Change Management Analysis and Implementation - Case of Energy Co.

Introduction

In this present paper, we will discuss the change management case study of Energy Co. The paper also describes the current problem, literature review, analysis of problem, strength, and weakness of the company, and based on the analysis recommendations has been made with the action plan to solve the problem. The Energy Company is the national utility company which provides the energy service to approximately 4000,000 consumers, and the target audience of the company includes commercial, industrial and domestic. The company operates in all over the United Kingdom, and it is the energy service provider due to which the company is highly regulated by the health and safety requirements, services, prices and corporate social responsibility. As the complaint level of the company is higher than the industry average due to which the company needs to improve the customer services in order to stand out among the competitors within the same industry. The total employees of the company are 450, and the operational budget of the company is £ 40 Million.

The managers are responsible for the decision making which impacts on the day to day operations in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the department. But the current regulatory environment has changed due to which the change is required in the organization which needs to manage the company in order to maintain the overall performance of the company. The change in the organization impacts on the morale of employees which needs to be motivated by the operational manager in order to maintain the performance of employees.

Current problem

The current problem in the organization arises change in the procedure and policies of the organization in order to achieve the standards set by the internal senior team and externally by the regulators. But due to the improper management of change in the organization leads to assets failure, increase in the sickness absence level, dissatisfaction related to the work procedures and policies which impact on the overall performance of the company. The problem arises in the organization shows that it is due to the improper change management in an organization as the employees in the organization are resistance to change due to which change management is necessary in order to maintain the overall performance of the company. The operational managers are mainly responsible for the implementing the change within the organization. The main problem is that managers of the company assume that the effectiveness can b achieved through satisfying the internal as well as external objectives of the company, but they are not concern about the people due to which overall performance of the company is impacted.

According to the management grid the leadership style of the managers are country club in which the managers are concern about the production but they are not concern about the people in an organization due to which the company has suffered asset failure, feeling of contentment among the employees, low morale of employees and others which impacts on the overall performance of the company. The manager should have the team approach in which they are considered both about the people as well as the production of the company.

Literature review

According to the Pierce & Delbecq et al., 1997 the change management is defined as the adoption of process, idea, and procedure which leads to change the behavior of an organization. Berger et al., 1994 states that the change management continues the process which enables to align within the marketplace in order to stand out among the competitors within the same industry. The organizational change is the complex change which transforms through the complex adaptive system model, and it includes three stages, namely, increases in threshold and tension, organizing, and implementation of the new configuration (Cameron et al., 2015). It is the movement which enables to improve the efficiencies and effectiveness of the organization through implementing the new procedures and policies within the specific period of time. The Burnes et al., 2000 explains that the organizational change management is the continuous process which enables to match the capabilities of the company according to the volatile environment. Yammarino et al., 2003 states that the change management in the management process which leads to change in the behavior of employee through changing in the process and policies of the company. The researchers have attempted the organizational change as the individual perspective. According to the Clarket et al., 1994 states that the organizational change is required to deal with the pressure of the environment in order to survive in the competitive market. Vakola and Nikolaou et al., 2005 state that the change management is the challenge for the company as it stresses out the individual who leads to the failure of implementing the new process and procedure within the organization. Meyer et al., 1982 argues that the change is essential for the organization in order to compete in the competitive world. Scott et al., 2003 states that the change is an externally driven process which enables to increase the chances of survival through providing the core competencies to the business. The change model enables to determine the reason for the change, develop the sense of urgency and communication the reason of the change in order to survive in the competitive world. The earliest change model was developed by the Kurl Lewin in the year 1947 (Kuipers et al., 2014). The Lewins et al., 1958 states that there are three steps in the change management process which includes unfreezing, change and refreeze which enable to successfully implement the change within the organization (Hayes et al., 2014). According to the Armstrong et al., 2006 in the first stage the existing stable equilibrium which helps to present the attitude and behavior of the employees. It helps to motivate the employee for accepting the change. The aim of the process is to motivate the organizational rooters who are habitual of organizational patterns and routine. The Schreyogg & Noss et al., 2000 states it is necessary to invest time in the employees which help to reduce the reluctance to change. The change is mainly defined as the cognitive restructuring which requires evidence and information in order to achieve the desired change within an organization. The role of managers is very important, and it requires the huge commitment in order to successfully implement the change within an organization as the employees are resistance to change which needs to be motivated in order change the procedure and policies of the organization. Cummings & Worley et al., 2001 states that after changing all the desirable changes in the organization then it requires refreezing in order to made the changes permanent. IIes & Sutherland et al., 2001 states that the new leanings must be repeated by the employees in order to develop the specialization of performing the roles and responsibilities. Robbins et al., 2005 states that the changes occur when the combined strength of one force is greater than the opposite force. K. Thurley et al., 1979 states that the change management requires five main strategies, namely, bargained, directive, analytical, heart and mind, and action based. Armstrong et al., 2006 states that the directive provides the way to carry out the change, but the feeling is ignored. The second approach is bargained which states that the changes require negotiation which needs to done between the employer and employee in order to execute the plan (Hornstein et al., 2015). The third approach is heart and mind which includes the change in the attitude, beliefs, and values of employees but it takes a long time to implement the plan. The analytical approach enables to implement the plan through analyzing the situation then develop the blueprint, estimate the results and predict the objectives for all the stages of the plan. The last approach is action based which contributes towards the change management through including human elements in the process. According to the Kotter model, the organization does not change unless it requires urgency as the changes lead to uncertain the future.

