Change Management and Conflict Resolution

[Leonard Robinson Chin]

In any organizational change, it is a best practice that decision can only be made on visible data. This is to promote a transparent organization which is a main contributing factor for employees to work in a collaborative mode. As the scenario given above an extensive change in the organization, a thorough selection of data to support the decisions to be taken is needed. To support the decision, both qualitative as well as quantitative data should be gathered which can compromise of the following:

1. List of current activities and their deliverables including man hours needed to complete the activities from each employee. This can give a clear indication of the activities that done by the employees as well as the efforts needed and can be used as a basis to streamline the activities and remove activities that do not focus on value when crafting out the new organization structure.

2. Career development plans for each employee should also be looked at to gauge the career aspirations of the employees. If it does not exist, the managers should work with their employees to complete one. This careen development plans will assist in determining and alignment of future work assignment and upskilling needed for the employees against the new organization structure. This will greatly assist in staff retention and employees accepting the changes and ensuring that the organizational change is successful.

3. Staff feedback is also via avenues such as employee satisfaction surveys to gauge what the employees is happy and not happy with. Areas which they are happy with should be leverage upon when crafting the new organization structure and areas of dissatisfaction improved upon. This re-organization activity can be a golden opportunity to improve staff satisfaction, retention and ultimately improve performance.

In order to maximize success of the organizational change that is intended.

The Kotter’s 8 step approach can be used. Here is a summary of the 8 steps and the activities that could be done to support this organization change that we have:

1. Create a sense of urgency

The reasons of the organization changes must be clearly and openly communicated to the employees for them to understand why the change is critical and what are the re-percussion if this change is not done.

2. Build a guiding coalition

To ensure a smooth roll out of this organization change a steering committee made up of presentative from all levels of the organization involved is needed. These members can be change agents to promote the organizational change and be SPOCs to assist in disseminating information and gathering feedback from their teams.

3. Form a strategic vision and initiatives

A clear vision and mission statement needs to be formulate and cascade down to each team for this organizational change.

4. Communicate for Buy-In

Promotion of the vision and mission of the change is also important via the use of collaterals such as button badges or posters on the walls. Behaviors that demonstrate adoption of this new ways be rewarded through incentive programs.

5. Empower Action

Assist to remove barriers and roadblocks that would prevent the organization change being successful. If upskill or reskilling is required, then such programs should involve everyone that is impacted by the organization change.

6. Create Short Term Wins
Quick wins are best way to get people’s buy-in. Such low hanging fruits can use to quickly demonstrate value about the organizational change. If people can see for themselves the benefits of the change, it would be easier for them to want to participate and adopt it. Instead of a big bang approach to this organizational change, smallest parts can be implement first so employees can see the benefits such as the use of automation which can save their time.

7. Don’t Let Up

Once you have gain the buy-in from step 6, move forward with large parts of the initiative. With the support, this step should be easier especially is the initiative is large.

8. Make Change Stick

The new organization structure and its way of working should be a regular way and the old way should be forgotten. The change should be institutionalized and made the official way moving forward.

[Nur Aina Azizan]

Your explanation is so need. Thank you so sharing the info. So what do you think that we can focus when we are talking about the staff feedback. Is it more on the benefits to the staff or job satisfaction ?

[Pub Hon Low]

Collecting the feedback from the employees is crucial for the company to discover the room of improvement on the management. It may help to improve the company’s strategy on the hiring and training policy as well.

[Mahalakshmi Pavithra A/P Sukumaran]

great sharing

[Qairul Muzzammil Kamaruzaman]

To consult Informational Systems in implementing the organizational change, I would follow steps in Kotter’s Change Management Theory, and for this, I would require supporting data on work load of Finance and HR, their overhead cost and efficiency. To confirm this, I would also do an interview/questionnaire depending on the size to get a balanced view from both side. To implement this, I will get the management specifically and whole company in general to agree with this exercise by creating urgency top down from board meeting and cascaded to town hall sessions.

In order this exercise can be initiated, I will get a team consist of top and middle management as well as regional key players to be set up as steering committee and assist the process.

Our proposal is to centralize the roles and functions of Finance and HR, and at the same time keeping the same headcount, by shifting their roles and responsibilities thru rebranding them as Finance and HR Business partners, working closer with delivery organizations.

Another part of our proposal is to realign product departments by restructuring these teams based on regions for a smoother governance, compared to current customer segmentation.

