Effective Change Management Strategies For Federated Co-Operatives Limited

Analysis of Issues and Challenges

The below mentioned report provides a detailed analysis of the case study Federated Co-Operatives Limited: Change Management. The report provides an evaluation of issues present within an organization and change management strategies that the company should initiate. Change management is an important part of every business process as it helps them to become competitive in the target market (Carnall 2018). Further, the below mentioned report evaluates the challenges faced by the organization along with the enablers and blocks of change required in the organization and its relation to various theories studied about change management. Further, more details about the report are discussed below:

The co-operative organization has faced several issues in the target market because of an inefficient management system and poor decision making power of the employees and leaders. The initial obstacle that the company faced in the market was the issue of command and control culture. The type of cultural prevalent in the environment was hampering two-way communication with the employees due to which they were getting dissatisfied in the environment. Further, the decision making process of the company is ineffective as it is difficult for management to follow it appropriately (Iver 2018). The organization does not make use of top-down decision making approach which makes it difficult for the management to align all the functions together in one direction. Another challenge faced by the organization is brand inconsistency as the company serves different types of commodities at different retail co-operatives. Further, there is not significant and similar visual message portrayed by the company unanimously. Lastly, the company is facing major unity issues as well that is hampering overall growth of the company. The company is constantly hiring employees without even understanding the complex business model and employees have rigidly held their position due to which human resource is not managed properly. Thus, due to these issues, the FCL need to implement an effective change management program that can effectively help them to resolve the problems and grow (Cameron, and Green 2015).

There are various enablers of the change management process for the employees of the company FCL that are listed below:

• Rewards: reward is the most interesting factor that helps the employees to work according to change present in the environment. It is the biggest motivator present in the business industry that leads to significant changes in the environment. Employees in an organization do not initiate business functions until the time they do not get any reward against it. So, the reward can be assumed as the biggest enabler of change in the environment (Doppelt 2017).
• Sharing of Responsibility: complex business structure of a company becomes understandable and easy to implement when all the employees work together with a common motive. Sharing of responsibility will reduce the burden of employees and will help them to work together in a business process. Further, sharing of responsibility will also initiate effective communication in an organization (Groves, et. al., 2014).
• Help Employees Understand Importance of Change: This enabler will help the employees to reduce the fear of change and effectively implement it in the business. Education about change will help the management to steadily implement changes in the business with the consent of the employees (Kuipers, et. al., 2014).

Further, the blocks of change for the company FCL are listed below:

• Creation of Strategic Identity: In this block, the company will initially create a strategic vision for the business that will help them to successfully lead the employees and functions in the right direction.
• Deploying of Trust: Further, under this process, the company need to attain the trust of the employees for the particular change management initiated in an organization. This aspect will ensure that the trust of all the employees is connected with the business objective (Belias, and Koustelios 2014).
• Implementation of Required Skills and Behaviour: After forming the strategy and attaining the trust of the employees, the company need to implement the skills and competence of the employees in the functions of the company. With the help of the efficiency of the employees, the company will effectively aim to complete its mission.
• Reinforcement: Lastly, under the block of reinforcement, the company will effectively aim to sustain the change initiated in the organization using the efficiency of the employees of the company. Apart from initiating the change, it is important for the business to sustain the change as well (Goetsch, and Davis 2014).

Transition and Change: There are basically three phases of change in an organization, these three phases are ending (the phase of loss), neutral zone (phase of uncertainty) and thirdly, beginning (the phase of making a new start). According to this type theory, the business initially aims to implement the change when it is in the first phase that is the phase of ending where the company is bearing loss. Further, according to this theory, the company should initially implement changes in the business; this will make the company stay at the neutral position for some time. After coming up from all the losses and attaining the neutral position, the company should then start to develop the changes and sustain them as well. After attaining the third stage, the company will get to attain profits in the target market (Steigenberger 2015).

Enablers and Blocks of Change

Business Process Reengineering: Under this type of change management process, the company creates a radical core design of the business process. Initially, under this process, the organization starts from the initial stage by implementing new ways to satisfy the customers through implementing changes in the internal structure. Under this system, the company adopts new system and values for the business. The company re-evaluate the past activities and then re-design the core process using information technology so as to deliver satisfaction to the customers in a new and efficient way. This process increases the effectiveness of the old business process (Lines, et. al., 2015).

