Ms Flora Hsieh, head of Operations Management, doesn’t like to work in too cozy environment.  She left American commercial banks and joined Junyi Academy.  Ms Hsieh has always wanted to become a warm and influential figure.  Junyi would be a stepping stone for achieving that.  During this interview, we learn the story of Ms Hsieh and the effect of operations management on Junyi Academy.

       I grew up in Tainan and come to Taipei for further education.  I joined a bank right after I left college.  Having spent 3 years in the banking industry, I wanted a change of scenery. My junior schoolmate who works for Teach for Taiwan (“TFT” hereinafter) gave me an introduction of this domain, the active parties in it and what they do.  Joining Junyi is just a matter of coincidence.
        When one spends much time and effort to learn and practice a skill, the skill would eventually become your nature and edge.  When the nature of his work does not change substantially, he would become very efficient.  It is my particular attribute that I need a lot of new novelties as stimuli.  If I am to work on the same stuff for too long, I might get rusty.  It is just like staying in a comfort zone for too long.

      I want to try out new thing from time to time. The same applies to my previous, current and future job.  Whether it is Junyi Academy or another organization actually does not matter.  I just wanted a challenging position where I can learn.

        The Junyi team consists of people with different backgrounds and expertise. There are software development, content development and marketing expertise in the Junyi team.  Such an environment fits very much with me.  I would always choose an organization with diversified functions.
        Junyi has opened my eyes to the what the society needs and what I have to do that really means something to the society.  In this perspective, it was Junyi that gave me a hand.  However, there are actually a lot of lines of business where one can do something that matters.

      Operations Management requires a lot of people and resources.  Operations Management serves a lot of functions including financial management, funding raising, marketing, human resources, administration, after-school tutoring etc.  We place the staff in different teams according to requirements and functions.  There are interns in each team.  Some interns have fixed positions, some are project based.  Operation Management is not like general affairs office or disciplinary office that manages pupils.  Each staff has his own goal.  Every one of them takes initiative to achieve his goal.

        There is no difference.  We are a NPO.  We differ in sources of income, profit handling, where to use money and the corresponding distribution.  For normal companies, surplus is distributed to shareholders and supporters.  For NPO, surplus is spent only on things that are completely aligned with the purpose of the NPO.  In Junyi, surplus is always spent on the platform instead of distributed to staff.
       We all wish that NPOs are well supported.  NPOs can produce products and services for the public.  In this perspective, there is no difference between NPO and normal companies.  NPOs are not volunteers that provide services for free, but organizations with optimized structure and professional management.  NPO and normal companies are actual identical to me.

      Yes, funding is covered in operations management.  We are currently supported by commercial organizations and the general public.  They are the major sources of income.  Upon establishment, Junyi Academy was financially supported by the board of directors.  That allows us to focus primarily on the product which is the Junyi platform.  Upon the launch of the platform, we obtained immediately feedback from the early adopters who were teachers and pupils.  Subsequently, donation from the public started to grow whereas less financial support from the board of director were required.  Eventually, we are substantially supported by the commercial sector and general public.

        That means a lot us.  Roughly over TWD 10 million which cover about 1/3 of the annual budget.  That is excellent for us.  Junyi has been running for 5 years and will be running for a number of years.  With such regular fixed income, we get to have advanced view on the 1/3 of the resources.  We can work even harder to get more support that allows us to go further.  Don’t forget that our primary objective is to provide the Junyi service at no charge.

      We have four persons working together on the fan page of this Michelin project.  It was actually our common leisure interest that drives us to work together every Sunday on this project.  We initially did it for fun.  We love taking pictures and videos.  All of a sudden, it just took off.  We post new articles on the Facebook page every Sunday.  We don’t do it for particular purpose but for fun.  We are supposed to be cooking anyway.  The extra work is the taking photos and uploading.

     Yes.  Every team has different plans every year.  Some teams expand faster and need more staff.  Existing staff would be given priority in selecting new vacancies.  If one is interested in a position in another team, we would do prior discussion and evaluation.  If the result is positive, the movement would take place.
       Job rotation is actually dependent upon personal inclination, e.g. Eric Chung, the one with whom you did the interview just now, who started as an engineer, had moved to the marketing team and then to the content development now.  It very much depends on personal interest and capabilities. Put myself as an example, I’ve never write software programs. Even if I ask for rotating to the software development team, do you think the boss would give it a green light.

       The working relationship in such a team is very much different from yours in school.  Responsibilities are assigned to you and you don’t get to choose them.  When you are managing a task that requires your decision in school, the decision would affect yourself only.  In the business world, you evaluate the product, company culture, the target audiences, the team before making decision.  Once you choose a position, your join a team that works together towards a common goal instead for your own sake.  Your team is responsible for what you do.  Relationship between teammates is about respect and accommodating different opinions.  Respect is very important for teamworking given that each team member has different backgrounds and mindset.  No matter an opinion is right or wrong, the team has to be able to stomach it.  Respect and accommodating different opinion are the basic requirements for teamwork.  A good team is essentially diversified which infers that there is a variety of voices.  The 2nd characteristic is openness, accommodatingness and respect.  It is weird that if one wants diversified voices, but doesn’t want to hear others’ voices.  These criteria are essential.

        Ms Hsieh told us that a good team essentially embraces diversification and a accommodatingness.  These are common attributes in the team that help achieve objectives.  She also told us that Junyi’s income primarily based upon donation of general public and commercial organizations.  These money has to be spent in a way that is in line with the donors’ expectation which is optimization of the Junyi platform for helping maximum number of children.