Positions Within Second Harvest Of Middle Tennessee example essay topic

The subject of my career shadow was Scott Cornwell, whose job is Vice President of Operations for Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee. This particular branch of Second Harvest has recently been awarded Food Bank of the year out of the two hundred and twenty food banks under the jurisdiction of America's Second Harvest, the largest organization for fighting hunger in the world. This branch has seen very significant growth from the time Scott began working there in 1996 as a transportation manager, having worked as a regional manager and other positions for South Eastern Trucking Lines. The function of Second Harvest, a not-for-profit organization, has since changed from a simple distributor of food to homeless or starving families, to a much larger distributor, a producer and supplier of the food, a warehouse for the food, and a transportation hub for many other food banks across America.

Our day began by taking a tour of the year-old facility that is the base of operations for Second Harvest in all Middle Tennessee, located in the Metro Center business community. A massive complex, the building is nearly seventy thousand square-feet and is located on an eleven-acre plot of land. The building includes over twelve thousand square-feet of freezer and cooler space, over twenty-two thousand feet of dry storage, a fully equipped processing and packaging area for preparing food, a media / culinary arts center, ten thousand square-feet of office space on both floors, and enough loading and unloading area for six semi-trucks and numerous smaller transportation vehicles to be simultaneously docked. It became quickly apparent exactly how expansive Scott's responsibilities are within the company. The general structure of the business is divided into six-main categories: Operations, Finance and Human Resources, Program Services, Technical Services and Special Projects, Development, Donor Relations, and Community and Media Relations. As stated earlier, Scott is in charge of the Operations department.

Under his control are the four managers within Operations: the Transportation Manager, the Warehouse Manager, the Good Drive and Sorting Manager, and the Inventory Control Manager. Scott's position requires him to monitor the productivity of the different sections and be able to provide accurate and up-to-date feedback on efficiency, revenue, and other important aspects. He must have a full grasp of all elements of his department so that he can utilize this information to understand how it affects the overall productivity level. It seems odd to say that he must monitor the revenue of his departments, as Second Harvest is a not-for-profit organization, but the business does use monetary means to achieve its end goal of fighting hunger. As well as through accepting donations, Second Harvest also acquires its food from major commercial food distributors' leftover goods. The company will buy this food in extreme bulk and with special government incentive discounts for being a non-profit organization.

This food is then either sold at an extremely low price to other food banks, or simply distributed accordingly to the disadvantaged. From this standpoint, the more food you can buy the more be a help for the overall cause of the organization. This explains why monitoring revenue and the monetary efficiency of his department's processes is an important task for the Operations department. Though much of his job is very data intensive, not all of Scott's work revolves around number crunching. Since the building is only a year old and fairly problem-free, they do not have a full-time maintenance person on duty.

Scott has unofficially taken this role as well, replacing and ordering expendable equipment such as light-bulbs or air-conditioning parts in his spare-time. Presenting and attending frequent meetings is also another day-to-day aspect of his office life. The data aspect of his duties does require the majority of his work-time despite the other parts. Scott says that a background in accounting, finance, and a good bit of industrial engineering are all helpful. He received most of these skills from classes that he took in college earning a degree in business. Scott says that an MBA, while it would most likely be helpful in getting the position as head of Operations, is not a requirement or a necessity.

His trucking background is also helpful, since a large portion of his job still involves transportation. As well as enjoying the mathematic and business side of his job, Scott also receives fulfillment from his career in knowing that through his efforts he is helping people in need. Working in the business of fighting hunger, he has come to understand the true size of the epidemic and has become very ardent to its cause. He also says that the work environment created by working with other similarly-driven people is a very good one and makes work an enjoyable place to be. Scott's dislikes about his job are few.

Mainly, working for a not-for-profit organization means that revenue is not always constant and difficult financial decisions must be continually made. These stresses from the decisions are occasionally heavy. To deal with the inherent stress and still remain successful his position, general skills he must utilize are an understanding of and ability to achieve process improvement and flow management, mathematics, and budgeting and financing proficiency. Scott enjoys and has a talent for dealing with these sorts of issues, but for the managers that are less familiar with these elements there is ongoing training available in these areas. Classes and conferences are provided by the Center for Non-Profit Management, but, while helpful, these classes only provide education and not licensing.

The advancement opportunities within this field are also available, though difficult to come by. The not-for-profit industry has a low turnover rate for its employees; so many positions remain occupied for long periods of time. With hard work and some luck, the larger positions are worked into and usually not hired from outside the company. Scott himself has changed job-titles three times in the past six years, and each shift was to a larger position in the company.

While from this point he could only advance two more positions within Second Harvest of Middle Tennessee, there are also jobs available at the larger national level of America's Second Harvest. Scott says that he does not plan to pursue these higher positions as he feels comfortable in his current place in the company. He enjoys his job and the salary he has reached allows him a comfortable enough lifestyle to support himself and his family. He says that while non-profit salaries are generally ten percent less than their commercial counter-parts, the benefits that non-profit organizations provide are outstanding and more than make up the difference. The company has very good insurance plans, and a tax-differed retirement program which is basically an amplified 401 k for non-profit employees.

There are no union affiliations within the company as there usually are not in non-profit organizations. There are, on the other hand, many monitoring groups such as OSHA, USDA, the FDA, and others that uphold standards necessary for the transportation and warehousing of large quantities of food. Scott has worked very hard to get where he is today, and is happy with the things he has achieved. His dedicated work within Second Harvest, along with the efforts of many other people, has changed the business much for the better in only a few years.

With this new growth, however, there are also many added responsibilities. Scott must stay aware of his work environment at all times to properly satisfy these duties. Through all of this work, he still manages to help people in the end, and even take out a day to show someone all it is that he does.