Organizational Development Initiative Scenario For Aetna Insurance Company

Provide a brief history of the organization (how long in existence, mission, purpose, culture, etc.)

Aetna Insurance Company is an American healthcare insurance provider. It provides long and short term insurances for healthcare related services. The company was established in 1853 in Hartford, Connecticut. Hence, the company is operating for more than 150 years. It has around 50,000 employees and in 2017, it earned revenue of around 60.535 billion USD (Aetna, 2018).

The mission of the company is to promote health, wellness and high-quality healthcare services for everyone, like, individuals, health care professionals, employers, producers and suppliers with innovative products, services and benefits and supporting the communities (Aetna, 2018).

The company aims to improve the well being of the community by working together with the community organizations, domestic and selected global partners with the purpose of changing people’s lives through healthy lifestyles, enhancement of health care equity and putting innovation to work for improving health among the underprivileged (Aetna, 2018).

It works with the core values of simplicity, focus, connection, integrity, excellence, caring and inspiration and maintains an inclusive culture to serve all the classes of the society.

How would you describe the culture of the organization?  How will the current culture help or hinder the change effort?

Company culture is developed by the employees of an organization. In Aetna, it is influenced by the effort of the management to establish a supportive work environment with opportunities for growth. The company provides opportunities to the employees for exploring and reaching their full potential, motivates them to maintain a healthy lifestyle by providing incentives, encourages them by recognizing their efforts and giving them awards and perks, and lastly, contributes for a sustainable future (aetnacareers.com, 2018). It also provides opportunities for professional developments and various attractive job perks to increase job satisfaction of the employees. Thus, there is a positive and supportive working culture in Aetna.

Supportive and flexible work culture, opportunities for growth and development, motivation and job satisfaction are beneficial to influence the employees to increase their productivity and accept the changes. Thus, they are more focused to work together and achieve the organizational goals (Girma, 2016). As the company provides these to the employees, it can be expected that the employees will also cooperate with the management to accept changes and work accordingly.

What is the desired change & how did/would you identify the need for change?

The insurance market is evolving due to increasing competition and various other changes in the fields of economy, technology, society, political and environmental. The customers now have more power and with increasing number of competitors and a very low cost of switching, customers now have the choice to move from one company to the other. As technologies have evolved quite rapidly, the insurance sector needs to be upgraded too. It requires mobility, speed, inclusion of social media and other online networks and customer relationship management to give more value and better service to the customers. Thus, technological innovations and changes must be adopted to make the services more convenient for the customers. Hence, for Aetna Insurance Company, technological upgradation is the desired change as it does not use the CRM, and other social networking sites to connect with the customers. The service delivery must be more prompt and convenient to retain the customers of Aetna.

If the change were successful, what impact would it have on the organization, employees, customers, etc.? 

If the technological upgradation is successful, then it would have a positive impact on the organization, employees, customers etc. Aetna provides health insurance and for that it offers different plans with different eligibility criteria and different outcomes. If technological upgradation occurs, and CRM is applied, then it would be easier for the company to manage a large amount of local and global customer data and serve them in a faster manner. Moreover, if it implements a system for integrating the social networking sites, it would also help them to propose better plans as per the customer profiles. Hence, this would increase the business of the organization and also increase the values for the customers. The employees are also stakeholders of the company. Increase in profit would be beneficial for them as well. Moreover, for implementing new technologies, the employees will be trained and that will increase their skills and knowledge.

What diagnostic model (Force Field Analysis, Socio-Technical, McKinsey 7S, Appreciative Inquiry, etc.) would you use to conceptualize how you would approach the change?  

Socio-Technical systems theory would be most relevant to conceptualize the change. 

Why would you choose that model?

 According to the Socio-Technological Systems theory or model, there are some interactive sub-systems, which enable the technical systems and the employees to work in combination to produce the maximum value for the customers and also for the organization (J. Hester, 2014). Since, Aetna Insurance Company will implement technological upgradation to its customer management systems and networking, hence, there will be interaction between the technological systems and human resources. Thus, this theory would be most appropriate. It enables the system on interaction between the social aspects of the people or the society and the technical aspects of the organization (Bentley et al., 2016).

Describe:

Who (person &/or department) would be the primary owner of this change effort. 

The HR department, the CEO and the Operation Manager of Aetna would be the primary owner of the change effort.

What role would this person/department play in guiding the change effort?

The CEO and the Operations Manager will take the decisions regarding the necessity of change and its implications after the implementation process takes place. They will also engage the board of directors while making the decisions. They will also disseminate about the changes to the employees and its benefits through the HR department. The HR department is responsible for arranging the training programs and making the training schedules for the employees to make them apply the new techniques.

How you would develop the practitioner-client relationship (how will you approach and engage key stakeholders?)

