Change Management

Introduction

Change management is the process and technique of managing the people through making changed or new initiatives in the organisation. There are several principles of managing change, so that the change agents can manage the change at the organisations and the principles are such as transparent communication, managing transparency and accountability, leading with the organisational culture, providing clear and concise information to all the staff, empowering the employees at the organisational workplace and diagnosing the internal problems for better management (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown, 2016). The aim of the study is to identify the impacts of change at the organisation and the reaction of the people during the change management practice at the workplace as well as identifying the role of change agents for leading the change in future. The study also focuses on discussing a case study, where the change agents able to manage change and achieving future organisational success.

Impacts of change management in the organisation

There are both positive and negative impacts of change in the organisation, where the employees and management team may act differently during the change (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown, 2016). The change management has its positive impacts in the organisational context, such as,

• It boosts the organisational performance
• Maximise the organisational profitability and sales volume
• Improve the organisational innovation and creativity
• Empowers the employees in the organisational process
• Gait is effective for the organisation to gain high competitive advantage
• It is also effective for the firm to create values for all the stakeholders including the employees and the customers
• It is also possible to maximise customer relationship management through change practice (Cameron and Green, 2019).

There are also negative impacts of managing change at the organisational workplace, which are,

• Internal conflicts among the employees
• Lack of communication
• Non-cooperation
• Mismanagement and lack of transparency
• Resistance to change among the staff

Hereby, the change management practice would be beneficial of the organisation, if the leader and the management team can handle the change management practice efficiently through empowering the employees during the change initiatives and giving them incentives and other opportunities to accept the change. The attitude of the people is also changing over the time during the change management practice, where some people act differently and they are not willing to accept change out of the fear of loss of employment and lack of understanding about the new change taken place in the organisation. The employees also become less interested and they are trying to work under traditional working practice and thus there raises the issue of resistance to change and internal conflicts (Hayes, 2018). On the other hand, there are some employees, who act positively and they try to participate efficiently to mange change and enhance the organisational performance as a whole. They are also willing to interact with the senior management team and gather more understanding and improve personal and professional skill for raising their capabilities so that they would be able to contribute productively to achieve the organisational goal.

Role of change agent

Change agent is the person in the organisation who tries to manage change and lead the employees toward achieving success though change initiatives (Doppelt, 2017). The characteristics of change agent are,

• Knowledgeable
• Build trust
• String relationship
• Patient yet persistent
• Clear vision

Roles of change agents are,

• Analysing the existing organisational problem
• Developing an effective vision
• Manage the team members
• Empowering all the staff during the change initiative
• Making effective organisational decision
• Enhance creativity and technological innovation
• Preventing the barriers to change
• Improve the performance of the organisation through continuous monitoring
• Achieving desired outcome

Case study analysis

In the rennet era of globalisation, the small and medium sized retail firm Value and Variety focuses on being creative and utilise e-commerce service for promoting their business and improving their sales volume by retaining the online customers. In this regard, the organisation aims at developing the company website and arrange training program for the employees, so that their technical skill can be developed and they can serve the customer online. Initially, the employees are not willing to adopt the new practice and they prefer to run the physical store. However, the change agent including the organisational leader and the senior management team try to manage the employees a, restructure the incentives and salary, give them proper support through technical skilled training program and continuous direction to manage internal conflicts and improve their understanding about the new process (Van der Voet and Vermeeren, 2017). The management team share the organisational vision and communicate the plan with all the staff members at the store, and also the managers try to handle the workforce and empower them during the change initiatives, take place at the organisation. By hiring the engineers for developing the website and application, leading the change with proper empowerment of the staff, high cooperation and direction of the leader to serve the customers online, open communication and discussion further help the change agent to develop partnership working practice and achieve the organisation vision efficiently.

Conclusion

The organisational change management practice is hereby beneficial to enhance the creativity and performance of the firm and the change agent is playing a crucial role to manage the staff and lead hem towards achieving success through changed initiatives.

Reference List

• Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2019. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. London: Kogan Page Publishers.
• Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K.G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations, 69(1), pp.33-60.
• Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for business, government and civil society. London: Routledge.
• Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. London: Palgrave.
• Lewis, S., Cantore, S. and Passmore, J., 2016. Appreciative inquiry for change management: Using AI to facilitate organizational development. London: Kogan Page Publishers.
• Van der Voet, J. and Vermeeren, B., 2017. Change management in hard times: Can change management mitigate the negative relationship between cutbacks and the organizational commitment and work engagement of public sector employees?. The American Review of Public Administration, 47(2), pp.230-252.