thus, pointing at the strengths and the weaknesses of the organization itself. As the internal assessment progresses, the key performance indicators for the human resource is set and the capability of collaboration between other departments is measured, the holistic approach can be aimed for. The operational plans for the years passed point at a necessity of a concentrated focus towards the internal capabilities, and the ability to deal with market threats and opportunities, which have been greatly integrated to overcome any possible shortcomings in the system. Effective tools of internal assessments are being made and the relative steps were taken through efficient methods to make sure that the assessment is accurate.
Strategy and supporting policies are developed, reviewed, and updated
The Department is in the process of developing, reviewing and updating the policies which are an outcome of strategic planning. All stakeholders, internal and external are actively invited to participate in this process to provide constructive feedback and to create a set of policies which would prevail in the organization. The SWOT analysis can help the department in gathering strengths and weaknesses whilst focusing on threats and opportunities in the market. The strategic forum which is established for a better performance era is being re-evaluated for future and current market prospective based on the SWOT. Once the plan is formulated and implemented, timely assessments will be made to make sure that the plan is steady and not deviating from its original course. This would help the organization to create a core competency which is projecting a complete make-over of the transport industry.
Strategy and supporting policies are communicated, implemented, and monitored
A strategy unless evaluated can never be effective, thus the department has made plans to review the strategy in a timely manner to make sure that it remains steady to fulfill its purpose in the market.
People
Human care is highly cared for in the Department of Transport since they regard their human resource as the higher most resource. The dedication that the employees exhibit is highly remarkable, and it is achieved through a wide set of strategies that are being implemented in the organization pertaining to the employee welfare. The leadership of the organization is in charge of creating strategic plans that cover the organizational goals as well the personal goals of the organization. based on international standards, the department is still looking forward to implement a higher degree of departmental working so that the objectives of the company are provisions of enabling the employees to perform at a steady pace which is almost always productive. As the feedback is collected from the employees, the organization restructures the company policies to ease done the employment burden to balanced level.
People Plans Support the Organization’s Strategy
Organizational development has been implemented since the organizations workforce has been aligned with its vision and the job that it performs was according to the assigned functional requirement. The element of creativity in jobs is enhanced and the outcome has been a better productive performance as the creativity and innovation was taken into account to maintain a healthy work environment. The development of different methodologies regarding manpower and development of job description and the satisfaction level of employees are enforced to create key inputs in the work flow and the opinions of the employees are regarded as a positive feedback to make the processes better. The restricting of processes is incremental and holistic in nature to ensure a consistency in the organizational health derived from organizational health check study. All practices and procedures that evolve are connected to the organizational strategy.
Develop people’s knowledge and capabilities
The department of transport of Abu Dhabi has established a list of mechanisms which can develop the people of the organization. As the department set out a list of responsibilities following certain methods which are crucially designed to aid the human resource department and its services, the knowledge, skills and abilities of the employees are being utilized to its maximum potential and through the relative methods, the performance is measured to make sure that their training in a comprehensive manner is yielding results and are in accordance with the plan set out to enhance the human resource of the organization.
The department analyzed the shortcomings to be addressed and a proper system has been laid out to analyze and review the performance of the leaders who lead the work force into a new realm of employee loyalty and motivation to increase the overall performance of the organization and to fill up the ability and skill gaps that keep the employees from performing at their optimum level. The leaders program called ‘Future Leaders Program’ has been staged out to strategically explore the leadership qualities and the respective application of them in potential employees.
Human Resource Alignment, Involvement, and Empowerment
Empowerment of human resource has established a wide variety of benchmarked goals to be incorporated as a set of activities which are internationally accepted and designed as per standards.
A human resource department develops job description and the department started following them in 2007 and revised them in 2009 with a plan to be updated in 2011 pertaining to all vacancies that might arise in the organization. Policies and their transparency are of utmost importance where the parameters of authority are aligned and made to fit the corporate policies. The current reforms accommodate all these clauses to ensure a better work environment and a responsible team building to comply with customer satisfaction.
Communicating Effectively Throughout the Organization
Organizational levels across departments require a better communication system so that an open door policy can be enforced in order to address issues and grievances by considering the importance of opinions that the employees hold.
Considering the communication channels that are in place, the department has planned to enhance them to a higher level in order to establish a better communication system in the organization and to work with suggestions to make sure that the innovative ideas are being considered for implementation. As the departmental heads conduct meetings with the employees socially, there is a better chance of creating a unique solution. This methodology is currently in practice and has produced immaculate results overall in the organization so the same is pursued with zeal to initiate a larger channel of solution provisions.
The DoT has created an effective communication channel where people can communicate and receive feedbacks which are constructive so that all organizational levels can establish a seamless communication network based on valuable suggestions. As the current system fulfils the purpose remarkably, the motivation to reduce response times and effective suggestion handling has not been ignored.
Primary concern
The primary concern of the department has been to establish a vertical and horizontal communication inside the organization and across department to share the knowledge with a view of developing an effective learning organization which employs systematic procedures to specialize in restructuring and adopting geographical distribution for land, air, maritime and support services. The networks help in the creation of training, recruiting and other HR activities to make them smooth and efficient.
