Current Best Practices in Leadership and Change Management
Nestle is an Anglo-Swiss condensed milk company which was incorporated in 1866. It’s headquarter is located in Vevey, Vaud Switzerland. It is biggest food company in the world analyzed by revenue and profit (Shriwastava, 2016). The firm employs around 339,000 employees across the world. Various food products such as breakfast cereals, baby food, bottled water, dairy products, medical food, frozen food, snacks, ice cream and pet foods are produced by Nestle (Success Story, 2018). The company operates and manages 447 factories in 194 countries across the world (Nestle, 2018). The firm is improving and enhancing life quality and contributing to a better future. The company is delivering enormous benefits to people through the food, and beverages products. Furthermore, the organization uses innovative strategies to gain competitive advantages in the global market.
The main objective of the firm is to become a global player in wellness, health and nutrition industry (Mohajan, 2015). The vision of the company is to create safe products with the highest quality to maximize profitability and returns in the competitive market (Nestle, 2018). In addition, Nestle maintains a team of designers, engineers, nutritionists, scientists, representatives of consumer care and controlling specialists to gain the trust of the consumers in the market. The organization is dedicated towards creating trustworthy services, systems and products that contribute to improve and enhance the quality of consumer’s lives (Reuters, 2018).
There are several problems faced by Nestle while conducting business operations globally. The problems and issues include unethical promotion, child labor, pollution, price, mislabeling and manipulating uneducated mothers. All these issues are associated with the company that may affect the growth and success of the firm adversely. As a result, the organization has a bad reputation and goodwill in the global market.
Apart from this, water sanitation is also the biggest problem in the organization thus, the firm does not have access to clean water so it is essential for them to boil the water (Nestle Waters, 2018). In addition, management of change is one of the largest issues which may influence the productivity and outcomes of the firm. Moreover, the firm uses child labor in cocoa production due to lack of schools and poverty. Also, it has a negative impact on the performance and results of the firm (Seth, 2012). Employees do not like the changes and they ignore the work and tasks. Along with this, ethical and boycott issue is the major concern in the organization. Additionally, top management is unable to develop managerial effectiveness and leading team as it also affects long-term mission and vision of the organization. Furthermore, managers have not been able to assist and motivate the workers effectively. They are also unable to check whether they are satisfied with their job or not. The company needs to focus on these challenges and issues to overcome the competitors and to encourage the workers to do work smoothly and efficiently. Also, it will help to make a good image in the minds of customers. Nestle should focus on leadership strategies to attain more and more outputs in the international market. In addition, the company needs to build and develop leadership plan to improve and enhance the efficiency and productivity of the workers.
Best Practices of Change Management
Leadership plays a significant role in each and every organization. It is also important to manage people effectively because leadership is directly connected with the tools, styles, methods, and techniques for getting things done through other people in the organization (Mind Tool, 2018). Leadership can be different for different persons in different perspectives as well as the environment (Adair, 2013). It may be religious, community, political and organizational. In today’s modern world, everyone knows about Nestle products and uses the food products produced by Nestle in daily life. Having effective and dynamic workforce demands from the organization that it should have some suitable and attractive leadership values and framework to assist its managers in terms of the decision-making process and to handle with the issues and consequences related to the diverse culture within the organization (Management Study Guide, 2018).
It is the duty of the managers and leaders at Nestle to motivate the workers and add value to the society as well as an organization at large. Such type of motivation and encouragement results in increasing and improving the value for the firm in the competitive world. There are several best practices in leadership carried by Nestle have been discussed below.
Develop strong executive engagement: The significant practice of leadership is to obtain the engagement of managers and top leaders. Their commitment and loyalty are highly connected and aligned with unique corporate strategy and monitored on the suitable and right business issues. It is one of the important practices in leadership at Nestle that help to increase revenue and output in the market. It will also help to address various deficiency related to management and leadership (Bersin, 2008).
Explain tailored leadership competencies: The fruitful development programs of leadership are grounded in recognized capabilities. By dividing and approving upon competencies of leadership which are very significant for the company, Nestle Company have the leadership development foundation, as well as sequence arrangement, career development and other processes related to talent. All high-impact programs are constructed on well-established leadership capability models.