Together with the steering committee we come up with a proposal for the change and get the management approval, then we will make clear the plan throughout the company.

There will be some challenges from regional as well as central throughout this exercise, further short sessions with the concerned employees to get them onboard and understand the bigger picture will be the additional task for the steering committee.

Potentially challenging situations and persons will be identified in the earlier part of the journey, based on gathered data as well as questionnaires/interviews.

We will set a feasible short and medium target for the whole company strive to achieve and celebrate these wins to increase the moral boost. These shirt and medium targets can also be used as the tool to help guide the change momentum throughout the company.

Finally we will set these changes as the corporate culture via direct, open and conclusive communication throughout the company, starting from the management and pass back the steering to the IS Management Board.

[Maizatulziah Modin]

There are two main concerns that I could understand from the situation given. (1) The change shall not impact the employee, which means no job losses. (2) Form a new department from the existing team.

Based on the two concerns above, I could say that the best model to be implemented is ADKAR Model. Let’s see the process model that can help to justify the decision-making.

1. Current – the existing structure of the company
As a lead, I should thoroughly look at all the possible needs and requirements of change. Then, to bring the necessary needs (i.e employee feedback) to be part of the change.
In this case, there are two requirements, to centralize Finance and HR due to reduce duplication job function and to decentralize existing team
Both activities refer to Awareness and Desire (A and D)

2. Transition – to prepare and perform transitions to the new structure
In this case, to retain existing workers and avoid job loss, the appropriate training or re-skill shall be conducted to help existing workers cope with the new role and organization structure.
This phase is to look at those possibilities to drive the change and ensure that employees participate and understand. It is also to incorporate the change regularly.
All activities refer to Knowledge and Ability (K and A)

3. Future – the new department, role, and structure
In this case, the new team has formed while Finance and HR merged.
Once the transition happens, it is to keep the new changes and policy reinforced and implemented. It shall continue to support employee and organization (i.e training, upskill) to ensure no one is left behind, to cope and adapt to the new structure.
The activity refers to Reinforcement (R)

Those processes stated above which are referred to as ADKAR can help to decide and go through the change management process with minimum risk (employee lost job, employee skill).

[Pavala Malar Nadan A/L Mariappan .]

Hi Mai, very good explanation, by breaking down on the change activities, you demonstrated on how to utilize ADKAR model to implement these change steps effectively. Seems like you have project management experience.

[Maizatulziah Modin]

Thanks Nadan. Yes, I am in the project management field 🙂

[Leonard Robinson Chin]

The ADKAR model is indeed very useful in the organizational setting change management. I have personally seen this model being used by an organization as part of an awareness campaign when they launch Microsoft Office 365 in the organization. They were migrating away from Lotus Mail system. This model was proven to be effective in creating the awareness and acceptance of the new productivity tools.

[Yaamini Renganathan]

Agreed. I was Lotus mail user and I find it outlook is more user friendly.

[Bachevinder Singh A/L Param Singh @ Bob]

Agree with you Mai.

Change is often necessary and important so that a company remains relevant and continues to deliver viable solutions to a growing customer base. But, while a company and its executives may recognize the need for change management, employees may be resistant since change can be hard and uncomfortable. The ADKAR change model has been proven to help individuals understand and accept change so companies can successfully innovate and become more efficient.

[Pavala Malar Nadan A/L Mariappan .]

In order to ensure sound data-driven decisions, I would have carried out the following data gathering steps from department leaders and their subordinates.

I would have engaged with the departments leaders to find out information such as:

1. What are each department’s goals? This is to gauge whether these departments’ goals are complements with each other’s goals and align with the organization’s mission and vision.

2. What is the current work structure? This is for me to analyze the business unit’s hierarchy, span of control and departments’ culture.

3. Obtain details on the employees’ roles and responsibility of the affected department to identify the scope of work and their duties. These data are beneficial to identify roles that are redundant and outline plans to optimize their productivity.

4. Gain information on employee’s career opportunities, current rewards, and compensation to ensure there will be minimal or no undesired impact in these schemes when change take place. This information also to be used to synchronize when centralization of Finance and HR department take place.

Besides the above, I would have used purposeful sampling strategy to get subordinates to participate in interview session to find information on the following:

1. Gauge the level of their understanding on organization’s mission and vision.

2. To assess whether organization’s culture foster positive relationships among employees. Does employee feel generally positive about their work environment?