Power and Political Perspective of Change: Power is an important aspect in the business process it helps the business to effectively implement changes in the business. Without power and political influence, the management cannot implement changes in the business. The culture of an organization changes with the help of power present within the hands of leaders. The fact should be noted that power could also be used to initiate self-serving decisions in the business that can collectively harm the business growth. Thus, power and politics should be effectively used to drive positive business functions for the company. These sources should be used to develop dynamic energy in the business and increase the involvement of employees in the company. Democratic politics can also lead to employee satisfaction in the company (Matos Marques Simoes, and Esposito 2014).

4I Framework of Change: The four I framework includes different aspects that are intuition, interpretation, integration and institutionalization. The first I talks about coming up with a new idea for the company. Such ideas are generated to effectively initiate changes in the business. The second I explain about understanding the implications of ideas generated from the first I. Through this way, the company get to know both positive as well as negative aspects of the idea. Further, the third I talks about developing cohesive action at the group level. Lastly, the fourth I explain about involving the learnings across the organization (Worley, and Mohrman 2014).

On the basis of the above-mentioned theories, four recommendations for FCL are discussed below:

Creation of new business model: The manager of the company should aim to initiate the changes by creating a new business model for the company. As discussed above that the company is facing various challenges in the external environment. So, changing the complex business structure into an easy and flexible structure will help the employees in following it more appropriately.

Development of multi-level motivation system: The Company FCL should initiate enablers in the environment to implement changes in the business. This aspect will reduce the fatigue of the employees and motivate them to work for the betterment of the company. The company should implement two-way communication in the business. They should also try to understand the psychological perspective of the employees and treat them accordingly (Worley, and Mohrman 2014).

An increment in Unity: Under this process, the company should develop surveys and feedback from the employees so as to attain their perspective for certain issues. Further, the should implement flexibility in the organization by giving permission to the employees to learn and figure out their mistakes and then solve them as well. They should also attain support from the higher level authority.

Employee involvement and transparency in business: Lastly, under this aspect, FCL should initiate various functions to reduce the employee turnover rate of the company. They should implement an open door policy in the business so as to increase communication and transparency. Open board discussion and meeting should be held between all level of management so as to address the viewpoint of different people.

Conclusion

Thus, in the limelight of the above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that the above mentioned report evaluated details about the Federated Co-Operatives Limited: Change Management case study. The company was facing several issues in the environment due to which the growth scale was downgrading. The report evaluated various change management recommendations for the company with the use of various theories and practices. FCL should successfully implement the above mentioned changes in the business to grow and sustain the success.  

References

Belias, D. and Koustelios, A., 2014. The impact of leadership and change management strategy on organizational culture. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 10(7).

Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2015. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.

Carnall, C., 2018. Managing change. UK: Routledge.

Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for business, government and civil society. UK: Routledge.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Groves, M., Jacobsen, J., Dutta, S. and Trewin, T.G., Microsoft Corp, 2014. Integrated work lists for engineering project change management. U.S. Patent 8,726,226.

Iver., (2018) Federated Co-Operatives Limited: Change Management [online]. Available from < file:///C:/Users/LAPTOP~1/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$DIa156.34478/2936606_1652274448_9B16M066pcs.pdf> [Accessed on 13 Dec. 18].

Kuipers, B.S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J. and Van der Voet, J., 2014. The management of change in public organizations: A literature review. Public administration, 92(1), pp.1-20.

Lines, B.C., Sullivan, K.T., Smithwick, J.B. and Mischung, J., 2015. Overcoming resistance to change in engineering and construction: Change management factors for owner organizations. International Journal of Project Management, 33(5), pp.1170-1179.

Matos Marques Simoes, P. and Esposito, M., 2014. Improving change management: How communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management Development, 33(4), pp.324-341.

Steigenberger, N., 2015. Emotions in sensemaking: a change management perspective. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(3), pp.432-451.

Worley, C.G. and Mohrman, S.A., 2014. Is change management obsolete?. Organizational Dynamics, 43(3), pp.214-224.