Align with Business strategy: Development of Leadership is not just the training of management. As leaders move forward in the company, their capabilities and competencies also transfer from persons and project management to planned business and operations management. Companies like Nestle emphases deeply on particular business strategies of the business in their program of leadership. Such programs cannot be completely encompassed of standard content. Additionally, programs of leadership development need to be involved in the planning and conversation of business.
Performance Evaluation of the Nestle’s Current Leadership and Change Management Plan
Aim at all levels of Leadership: Operational leadership development is not just about individual’s training. Its main objective is the growth of a leadership team proficient in moving a company forward and attaining key objectives of the strategies. To attain this each layer of the management should be equally prepared.
Plan Carefully: For executing positive changes in the business, the management has to assume the best probable result will be. The Nestle Company take this vision further and makes the list of every necessary task in order to achieve it, and after this, they prepare outline which involves the names of the persons who will perform and complete those tasks.
Define Your Governance: Every project of effective change management has definite governance, which is mainly the outline for decision making and the set of determined procedures for executing those decisions. Roles, responsibilities, and structures are recognized during the course of company’s each level in order to provision change and keep stakeholders involved.
Assign Roles of Leadership: It is very significant that company create a devoted organization, both at the highest and during the course of the organization, to retain the process of change management steady. The selected leaders must be dedicated, dependable and able to affect others to get on the panel through their example.
Keep Stakeholders in the Loop: In order to confirm contribution, provision, and promise, it’s essential to retain all stakeholders in the eye and updated throughout the process of change management. Communication lines must be kept exposed so employees aren’t given material just to assist them in understanding what is happening so that they are also capable to ask queries and voice their worries along the procedure (Lewis, 2018).
Nestle offers the freedom to its subordinates to ask questions and negotiates for a biased evaluation. Clear indicators of the performance have been recorded by the department of HR (People performance culture, 2013). The vital performance indicator is the accomplishment of goals by following the management and leadership principles of Nestle (Nestle, 2011). Structure of remuneration and criteria of promotion be governed by the performance of the individual.
Nestle deed is to provide impartial compensation. Level of remuneration is above the industry’s average. The unpredictable element of the salary is quite vast to reward the performance of the individual. In case of level of higher management, the unpredictable part is connected with the achievement of the team’s target and individual.
Compensation
‘Nestle Idea Award’- Nestle Idea Award is organized by the company every quarter in order to differentiate and credit employees who have provided the important and revolutionary ideas which have the potential of being executed at Nestle (Nestle, 2018).
‘Passion to Win’ awards- These awards which are provided quarterly have been established to reward those employees who perform their job beyond their targets. Long-service Awards are those awards offered to those employees who are working in the company for more than 30 years (Nestle, 2018).
The benefits that are offered to every employee of Nestle are as follows:
- Children Education Assistance Scheme
- Retirement Gratuity Scheme
- Residential Accommodation
- Provident fund (Nestle, 2018)
- Free consultation for family and health, month health check-ups, etc.
- Leave-Personal and Medical
- Conveyance Reimbursements
- Accidental Insurance and Group Insurance Scheme (Nestle, 2018)
Nestle Company offers a very healthy environment of working and this is the reason for the high organizational commitment of Nestlé’s employees. The turnover of the employee is less than 5%, and it can be seen that for a multinational corporation it is very low. Nestle is comprised of open culture and upward communication especially in the matter of complaint, justice is encouraged. Life and work constancy is given substance, and it is included in the Human Resource Policy document of Nestle (Li, 2015). The annual event of ‘Nestle Family’ is planned by the company’s HR department and the invitation is given to employees as well as to their families. Maximum importance is given to the employee’s safety (Nestle, 2010).
Nestle has strongly faced external environment factors from last many years in fact from its commencement year 1866 without losing its basic values and beliefs. It has successfully managed change and pressures supportable beneficial growth by ensuring the procedure of making slow changes as a substitute of making fundamental and risky changes.
