The only constant thing in life is change and the same is applicable to any business organization as well. Change is an inevitable part of the organization for bringing in the better results. The 21st century is an ear of dynamism and changes. The needs and demands of the customers are subjected to huge change. In order to satisfy them and to stay in the proper competition, it is necessary for each and every organization to ring in several changes in their ongoing business process. A saying by Benn, Edwards, and Williams, (2014) the business organizations have to bring several changes within third to day operations so that they can meet with the changing trends in the market. It is also important for the organizations to bring changes in their system to give a tough competition to the competitors in the market.
It has been argued by Kaufman, (2017) that there are some limitations to organizational change. The organizational change management has to follow several steps for being successful. This is because there are usually several challenges that the company can face while bringing in the changes. There can be lack of resources, need for enough finance, lack of the sufficient amount of knowledge and many other such problems. So, there are many steps that a company has to follow for making the change successful.
The first thing that any organization has to follow is to identify the need for the change. This is not really a very easy job because it is a long and complicated process. There is already an existing system in the organization and the company has to analyze and scrutinize the same before finding out the need for the change. However, Alvesson and Sveningsson, (2015) are of the opinion that this is a very long and drawn process. This often creates a huge impact on the flow of the work. The employees have to undergo many training sessions and campaigns and this might create huge time loss and might affect the overall production (Yousef, 2017).
This is one of the most important steps that an organization has to take while implementing a change management. This phase is where the company has to make a roadmap. The roadmap will guide them the way that they need to follow while moving on in the path of bringing about the change. This helps the organization to move forward in a step by step method rather than bringing in a huge amount of unplanned sweeping change. However, Hayes, (2018), is of the opinion that this might also create a backlog in the total production which otherwise would have been achieved by the employees. This is because employees usually have to spend much more time in understanding the changes. They might get less attentive and as a result of this, they might also lose their ability to adapt themselves to the changes that are taking place.
The two important things that are to be taken into account are the funding and the identification of resources. The change that is to be introduced in the organization will require many new kinds of technological or software skills. There is also the need for many new skills training sessions, gathering a good amount of financial base, carrying out surveys on a large scale and many other such aspects. These are a time-consuming process and needs proper step by step approach. On the other hand, it has been argued by Bartunek, and Woodman (2015), organizational change might also bring some problems as there will be some reduction in the presently available resources.
This is one of the most important things that the companies have to use in order to make the change happen and be implemented properly. There are also many cultural aspects that need to be properly taken care of while implementing any changes. A proper communication is a key aspect. However, as per the view of Cummings, Bridgman and Brown, (2016) the communication might also become a very time consuming and complicated process. As there is the involvement of many new stakeholders and many other processes for bringing about the new change the communication is usually carried on over a large scale and there is the chance of some errors coming in between the communication process.
The readiness for change depends on a variety of factors like the motivation of the employees, the employer-employee relationship, the team working spirit and other such factors. If there is a team working spirit along with all the employees they can join hands together for putting in the collective effort that is needed for the change. However, it has been said by Cameron and Green (2015), that this organizational change can also act in the opposite way. A change always needs some new members or new stakeholders to come into existence and the existing team might find it difficult to adjust to them. Employees’ might suffer from the feeling of loss of attachment and can be demotivated. They might lay their concentration to work or might even revolt against the changes.
There are many frameworks and models that are used for bringing about changes in the organization; one among them is the Lewin’s change management model. There are three steps in his model.
In the unfreeze state, the organization needs to keep a thorough check on the ongoing process of the organization. It is at this stage that the company can carry out huge surveys and find what the exact problem is Hayes, (2018). For an instance, Woolworths is one of the leading supermarket chains in Australia and they were selling their products only in the physical stores. So, in this unfreeze phase, the organization assessed the ongoing process and what are the changes that they need to make. They saw that the customers are changing their demand and they are actually looking for some online sale services and they want to buy the products on an online basis. It has been argued by Ahsan and Rahman (2016) that customer service is one of the most important things in the modern day scenario. So it is the prior duty of the organizations to keep customer service at their heart.
It is the phase where the changes are to be employed. These can be done by educating the employees, giving them proper training. Woolworths carried on a survey over the market and found out that they have to start the online shopping services for the customers. It was in this phase that they started the online services for the customers
It is the final phase where the organization has to review the changes that as implemented. The change management becomes useless if there is no review or feedbacks taken from the customers or the employees. It is in this phase where Woolworths started taking feedback from the customers regarding their experiences in the online shopping.
However it has been said by Augustsson et al., (2017) there can also be some disadvantages like a fall in the dedication level of the employees. The employees might feel isolated due to the involvement of the new stakeholders. So there can be a fall in their achieving capacity or in their mindset. At the same time, these risks can be avoided by the organization by constantly motivating and encouraging the employees.
References
Benn, S., Edwards, M., & Williams, T. (2014). Organizational change for corporate sustainability. Routledge.
Kaufman, H. (2017). The limits of organizational change. Routledge
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge.
Yousef, D. A. (2017). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction and attitudes toward organizational change: A study in the local government. International Journal of Public Administration, 40(1), 77-88.
Anderson, D. L. (2016). Organization development: The process of leading organizational change. Sage Publications.
Augustsson, H., Richter, A., Hasson, H., & von Thiele Schwarz, U. (2017). The need for dual openness to change: A longitudinal study evaluating the impact of employees’ openness to organizational change content and process on intervention outcomes. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 53(3), 349-368.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T., & Brown, K. G. (2016). Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. human relations, 69(1), 33-60.
Ahsan, K., & Rahman, S. (2016). An investigation into critical service determinants of the customer to business (C2B) type product returns in retail firms. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 46(6/7), 606-633.
Hayes, J. (2018). The theory and practice of change management.
Bartunek, J. M., & Woodman, R. W. (2015). Beyond Lewin: Toward a temporal approximation of organization development and change
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