Reward, Recognition, and Care
As the human reward systems have been reviewed and successfully implemented incrementally, processes for rewards and recognitions are made through constructive inputs from all departmental heads. The promotions were communicated in 2010. As the relevance to the resources and the methodological mechanisms are encouraged, the department has internally worked with stakeholders and the motivation process has been adopted to furnish new planning and development ideas.
The department of transport has achieved considerable proposals out of which some of been implemented and that has yielded procedural increments that are being used to recognize employees and reward them accordingly.
Rewarding employees has been considered and thoroughly reviewed to initiate the achievement of excellence. Recognition and application of best practices found by previous analysis has been implemented, published and communicated to constantly focus on motivation and encouragement.
The HR department has been improved to a level where motivation and incentives criteria has been regulated and the overall reward system for employees has been devised to make sure that they are rewarded for achieving excellence and can be motivated to achieve it. The reward system will enable employees to establish a solid organizational value furthermore, while still excelling in it at the present time.
Sustainable review and improvement
The fairness of evaluation has been implemented by improved and developed methods so that the procedures are made effective enough to be performed, just as the current procedures were implemented.
The department has reviewed and evaluated various practices to improve the HR performance to bring it up to optimum performance level with international standards. The current standards in place are in accordance with international standards as well, however, once the organization aims and achieves an ISO certificate, the incremental process will be official.
Processes, Products, and Services
Processes are designed and managed to optimize stakeholder value
To increase the stakeholder’s value, the department has created different set of services based on very crucial points and criterion for processes, services and products to establish systematic processes and their management, amplifying customer satisfaction and managing employees based on their feedback and suggestions so that the processes can be made better altogether. Currently, the products and services are in place to impress not only the customers but also the stakeholders, while the holistic approach is set to further exemplify the efforts being made by the Transport Organization.
International practices have played a role in making these practices up to the standards ISO 9000:2008 and looking to obtain the certification in 2011. A complete process has been designed to identify the process and design and documenting them along with planning an optimum performance level without duplication, to produce a streamlined process which can enhance the organizational performance.
To make this a reality, the department has been conducting audits and review processes internally and externally to make the support operations smooth and documented with the help of an automated documentation system for any future consideration and incremental development.
Products and services are developed to create optimum value for customers
With a contribution of customer satisfaction results, suggestions and complaints of the stakeholders and secret shopper program and audits coupled with best global practices, the services were analyzed and reviewed so come up with ideas to provide customers a greater value originating from innovative and creative procedures. Mobile phone payments, ladies parking slots, issuance of parking fines from an automated system and complaint management systems have been used along with automated geographic information system with the name of (darb) has been implemented to provide optimum value for customers.
Products and services are effectively promoted and marketed
An effective marketing strategy has been developed to ensure an efficient promotion of services including SWOT for its services marketing with clear objectives that matched the strategic objectives. The strategy itself helped in identifying the services to be promoted for target markets and catering different types of customers. This was done with the involvement of partners and customers externally with the leading vision and aspirations of the department and the work force. As the organization grows to be highly receptive towards the market, it has been making its processes better and yet better for achieving excellence in the promotion and marketing of its services.
Products and services are produced, delivered and managed
After the application of the methodology, the customer satisfaction was increased and the relative communication helped in aligning the customer interests with that of expectations of the Government of Abu Dhabi by applying international practices. Before the launch of Mawaqef service, a thorough, pilot testing was done and the integration was made with the involvement of other departments such as judiciary, police and DOT. To improve the services further, the inspectors and customer services representatives were provided extensive training to be fit to suit the needs of the customers, so the organization can holistically produce, deliver and manage the services and products.
Customer relationships are managed and enhanced
The department focused on relationship, communication, complaints, and suggestions of external customers and this has been implemented successfully by meetings with external customers and considering their feedback. As the customer feedback is integrated, the Mawaqef users increased coming up to three categories of users, customer service users, Mawaqef users and bus users. Advice and counseling is also being provided through fliers. All these practices helped in increasing the customer satisfaction.
Reviewing and improvement and development
The department is aimed at gauging the impact and then making the improvements in the fifth criterion based on audits. A survey in 2010 conducted by department of organizational development for organizational health check considered and updated the processes to get the ISO certificate in 2011. Integration and establishment of committees and communication helped in improving the customer service by interviews which were taken by applying these methodologies.
Conclusion
Abu Dhabi Department of Transport established in 2006 aimed at better control and management of all transportation mediums and channels was commissioned in 2008 in a broader sense of responsibilities. Primary vision of transport department was to contribute in economic growth which was driven by a great mission of effective planning and development having core values of commitment, excellence, efficiency and integrity.
References
Adjd-Web. (2009). Abu Dhabi Judicial Department trainees pass EFQM Excellence Assessor course in Brussels . Web.
GCAA-Web. (2011). GCAA and GCAS Sign a Cooperation Agreement to Develop Specialized Human Resources. Web.
Kahlifa, B. (2006). Law number (4) of 2006: Regarding the creation of the Department of Transport. Abu Dhabi Government.