3. To evaluate the level of trust within their organization.

4. Employees’ feedback on what can be improve with current process or organization’s structure.

I would use the information obtained from both leaders and subordinates to determine the organization’s fitness and readiness for change. Then, devise a strategy to manage it forward thus mitigating risk and increasing the likelihood of success.

For this scenario, in my opinion the best strategy to implement the change is by using Kotter’s 8-step change model management theory. Rather than focusing exclusively on the project, Kotter’s model focuses extensively on the persons facing the changes.

Step One: Create urgency.

Create a sense of urgency to persuade others that they must act right away. Create a compelling argument for change so that others can see why it is important.

Step Two: Build a coalition.

It is not sufficient to try to push through change by ourselves. We need key people in the organization to support the change. We must aim for leaders who are influential and well-liked by their subordinates to be on our side. We need support from leaders from various parts of the organization who, when combined, have enough power to effect change.

Step Three: Create a vision for change.

We need a clear picture of how we envision the future organization and why change is important. People who will be affected by the change must be able to understand the vision.

Step Four: Communicate the vision.

By communicating vision clearly, it will win hearts and mind to get everyone pulling in the same course. In this stage, clear and laser-focused communication is crucial.

Step Five: Empower others to act on the vision.

The change coalition must remove any obstacles or roadblocks in the way of the team’s implementation of the vision. The change coalition empowers the team to succeed by removing barriers.

Step Six: Create short-term wins.

Major transformation can take long time, people might lose faith if they do not see any signs of progress. Need to structure initiative to deliver quick wins early on by breaking the initiative down into phases with 1 or more tangible benefits delivered at the end of each phase.

Step Seven: Build on the change.

Some change takes time, so there is a substantial possibility of people relapsing to old process. Need to continuously repeat steps four through six of the model by communicating the vision, empowering others, and scheduling quick wins.

Step Eight: Anchor the changes in corporate culture.

In this step, we make the change stick. The change must be embedded into the organizational systems and processes.

[Qairul Muzzammil Kamaruzaman]

Great approach Nadan. This can comes in handy.

[Jaya Bharat Chebrolu]

You used the data you collected in order to arrive at the most-informed decisions possible regarding changes to the organization.
What steps would you follow and what information would you collect to ensure sound data-driven decisions? Describe how you would implement the following:
To ensure sound data driven decision i would more emphasize on the well-all rounded data analysis with the actual data that knows the business well and posses sharp organizational acumen in any given industry and competitive market. It helps in Establishing this foundational knowledge will equip you to make better inferences with your data later on focusing on the better results.

Know your mission:
We begin to make a good survey identifying feedback from the business through questions and then to answer those with organizational goals. This determines what you exactly and how to apply your strategy and equips you to make better choices in the organization goals. The example set by a few at the top can catalyze substantial shifts in company-wide norms.
Identify data sources :

Coordinating your various sources seems simple, but finding common variables among each dataset can present a tremendously difficult problem. It can be easy to settle for the immediate goal of utilizing the data for your current purpose alone, but it’s wise to determine whether or not this data could also be used for additional projects in the future. If so, you should strive to develop a strategy to present the data in a way that’s accessible in other scenarios as well.

Clean and organized data:

Surprisingly, 80 percent of a data analyst’s time is devoted to cleaning and organizing data, and only 20 percent is spent actually performing analysis. This so-called “80/20 rule” illustrates the importance of having clean, orderly information before you can attempt to interpret what it might mean for your organization. By working out exactly what you need to know, you can focus on the collected data and effective decisions that you really need and implement in the organization.

Identify the alternatives : As we collect the information you will probably identify several possible paths of action or alternatives and also use our imagination and additional information’s to construct new alternatives in a step wise manner creating possible desirable alternatives and we need to make sure the insights gained from your data are used to inform decision making and, ultimately, improve performance.

Turning insights into actions:

Remain competitive among forward-thinking companies that do use data to their advantage Data-driven companies are more customer focused and enjoy a deeper insight into the customer and their journey.

Cost-effective – it can be costly to store large volumes of data, especially if you only use it for compliance purposes.

Detect new or missed opportunities, helping your company grow and improve regularly and Become more agile and better able to respond to markets.

[Saiful Bahtiar Mat]

I would propose to use 5Ps Model.