For Example, The Company has faced a problem of child labor issue. They used child labor in the production of cocoa due to the absence of schools and poverty. By doing this the company violated the law of child labor (Nestle, 2018). In order to solve this problem, Nestle has adopted some of the changes in the functioning of the business. The managers of Nestle Company had created code for Nestlé’s suppliers in order to monitor and retain the relationship between company and supplier and they started observing all the supply chain members and set stronger labor standards.
Change management and Leadership development are likely to be the main concern for numerous organizations. Besides this, most of the companies incline to fall for short of their goals for both. The main cause companies struggle is because they take both change management and leadership development as distinct rather than unified challenges. Changes in Culture cannot occur deprived of leadership, and hard work to change culture is the container in which leadership is established (Hao & Yazdanifard, 2015). For positive outcomes, Nestle Company should organize their change management and leadership development efforts, and consider the same. True leadership includes different from the expectations of the culture in ways that stimulate others to select to follow. Leadership is not the responsibility of one person. Every levels manager in the company must try to overcome the resistance if the open cultural change is to happen. Therefore, change initiatives- which need a deviation from a leading set of rules and behaviors- are the finest environments of learning for brilliant managers to improve skills of leadership, as well as an essential factor of an effective culture- change initiative (Quinn & Quinn, 2016).
Rewards and Incentives
The top-down and Bottom-up approach is the recommended approaches that Nestle Company should adopt in order to incorporate its change management and leadership development initiatives. The bottom-up part of the incorporated development and the process of change need possible leaders during the course of the company to involve in a learning process which will help them in identifying that how to ratify a wanted change in the culture of the company in the daily experiences throughout the life of the organization.
A bottom-up process is not likely to work if it is also entrenched in a process of top-down learning. A top-down process makes framework and inspiration for employees to uphold involvement in the process of change/leadership development. If completed well, it also delivers emotional and social provision possible leaders, because differing from the expectations of the culture can be an isolated effort.
An effective top-down process initiates with managers illuminating anticipated outcomes for programs of change management/leadership. For instance, managers may need to change the procedures of accounting or stimulate vision in order to turn into more effective. Or they might need to decrease obstacles among departments or make financial stewardship in the company. The goal is based on the company and its condition, but what is significant is that it is precise (preferably, with a quantifiable result) and acknowledged by all the associates of the decision-making team. As soon as the goal is understood and acknowledged, managers can recognize possible leaders in the company in order to involve in the process of leadership development/change management. These may be decision-making team associates, people in main positions, people who have presented a desire for this precise change, people who are believed to have “high potential,” or some mixture of these features. Numerous variables about the kind of change program can determine the decision about which possible leaders to take in, such as tactical, the sum needed for a serious mass, the necessity to point the change process, the quantity of support that can be delivered, physical scattering, and the variety of demographics or skill involved, and so on.
Programs of change management and leadership development have a miserable record in many organizations. In big part that’s because they arrive with a general challenge—differing from a leading culture (the right leadership trial) is hard. Tasking managers with determining bottom-up cultural change will offer training of leadership in itself. They will need top-down backing to flourish.
- Change initiatives help managers who perform excellently in their job in developing skills of leadership along with the required element of a positive culture-change initiative.
- Change initiatives help managers and trained person to help other employees who resist accepting the changes in the company. Along with this, it will help employees to think broader and come up with new and innovative ideas in the company.
- The employee can learn from the new initiative and can reflect their experience and use it on their own.
- The potential leaders get the benefit of bottom-up approach as it helps them in recognizing the process of how to bring desired changes in the culture of the company.
- The top-down learning process is very effective as it helps in making a framework and encourages employees in order to keep their involvement in the process of change and leadership development.
- The top-down approach helps decision-making managers to recognize potential leaders in the company to involve in the process of leadership development and change management.