According to the Van De Ven and Poole et al., 1995 the change management in the organization can be seen from the various frameworks, but there are two perspectives to differentiate the perspective, namely, revolutionary and evolutionary. According to the Huy et al., 2001 the large-scale changes are the amendments of many organizational changes such as work system, organizational structure, and social relationships. According to the Helgeson et al., 2001 the large-scale changes in the organization leads to change in the total quality management, mergers, and acquisition, re-engineering, restructuring of the organization, self-managed teams, knowledge economy, increase in responsibility, lean management and others (Marais et al., 2016).

Analysis

According to the managerial grid model, the leadership style of the managers is country club style in which the managers are not concern about the humans, and they are only considered for the production which impacts on the morale of the employees (Gregoire et al., 2016). But the employee must use team style approach which concerns about the people as well as the production of the company which motivate the employees to accept the new changes and that directly improves the overall performance of the company.

According to the Lewis model there are three stages in the change management, namely, unfreeze, change and freeze which includes motivation of employees in order to accept the change but the company only assumes that the satisfaction of internal objectives and external requirements which seem like one of the major problems in implementing the change management (Gollin et al., 2014). The company does not consider all the three steps successful which impact on the morale and motivation level of employees. The operational manager is responsible for implementing the change successfully through managing the resources in an effective manner. But the leadership style of the managers does not suitable for implementing the change within an organization due to the overall performance of the organization is impacted.

There are five strategies of the change management according to the K. Thurley model the company has used a directive strategy which ignores the feeling and concern of human aspect which is one of the reasons of organizational suffering which leads to the asset failure, low morale of employees and others (Coughlan et al., 2015). The company must consider the action based strategy which is the combination of analytical thinking with the consideration of human aspect that helps to implement the change management successfully within an organization. The time should be spending on the employees in order to make them understand regarding the need for change management within an organization. The performance of the organization suffers due to the lack of motivational level of employees which impacts on the morale of employees as they are resistance to change. The change can only be successfully implemented within an organization through spending time on employees and motivates them to accept the new changes. The main problem arises due to the inappropriate leadership style which impacts on the motivational level and morale of employees which leads to suffering by the organization such as asset failure, increase in the sickness absence level, and others (Gilvania et al., 2014).

Strength and weakness of organization

According to the contemporary management theory, the organization must take optimize course of actions based on the internal and external situation of the company. The company has organized hierarchical structure and managers are taking a decision by considering the internal and external environment of the company which enables to stand out the competitors within the same industry (George et al., 2015). The company has customer oriented strategy which enables to attract a large number of new consumers. The company has 450 staff which shows the manpower of the company is huge with the high operating budget which enables to expand its operations. The organizational structure of the company is in a hierarchical form which enables to shows the proper roles, responsibility, and accountability of employees in order to improve the performance of the company. The roles and responsibility of each department are explained which helps to reduce the conflicts among the employees and it enables to perform the job in an effective manner. The strong planning helps to develop the competitive advantage through developing the blueprint in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the company. The mission and vision statement of the company are clear which enable to develop the roadmap them within the specific period of time. The changes within the organization are considered by the employee, union, line managers and departmental managers in order to collect huge ideas for the successful implementation of change within an organization. The contingencies of the company include customers and unions. The optimal courses of action depend upon the internal and external situation of the company. The management of the company is considered internal objective and external conditions in order to survive in the market which is a major strength of the company.

According to the contemporary management, the leadership style of the company is not appropriate which enable to impact on the overall performance of the company due to the de-motivated and low morale employees (George et al., 2015). The operational managers of the company are only considered about the achievement of internal objectives and external requirements of the company regardless of motivating the employees which is one of the major weaknesses of the company that impacts on the overall performance of the company. The leadership style of the managers is the country club which impacts on the morale and motivation level of the employees. According to the Ken Blanchard model directive approach is used by the managers which only considers about the performance of the company but it does not consider about the human aspects which lead to demotivate the employees. According to the contingency model the relationship between the leadership style and favorableness of the situation in not appropriate which impacts on the motivation level of employees due to which it is the major weakness within an organization.

Recommendations

From the above analysis, it is determined that the problem arises in the organization due to the inappropriate leadership style. The managers must use team leadership style which helps to concern about the production as well as the human within the organization. The company must use the action based approach of the Ken Blanchard model which helps to considered about the human aspect with the analyzing the current situation of the company. The managers of the company must consider must apply the Lewis model which enables to implement the chain management within the organization successfully. The team leadership style enables to consider about the people as well which motivates the employees to accept the new changes within an organization. The vision must be communicated to the employees who enable to motivate them to see the benefits of changing within the specific period of time. The company must invest some time in the employees which help to accept the changes. The Lewis model helps to analyze the current organization structure and motivate the employee towards the acceptance of organizational changes and after the successful implementation of changes the company needs to fix the changes in order to make them in the routine of employees. The employees are resistance to change, so the motivation helps to accept the new changes. The various strategies should be used by the company in order to motivate the employee such as job satisfaction, job enlargement, open door policy, feedback and others which motivate the employee and helps to accept the new organizational changes. It is recommended to use democratic leadership style which motivates the employees through involving in the decision making, and it helps to provide the suggestions which provide the openness to accept new changes within the organization.

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it can be concluded that the main problem arises in the organization is due to the inappropriate leadership style which impacts on the morale and motivational level of employees. As the employees are resistance to change so, they can accept the new changes through motivation and investment of time. According to the management grid, the managers are using country club style which does not consider about the employee, and they are only concern about the production which impacts on the motivation level of employees due to which the overall performance of the organization is impacted. The company has a hierarchical structure with the proper description of role and responsibilities of the individual, but the company does not consider about the motivation of employees which impacts on the overall performance of the company. The managers must use team leadership style in order to motivate the employees which enable to accept the organizational changes.

REFERENCES

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