The company has both internal and external stakeholders and they should be intimidated about the new technological upgradation and its benefits for the company and for all the stakeholders. The employees are the internal stakeholders and the customers and shareholders are the external stakeholders. The employees would be disseminated about the new changes in the working system through emails and meetings with the supervisors. The external stakeholders will be informed through newsletters, publications, and press release.

What qualitative and quantitative data would you need to collect and what method(s) would you use to collect the data (interviews, surveys, focus groups, etc.)

Both the qualitative and quantitative data will be required for implementing the change in Aetna. Market research needs to be conducted to find out people’s perception regarding technological upgradation and its implications. Hence, Aetna should use market survey method to collect primary data from the customers and also conduct interviews on the managers of their corporate clients to assess the need of technical advancement. The primary data will be converted into quantitative data for applying quantitative analysis method, while the interview responses will be analyzed qualitatively.

Secondary data on the market position and other competitors will be collected to assess the findings from the primary data.

How would you identify and respond to resistance to change?

Resistance to change is inevitable in an organization. The employees are bound to resist as a change in their regular routine will happen. There are certain aspects that need to be assessed while identifying the resistance to change. There are some signs that imply the resistance from the employees, such as, unexplained physical  illness, increased absenteeism, low productivity, lack of morale and motivation, break down in the effective communication, and narcissism, that is, putting focus on individual work than on team work (Craig, Nevin & Odum, 2014).

To respond to these resistances, the employees should be dealt sensitively. There should be open, face-to-face discussion regarding the process of change in the working system and structure of the organization to understand the concerns of the employees. They should be given some time to adjust with the new systems and technologies so that they can get rid of the fear of change and get accustomed to it.

What other obstacles might you face in guiding this change effort?  (Personal, organizational, etc.)  

While guiding the change effort in Aetna, there might be some other obstacles also, such as, inadequate capital funding, lack of proper trainer, organizational hierarchy or structure, ineffective communication etc. Adequate capital resources are required to bring and implement new technologies and train the employees to adapt the new working process. Proper training personnel are required to train the employees about the new systems. At the same time, organizational structure often creates bureaucratic problems and creates delay in the process. Moreover, lack of effective communication is mostly present which can create confusions and conflicts among the employees and result in lower productivity and ineffectiveness of the change implementation.

How would you overcome these obstacles?

To overcome these obstacles, firstly, a proper change management planning should be made, which must be coupled with employee management planning. Measures like capital sourcing, effective communication and hiring proper training professionals should be undertaken. Employees should be motivated through benefits and perks, career growth opportunities. Organizational hierarchy should be flexible so that immediate decision making becomes possible.

How would you gain buy in from key stakeholders through team, group &/or process intervention techniques?

The key stakeholders are the employees and the customers of Aetna. The employees should be involved through individual and team intervention techniques. The other type of stakeholders, that is, customers will be involved through organizational or process intervention techniques such as, market survey and interview.  

Which intervention techniques would you envision using to ensure involvement from others in the organization?

Team building process will be applied for involving the employees to take on the new projects of technical upgradation. Along with that, there will be measures to ensure work-life balance, quality of work, conflict management for the teams. For the individual employees, there will be separate performance appraisal for the employees working in the new projects. There will also be counseling, process improvement and training programs to keep them motivated. Apart from that, there will be rewards and recognition for the employees who would contribute significantly for the new project.

What role would management play in communicating and supporting the planned change?

Management would play the role of communicators, supporters and trainers in implementing the change in the organization (Ionescu, Meru?? & Dragomiroiu, 2014).

How would you prepare/train management for this role?

The managers of Aetna will be given training regarding the courses of change management. This will include the training on identifying the resistance to change, attitude of the employees towards the change, responding and managing the resistance, for motivating the employees by providing perks and for implementing effective leadership.  

How would you measure and evaluate whether the change effort is succeeding?

The best way to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of change effort is to measure the improvement in the market share and profit of the company. After 1 year of implementing the change effort, the company should again conduct a market survey to find out the impact of the change programs in the products and services. The annual reports or financial reports will also reflect the cost of technical upgradation and installing a better CRM system and the status of the revenue and profit. If the profit increases in this 1 year and the consumers also say that the value addition has increased, then it can be said that the change effort is successful.

What would you propose to ensure that the change effort receives appropriate support & continually improves over time?

To maintain the effectiveness of the change effort, the productivity of the employees should be evaluated quarterly. Feedback of the employees should be taken at a regular interval to find out the issues and take sessions to fix that. Training needs analysis should be performed and based on the needs, training programs should be arranged. User Acceptance Test (UAT) should be performed before actually launching the changes for the customers. The supply of capital should be maintained throughout to carry on the new project and improving it. Lastly, the measures for employee management and change management should be effective so that there is not only individual improvement, but also improvement in the project and organizational performance.