The first “P” is purpose. The purpose of change management is to meet the organisation’s goal or vision. From the vision, we can identify the design of the new organisation. With purpose, decisions about what to change or the level of change can be identified since the gap is known and communication to rationale the change is going to be manageable.

The second “P” is priorities for change which involve identifying and selecting the target of change. In this example, the priorities are on the issue to centralize Finance and HR and de-centralize the products department.

The third “P” is people which is the leaders in the organisation who are going to implement the change and also affected employees. To make this change successful, the leaders need to change first. They need to support and believe on the changes are for the betterment of the organisation.

The fourth “P” represents the process to be used for implementing the change. There are three strategies:

1. Autocratic – managers simply announce the change.

2. Participation- those affected will be consulted, asked for ideas and input.

3. Consensus approach involves group commitment and responsibility for the outcome. This is a risky style because it is not easy to get an agreement when it involves an affected employee.

For this process, a combination of autocratic and participation styles would be good because it shows that the organisation is serious to move forward (autocratic) and it involves the participation of all employees.

The final “P” is for proof and this is a critical stage because leaders should provide proof that change management has achieved the desired results or not. At this stage, transparency is required – open about failure, active engagements with employees to improve results, provide support and motivation to empower employees. The positive new work environment, helps employees to realise, engage, accept and own the change and transformation.

For this case, I believe the process to execute the changes is manageable because everyone is not affected by retrenchment. Based on this, I trust all 5Ps -purpose, priorities, people, processes, and proof method is suitable for the change management exercise and will bring continued success to IS company.

[Mahalakshmi Pavithra A/P Sukumaran]

goon sharing on 5Ps

[Jessy Ng]

Organizational change is an inevitable process happening from time to time, especially seen in large multinational companies. And for a large company involving regional businesses and various departments across locations, I would recommend using the Kotter’s Change Management Theory for the organizational change processes. To ensure a smooth data-driven decision making and change management process, information needed to be gathered are such as:-

– Structure, headcount, and span of control of all the relevant functions and departments
– Collect department goals from each of the department leads

– A list of deliverables and man hours needed to complete the tasks currently run by the functions

– Collect suggestions from employees on administrative functions or operational tasks that are unnecessary, or manual work that can be automated.

– Information on employee’s current compensation and benefits

– Employee’s feedback on job satisfaction, and ways for improvement

Being in a data-driven environment and organization, among these information to be gathered, the readily existing ones should be the headcount details, department goals, list of deliverables of employees, and information on employee’s compensation and benefits. A survey can be conducted throughout the organization to collect employees feedback and suggestions on improvement measures for processes and employee satisfaction.

While data-collection is happening, it is important to assemble a team consisting of decision makers and line managers to act as steering committee for the change management process. Companies with regional locations would require different localized approach due to the differentiation in culture and legal aspects. Therefore a lead is needed for every country or sub-region, so that the people are all prep up and communicated on the change process incoming.

During data-collection step itself, the Kotter’s change management theory would already come into place:-

1. Creating a Sense of Urgency

Create a sense of urgency so that while data-collection is taken place between managers and the employees, managers should already start the communication to create awareness of existing problem and the coming changes to the employees. Employees should know why the change is necessary.

2. Putting Together a Guiding Coalition

The steering committee is assembled by putting together people with the right skills, decision making power, connections, and reputations, to ensure smoothness of the change management process.

3. Developing Vision and Strategies

4. Communicating the Change Vision

Setting a clear vision and realistic and measurable targets is important, while making sure that the visions and initiatives is communicated to the employees for easy understanding. Receiving buy-ins from employees will increase the efficiency of the change management process.

5. Remove Barriers to Action

Identify the barriers and involve leaders and employees with relevant expertise to clear the obstacle together.

6. Accomplish Short-Term Wins

Identify measurable short-term wins such as cost reduction initiatives or process improvement plan and acknowledge those who are responsible for the quick wins to increase morale and encourage the employees.

7. Build on the Change

Track and identify every step of the way so that after every short-wins, SWOT analysis can be done to find out what can be improved.

8. Make Change Stick

Discuss and emphasize the benefits of the change and create new training and development programs to help employees catch up with the new changes. If new skills and competencies is required for a certain automation, hiring of new talents or training of new skills would be helpful.