Conclusion
In the conclusion, it can be said that Nestle Company is a leading company in the food and beverages sector. The above report has recommended two approaches that they can adopt in order to initiate change and leadership management and the approaches are Bottom-up approach and Top-Down approach. Both the approaches cannot deliver positive results if not applied together in the functioning of the company. The above report has highlighted the Current best practices in the leadership development such as develop strong executive engagement, explain personalized leadership skills, align with Business strategy, and aim at all levels of Leadership and current best practises of change management such as plan carefully, define Your Governance, assign roles of leadership, and keep stakeholders in the loop . Along with this it has explained the Performance Evaluation of the Nestlé’s existing leadership and Change Management Plan. In the end, the report has provided some recommendations of the revised leadership and change management plan and its advantages.
References
Adair, J. (2013). Develop Your Leadership Skills. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bersin, J. (2008). Leadership Development: The Six Best Practices. Retrieved from: https://joshbersin.com/2008/01/leadership-development-the-six-best-practices/
Hao, M.J., & Yazdanifard, R., (2015). How Effective Leadership can Facilitate Change in Organizations through Improvement and Innovation. Global Journal of Management and Business Research: A Administration and Management. 15(9). pp. 1-6.
Lewis, G. (2018). Best Practices for Organizational Change Management. Retrieved from: https://www.consultparagon.com/blog/7-organizational-change-management-best-practices
Li, T. (2015). Nestle Employee Recruitment Research. International Journal of Business and Social Science. 6(4). pp. 97-113.
Management Study Guide. (2018). Importance of Leadership. Retrieved from: https://www.managementstudyguide.com/importance_of_leadership.htm
Mind Tool. (2018). What Is Leadership? Retrieved from: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_41.htm
Mohajan, H.K. (2015). Present and Future of Nestlé Bangladesh Limited. American Journal of Food and Nutrition. 3(2). 34-43.
Nestle Waters. (2018). What is Nestlé doing to improve access to safe drinking water? Retrieved from: https://www.nestle-waters.com/question-and-answers/what-is-nestl%C3%A9-doing-to-improve-access-to-safe-drinking-water
Nestle. (2010). The Nestlé Employee Relations Policy. Retrieved from: https://www.nestle.com/asset-library/documents/library/documents/people/employee-relations-policy-en.pdf
Nestle. (2011). The Nestlé Management and Leadership Principles. Retrieved from: https://www.nestle.com/asset-library/documents/library/documents/people/management-leadership-principles-en.pdf
Nestle. (2018). About us. Retrieved from: https://www.nestle.com/aboutus
Nestle. (2018). Awards and Achievements. Retrieved from: https://www.nestle.com.my/aboutus/nestle_in_malaysia/awards_and_achievements
Nestle. (2018). Does Nestlé have child labour in its cocoa supply chain? Retrieved from: https://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle-child-labour-supply-chains
Nestle. (2018). Our Vision. Retrieved from: https://www.nestle.com/randd/ourvision
Nestle. (2018). Real Rewards at Nestlé USA. Retrieved from: https://tbcdn.talentbrew.com/company/1823/v1_0/docs/42555-Real-Rewards-brochure4.pdf
Nestle. (2018). The Nestlé Creating Shared Value Prize. Retrieved from: https://www.nestle.com/csv/what-is-csv/nestleprize
Nestle. (2018). Total Rewards. Retrieved from: https://www.nestle.com.my/careers/your_career_at_nestle_malaysia/total_rewards
People performance culture. (2013). Performance Management at Nestlé. Retrieved from: https://performancemanager.successfactors.eu/doc/Nestle/PE2014_Process_QRC_EN.pdf
Quinn, R.W. & Quinn, R.E. (2016). Change Management and Leadership Development have to mesh. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2016/01/change-management-and-leadership-development-have-to-mesh
Reuters. (2018). Nestle India Ltd. Retrieved from: https://in.reuters.com/finance/stocks/company-profile/NESTta.BO
Seth, D. (2012). Challenges Nestle faces in India. Retrieved from: https://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-interview-challenges-nestle-faces-in-india/20121108.htm
Shriwastava, A. (2016). Case Study on Nestle. Journal of Business and Management. e-ISSN: 2278-487X, p-ISSN: 2319-7668. pp. 86-87
Success Story. (2018). Nestle SuccessStory. Retrieved from: https://successstory.com/companies/nestl