Organizational Change Management: Developing A Change Management Plan

Needs of strategic and operational change

The term ‘change’ indicates the approach to transform the usual features of any system or anything. In the last few decades, many industries have evident change in their organizational strategic management. Organizational Change Management refers to a plan for converting the strategies those are being used by the organization (Hayes, 2014). The main objective of this type of change management process is to reinforce the organizational productivity. In this competitive era, organizations are implementing several changes in their development plan every now and then. The following study has concentrated on the need of organizational change management. It has analyzed the strategic planning of Bounce Fitness and its policies to develop the change management plan. It has enlightened every aspect of change management process in organization. A change management strategy has been developed here. Therefore, it has discussed about how to implement any change in an organizational strategy through communicating with the people who will be impacted by this new development.

The change management process is a usual term for the organizations in recent time. Organizational management everyday introduces new changes in their development planning. These changes are expected to boost the growth of the organization. It is important to analyze the strategies and policies carefully for identifying the required changes. Bounce Fitness is an Australian fitness organization. It has started its journey in 2010. Sam Struthers has opened this fitness organization. Its head quarter is situated in New Sydney. It has set an example in the fitness industry. This type of effective performance demands a strong strategic planning and polices within the organization (bouncefit.com.au, 2017).

Bounce Fitness follows some key steps in their strategic planning for the betterment of the organization. They are as follows:

• According to Bounce Fitness, management must maintain performance graph for the organization. It will help to observe their position in the market. They measure their performance to get a transparent understanding of their loopholes.
• According to Bounce Fitness, it is highly important for every organization to identify the goal, where they want to take the organization. Bounce Fitness management preserves a transparent view about their aims.
• Bounce Fitness demands to be clear about what is important for their organization. According to them, every organization must identify the priority issues to achieve any significant objective.
• Bounce Fitness management has mentioned that monitor the use of resources, budgets, allocation of time is very essential for the betterment of the company.
• Review owns performance is highly necessary to enhance the productivity. Bounce Fitness management has applied this strategy for the development of their organization. They have stated forming strategies is not the end; management must apply those strategies and monitor organizational performance for the growth of the company.
• Bounce Fitness ensures to protect the information of their stakeholders and respect their privacy. They assure their users not to disclose their personal information with any third party.
• There are many stakeholders associated with the organization, such as- advertisers, employees, consumers and so on. According to them, they maintain transparency level with all of them.

Although Bounce Fitness tries to maintain a well- constructed plan strategic plan for the development, there are some loopholes they need to overcome. Some changes they must bring in the strategy to avoid any risk in future. These changes are as follows:

• They must be aware of any kind of crisis such as – financial crisis, organizational crisis, identity crisis and so on. They must establish their strategies in such a manner so they can prevent any kind of future crisis.
• New technologies are emerging everyday in this modern age; they must make their strategies flexible enough to mould them accordingly to implement new technologies in their work place to enhance the efficiency in the performance of their employees.
• They must focus on the internal communication process. It will help them to identify the performance gaps of their employees and management.
• Bounce Fitness authority has stated they are clear about their objectives and opportunities. They have not mentioned anything about any emerging opportunities. Organizations look for opportunities every now and then, so they can survive in the race. Bounce Fitness needs to apply some changes in their strategies for the emerging opportunities.

There two high priority changes are required. They are as follows:

• Enhance the communication
• Use of new technologies to influence the productivity.

Being a human resource manager, it is important to make an analysis of the cost benefit before introducing any new change. The two essential changes that Bounce Fitness needs to bring in their development planning are to enhance communication within the organization and use of new technologies to influence the productivity. To enhance the communication organization will have to use some communication tools and technologies. This may increase the production cost, but improved communication will provide many benefits to the organization. It will help to avoid any future misunderstanding and disappointments.

Use of new technologies also increase the production cost but it is also beneficial for the betterment of the organization. It will improve the productivity. As Bounce Fitness is a fitness organization, new technologies will help to collect the news from all over the world within a short span of time. It will help the productivity of the company.

While implementing those new changes organization may experience several risks. Those are:

• Authority may not agree with the newly proposed changes. They must be afraid of the manufacturing cost.
• The employees who are not friendly with the modern technologies and tools may feel embarrassed. This type of behavior will demoralize to become a part of the organization.
• People who are not conscious about the benefit of new technologies and growth of the communication may work as a weak link for this development plan.

In developing any change management project plan some steps need to be followed by the Human Resource Manger (HR manager) of the organization. They are as follows:

• Stakeholders are considered as the key element of any organization. Internal and external both stakeholders are equally important for the organization. The success of the organization is highly dependent on their support. Involving them in change management process is an essential part of the plan. It is the responsibility of the strategy manager to interact with the stakeholders and explain them the need of the changes and how the change will be profitable for the organization.
• One must concentrate on the budget and resources while introducing any changes. They have to convince the authority to invest for the change and they have to ensure the outcome of the investment as well.
• Timetable need to be followed while implementing changes. No authority will wait for long time to evaluate the effect of the change management process. Time management is considered as the key element for the success of any development plan.
• Employees play a vital role in implementing any change. Especially when change is related to organizational communication. Employees and the management is the center of attraction for this type of changes. HR manager need to guide them about the use of modern communication tools and technologies. They need to be prepared for  all the upcoming challenges.

Being HR manager of the organization, one need to seek the permission of the higher authority before promoting any changes. Changes cannot be implemented without their acknowledgement.

Consulting with the people who will be mostly affected by the changes is mandatory, as they are the key part of the new development (Hayes, 2014). In the case of Bounce Fitness or any other organization employees will be the most impacted part of the organization. Thus, discussion with them is essential. Some meetings and training session can be conducted to demonstrate new developments to them. Some study materials, handbills must be published. It will help them to witness the new development and give them a clear view about the changes.

Management must produce a plan where they can evident the need of change. They need to mention in the plan the present scenario of the organization and by using new technologies and upgraded communication tools the status of the organization can be transformed. It will help them to understand the importance of the change.

Training session has been arranged. Training material has been provided in the training. The training session has been designed in such manner that at the end of the session trainees can come up with their doubts and trainers can explain to them.

In order to ensure the growth of the organization and earn desired position in the industry the organizational management of Bounce Fitness must provide training session to the employees to provide a transparent picture of the organizational objective and motivate them to participate in the organizational development.

Many obstacles can be faced while designing this training session. Authority might claim that training sessions are harmful for the organizational performance. They can claim that it can destroy the work flow of the organization. This is one of the major barriers that can be faced.

To resolve the issue, being a responsible human resource manager, one must describe the long term benefits of these training sessions to the authority. It will be beneficial for the growth of the organization.

Employee’s performance graph and annual productivity level need to be maintained to evaluate the effectiveness of the change plan. Organizers can conduct small assessment test to identify the impact of the change management process. This tool will help to identify the loopholes of the procedure and modify the strategies.

Conclusion:

It can thus be stated, nothing is flawless. Although Bounce Fitness is a leading fitness organization of Australia consists of some loopholes in their strategy. The previously discussed article has developed a change management plan that can be followed to avoid future crisis.

Reference:

bouncefit.com.au. (2017). bouncefit.com.au.

Hayes, J., 2014. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.