[Ida Farisha Binti Meor Alim Shah Shah]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Ida, the lead consultant from WSC. After spending some time going through your company structure in all of your locations and understanding the functions and capabilities of each business unit, I notice you could benefit from reorganization specifically to your Finance, HR and Product departments. But first let me tell you the data that I have gathered to draw the conclusion.

1. Assessment on individual competencies

2. Assessment on individual job scope

3. Your company mission, vision and core values

4. Overlaps job functions

5. Burning issues within the teams

For HR and Finance department, instead of these 2 teams working in separate silos, it is better we centralized the team under 1 silo. HR team will benefit from knowing the financial aspect of running the business i.e budgetting, profitability, reading and understanding financial statements. Hence going forward, HR team will have better understanding of the business, how the business earns money and have meaningful conversation about company’s financial profile to potential clients or employees.

As for Finance team, with the knowledge on labor laws, employees benefit, compensation, training, rewards, recognition and workforce planning, only then Finance team will understand the importance of human capital investment and able to work proactively in proposing win-win situations to both company and employees.

What is considered as expenses in finance might be considered as an investment by HR. Therefore this overlap in functions will be fruitful for both teams and organization.

For product department, we proposed to decentralize the team forming few smaller teams to create more visibility on each product developments with new manager each. So each team member and project will receive more attention from the managers and quicker decisions can be made.

To implement such a big change, we will use Kotter’s Change Management Theory. Whereby we proposed the following steps:

1) Careful Planning

• Timeline of when and How this changes will take place.
• Lay out each team’s milestone achievements and timeframe to achieve them
• Documentations on current state and organization’s future plans
• List of new or changed in responsibilities
• Trainings
• Discuss any potential concern that might be raised by employees ie salary and working hours, laid offs.

2) Host a townhall for both teams and present the plan with Q&A session at the end
3) Ensure the employees the company is not letting go of any employees. It is just cross functional collaborations to increase specialization and responsibility
<div> 4) Lastly, assign a personnel from each team to champion this changes. He/She will help in managing the change, remove any roadblocks, keep the team’s spirit up and provide necessary support to the team
</div><div>

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So are you ready to make some big changes?

[Soo Kheng Han]

Hi Ida, interesting and creative approach you took to answer this forum question. Your answer is well-structed and each point is being explained thoroughly.

[Nur Aina Azizan]

I like the way you attend to this question. Details explanation and you end up with CTA. Thanks for sharing the good input . 🙂

[Kubendren Kathiravaloo]

very Impressive answer to the question.

[Soo Kheng Han]

It is recommended practice in any organizational change to base decisions solely on visible data. This is to develop a transparent organization, which is a major aspect in encouraging employees to collaborate. Because the scenario outlined above involves a significant shift in the organization, a comprehensive collection of data to support the decisions that must be made is required. I would gather each departments information regarding their work, employee feedback through surveys, employees expectation and career plan.

Further, I would recommend to implement the change using Kotter’s 8-Steps model

1. Creating a Sense of Urgency
The process should start with establishing a sense of urgency among both managers and employees. Everyone involved should feel the need for change or that change is critical for organizational growth. Without their support, it will make it difficult to keep the momentum of the change initiative and achieve lasting transformation.

2. Putting Together a Guiding Coalition
This step is dedicated to bringing together a competent team with the right skills, qualifications, reputation, connections and sufficient power to provide leadership to the change efforts and influence stakeholders.

3. Developing Vision and Strategies
The objective of this step is to create a sensible vision to direct the initiative and to develop effective strategies to help the team achieve it. It helps create a picture of what the future of the organization looks like once the change is implemented.

4. Communicating the Change Vision
In this step, the focus is on effectively communicating the vision and the strategies in ways that help encourage the rest of the organization to accept and support the change initiative.

5. Remove Barriers to Action
When implementing organizational-wide change, obstacles may occur frequently. Barriers may come in the form of insufficient processes, resistance to change by employees themselves, disempowering managers, organizational policies and its structure, etc.

6. Accomplish Short-Term Wins
Achieving complete real transformation may take time. Going so long without any victories to celebrate may discourage employees. To keep the momentum going and to encourage employees to keep backing the initiative, it’s important to have short-term goals to accomplish and celebrate early in the change process.

7. Build on the Change
This step is all about sustaining the implementation of change by ensuring that the teams are working persistently towards achieving the change vision while measuring progress. It’s important to make sure that the team doesn’t declare victory prematurely after a few quick wins.

8. Make Change Stick
In this step, the change leaders work on nurturing a new culture where change can stick. This includes changing organizational norms and values, processes, reward systems, and other infrastructure elements to make sure that everything aligns with the new direction.

[Yaamini Renganathan]

The process of centralization refers to the concentration of planning and decision-making processes inside an organization to a single leader or location. In a centralized organization, the head office retains decision-making authority, while all subsidiary offices receive orders from the main office. The head office houses the executives and specialists who make key decisions.

Based on the scenario provided, as a lead consultant, I would implement Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model.
This model demonstrates dynamic, action-based transformational strategies to stimulate growth.
HR and finance should be centralized so that the corporation can get strategic commercial advantages. HR is the department in charge of payroll, employee recruiting, and training, among other things. While the Finance section focuses on budgeting and profit maximization.

As a result, by bringing these two divisions together, they will be able to collaborate toward a common goal of improving staff performance and profitability. HR and finance both need to think about the costs and advantages of onboarding new employees. When funds are held in the HR database, it is easier for finance to allocate funds to business policy because of this centralization.

The centralization, which is the essence, requires only a small amount of information.

Below are the real benefits of centralization:

• Establish a sense of urgency

• Create a guiding coalition

• Develop a vision and strategy

• Involve everyone and enlist a volunteer army

• Removing and reducing barriers

• Generating and focusing on short-term wins

• Keeping the momentum going

• Anchoring new approaches in the culture

[Stefanie Ng]

Information to collect for sound data driven decisions could be various sources such as:

1) Employee opinion surveys, cost benefit analysis done on existing department

2) Feedback gathered from customers, channel partners, suppliers, and investors

3) Comparison of Cost benefit analysis of existing team structures vs. proposed structure (Site location analysis etc.)

4) External consultants data from other similar companies

5) Engage IT vendor/provider on new infrastructure and technology issues

6) Assess risk and impact to business

Implementation: The centralization of Finance and HR (no jobs lost, but increased specialization and responsibility).

• Key objectives: standardisation, consolidation,reengineering and automation.

• Educate employees on the benefits of centralization: Centralization brings down support function costs (e.g. IT, finance, HR) and ‘Back office’ perception, Improvement of standardized systems due to converged site, Reduction of duplicate work across sites, sharing best practices, Skills specialization & wider responsibilities

• Engage stakeholders, clearly communicate on changes to work scope, provide relevant training

• Leaders to encourage enlarged team to work towards common enlarged team’s goals

Implementation: The de-centralization of the heretofore separate product departments (break up of existing teams, reforming new teams, and new reporting relationships).

• Lay out and communicate new organizational chart (ie; new departments, new leaders, new teams) and provide time for teams to familiarize amongst themselves

• Ensure all are aware of transition plans, new team structures, deliverables, performance targets

• Organize planning of knowledge transfer (work shadowing, and post-transfer role support)

• Now that teams are separated, encourage knowledge sharing between all teams on a monthly basis to share best practices (eg; cross department team building activities)

• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  Stefanie Ng.

[Lik Wai Toh]

The current trend is to build a shared service centre and centralize Finance and HR into the regional functions. Create a Finance and HR shared service model, connecting subject matter expertise, automation, decision support, and interactive solutions.

The main focus should be on strategic business outcomes and empowering people to drive best practices. It supports a CFO to remain ahead of the competition by bringing down cost and operational inefficiencies.

The project consultant would take the following steps to ensure the change of de-centralization to centralization is efficient and effective.

First – understand the current roles and functions currently held responsible under different departments in the organization.

Second – consolidate the tasks from all the departments and analyze whether any redundancy. This process is essential because it can reduce repeating tasks.

Third – planning the headcounts to be hired in the shared service centre.

Fourth – prepare the process documentation handbook for each function.

Lastly – provide routine training to upskill the employee to match the HQ requirement.

After the above change, the organizational structure will be more precise because the standard key functionalities are under one umbrella, including sales analysis, forecast, and employee training.

[Subatra Krishnasamy]

I would follow the mckinsey 7s steps and would first try to identify which elements of the 7-S’ I need to realign to improve performance or to maintain alignment and performance during other changes. These changes could include restructuring, new processes, and organizational merger, new systems, and a change of leadership. I would then look at the hard elements which can be company strategy, structure, and systems to identify where changes need to be made. I would also look at the soft elements such as shared values, skills, (leadership) style, and staff and determine which one of them needs change. Thereafter, take into consideration the existing structure of the company and come up with an overview plan to incorporate the necessary elements to bring about effective change to enhance productivity.

I would ensure that both functions are concentrated at one department and is headed by one advisor but with two supervisors. The reporting line will remain one but job delegation still remains as both functions are operated by different skilled workers hence it would be logical to have two sets of workers manning their respective units as they are the subject matter experts.

I would ensure that the upper levels of management transfers some of the decision-making processes onto lower levels, and even to individual employees. The overall authority is still maintained by top level managers, who make policies that influence the major decisions of the company, but most decision-making responsibility is delegated to the lower levels.

[Karen Xaviour]

Part 1

The steps that I would consider preparing the organization for the upcoming organizational changes are as follows:

1. Clearly characterize the change and adjust it to business objectives.

It may appear glaringly evident however numerous associations miss this first indispensable advance. It’s one thing to explain the change required and totally another to lead a basic audit against organizational targets and execution objectives to guarantee the change will convey your business the correct way deliberately, monetarily, and morally. This progression can likewise help you to decide the worth of the change, which will evaluate the exertion and data sources you ought to contribute.

2. Decide impacts and those influenced.

When you know precisely what you wish to accomplish and why, you should then decide the impacts of the change at different organizational levels. Audit the impact on every business unit and how it falls through the organizational structure to the person. This data will begin to shape the diagram for where training and backing is required the most to relieve the impacts.

3. Build up a communication strategy.

Albeit all representatives ought to be taken on the change venture, the initial two stages will have featured those workers you totally should convey the change to. Decide the best methods for communication for the gathering or person that will welcome them ready. The communication strategy ought to incorporate a course of events for how the change will be steadily imparted, key messages, and the communication channels and mediums you intend to utilize.

4. Give effective training.

With the change message out in the open, it’s significant that your kin realize they will get training, structured or casual, to encourage the abilities and information needed to work productively as the change is carried out. Training could incorporate a set-up of miniature learning on the web modules, or a mixed learning approach consolidating up close and personal training meetings or hands on instructing and tutoring.

5. Carry out a help structure.

Offering a help structure is crucial for help workers to sincerely and essentially acclimate to the change and to assemble capability of practices and specialized abilities expected to accomplish wanted business results. Some change can bring about redundancies or restructures, so you could consider offering help, for example, advising administrations to assist individuals with exploring the circumstance. To assist representatives with changing changes to how a job is played out, a mentorship or an open-entryway strategy with management to pose inquiries as they emerge could be set up.

6. Measure the change interaction.

All through the change management measure, a structure ought to be set up to gauge the business effect of the changes and guarantee that proceeded with support openings exist to fabricate proficiencies. You ought to likewise assess your change management intend to decide its effectiveness and report any exercises learned.

Part 2

Organizational change refers to the steps or actions taken by the organization to change or alter major components of the business organization. The steps are taken to organize the organization for the upcoming organizational changes are:

1. Defining the change and align them with the organizational goals and objectives. It is essential to ensure that the change will provide the business organization with the proper direction to achieve its objectives and goals.

2. Determining the consequences of the change within the organization. It helps identity whom the change will affect the foremost. It helps who how will change is going to be reviewed and received within the organization.

3. Development of a communicational strategy. Identifying the only effective and efficient means of communication.

4. Provide adequate training to the manager and the employees within the organization to assist them in preparing and dealing with the changes taking place within the organizational structure and providing them with mentoring or job coaching training.

5. Implementation of a support structure to assist employees assist and help them cater to emotions and adjust to the changes.

6. Controlling and measuring the change process within the organizational structure.

[Bachevinder Singh A/L Param Singh @ Bob]

Hi Karen,

May I know which concept are you considering? McKinsey 7-S Model; The ADKAR Change Management Model; Kotter’s Theory. I did not see any theory mentioned here and I am confused.

[Karen Xaviour]

Bachevinder, the concept of Kotter’s 8 Steps Theory, which I’ll explain in detail below, influenced my response.😉

[Karen Xaviour]

Besides the above i think decisions also should be based on visible data when making organisational changes. So that employees can work together in a transparent manner. To support decisions, a comprehensive selection of data is required. Qualitative and quantitative data should be gathered to support the decision.

a. Current activities and deliverables for each employee, including man hours required to complete each activity. As a result, the new organisation structure can be designed to streamline activities and eliminate non-value-adding activities.

b. Employee satisfaction surveys are another way to get employee feedback on how they feel about their jobs. On the other hand, areas of dissatisfaction should be addressed. Staff satisfaction, retention, and ultimately performance can be improved by reorganising the workplace.

c.It is also important to look at each employee’s career development plans. Otherwise, managers should create one with their staff. With the new organisational structure, this career development plan will help determine future work assignments and employee upskilling.

A successful organisational change requires staff retention and employee acceptance of change.
To maximise the potential of the intended organisational change, we can use Kotter’s 8-step approach. For the organisation change, here is a summary of the 8 steps and activities:

Step One: Create urgency. Explicitly communicating the importance of the change and the consequences of not making it must be done for employees to fully comprehend.

Step Two: Build a coalition.- A steering committee comprised of representatives from all levels of the organisation is required to ensure a smooth change implementation process. As change agents, they can help spread information and collect feedback from their teams.

Step Three: Create a vision for change. -In order to achieve this organisational change, a clear vision and mission statement must be developed.

Step Four: Communicate the vision.- The use of collaterals such as button badges or wall posters to promote the change’s vision and mission is also important. Incentive programmes will be used to reward new-ways of thinking.

Step Five: Empower others to act on the vision.- Encourage the removal of impediments to change. Everyone affected by the organisation change should be included in any upskilling or reskilling programmes that are required.

Step Six: Create short-term wins.- Getting people’s attention is key. These low-hanging fruits can be used to quickly show value of organisational changes. Making a change is easier when people can see the benefits. Smaller changes can be implemented first to show employees the benefits of automation, which saves time and money.

Step Seven: Build on the change.- Move forward with large parts of the initiative once you’ve gained buy-in from step 6. In case the initiative is large, the support should make this step easier.

Step Eight: Anchor the changes in corporate culture.
The new organisational structure and working style should be standard, and the old should be abandoned. The change should be formalised.

[Kubendren Kathiravaloo]

What steps would you follow and what information would you collect to ensure sound data-driven decisions?

The data that will be collected is the information of the structural variables of the organization and the cultural variables of the organization.

Structural Variables are organization structure, abundant resources, work, and non-work support. Organizational structure is the study of the current hierarchy of authority, division of Labour, span of control, functional structure, divisional structure, matrix structure, team-based structure, network structure, roles and responsible of the staff. From here, we able to identify the abundant resources and design strategic organization structure which reduce cost, increase domestic and international competition.

Cultural variables also need to be study how the resources able to adapt to culture and work as team to support the operations.

Describe how you would implement the following:

The implementation of the Change should under go based on Change Management and Innovation Process. A System Model of Change can be used to change the process within the organization(Steward,2006).The model consist of 4 steps which is Input, Strategic Plans, Target Element of Change and Outputs.

Input:

It study the current organization structure and identify the areas that can be improved. From these scenario, we have identify that centralization of Finance and HR should be centralized and de-centralization for certain team for benefit and efficiency of the organization. The feasibility study is made on the impact, risk, time taken to achieve, approval from higher management, the expected outcome and company growth after implementation. A change leader will be assigned to take responsible on change within the organization and to do these feasibility study. The Change leader will have good relation to all the staff involve and help the realize they need to have change in existing behaviors as the current process is not effective.

Strategic Plan

Plan the new organization structure that need to be implemented. It includes the plan on new process, job designed, new roles and responsibility, career plan, technology update, knowledge transfers and others. At these stage, all the target people should be communicate with the change and feedback from them is accepted and review. The plan should be win-win situation between the staff and organization. It should carried out smoothly without effect any interruption to current operation to avoid business lost. The Change Leader plan the implementation stages by prioritized changes task and people.

Target element of Change

The new policy, procedures, structure and compensation has been approved and new policy been communicated to all the employers in company. The physical work environment has re-organize to support the current centralization and de-centralization of the team. The Change Leader need to make sure the new changes has been implemented based on the plan and it has been stabilize.

Output:

The output is review to measure the success of these transformation. It is measure through staff satisfaction, increase in productivity, knowledge management, organization performance.

References:

Zainal Ariffin Ahmad, Lilis Surienty Abd Talib, Azura Abdullah Effendi, Junaimah Jauhar, Tanuja Sharma
Oxford University Press, 14 May 2009 – Organizational behavior

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by  Kubendren Kathiravaloo.