Analysis of the discussion questions
The Australia post is another name of Australia Postal Corporation which is a government owned corporation providing postal services all over Australia. The head office of the Australia Post is located in Melbourne. In the year 1809, the corporation was founded and now there are 4,429 metropolitan retail outlets. John Stanhope is the chairman of the board and Christine Corbett is the CEO. As per the report of 2017, the corporation earns revenues of more than $6.8 billion and there are more than 32,732 employees working for the board(auspost.com, 2018). With the passage of time the Australia Post has implemented man changes and reformations in their organization, products and services in order to serve the country in a better way.
Their employment programs are well structures and has mitigated the problem of unemployment of Australia to a greater extent. They are committed to safety and allow an open communication with the employees(auspost.com, 2018). They highly support the licensees and community postal agencies. The present essay will analyze the key changes in their mail services and the reasons behind those changes of the organization. The people development strategies and their future strategies of the corporation to manage change will also be described. The learning outcomes of the case study will be covered leading towards a proper conclusion of the entire report.
The Australia post has been allowed by the federal government Post to introduce an additional speed of service for senders of mail. This decision has helped the Australia post to protect and sustain the letter service and national network of around 4400 post offices (newsroom.com 2018). The Australia post had requested for a regulatory reformation of the letter services. As per the view of Yamanaka (2018), this significant change has enabled to bring a revolutionary modification in the postal services of the country. The vital regional and rural networks and other post offices of Australia Post are kept open after such changes. The mail delivery services maintain the delivery of mails five days a week to guarantee that all the Australians from every corners of the country can access world –class letters services. The losses incurred by the stem due to the changing customer behavior and business behaviors has also been helped.
It has reduced the uncertainties causing significant downfall in the letter volumes. The price of the stamps has been frozen at 60 cents for 5.7 million people. The Christmas stamp size also has been frozen at 65 cents(newsroom.com 2018). Although the customers pay more now for a priority service, the quality of the service has definitely increased. In this respect the CEO and managing director of Australia post suggests that this price increase was necessary to recover the expenses of the letter service and evade the cross-subsidization system from the business parcels. The CEO of the board says that even if the stamp costs rise, it is still the lowest as compared to the global market of countries like UK and Germany(McKinney,2018).
In the year 2015 the rise of digital communications had resulted in the number of letters delivered per household to fall by one third since volumes peaked in 2008. It had been reported by the Federal government –owned mails, retail business and the parcels that there was a decline of 56 % than the last year. In the year 2015 there was a loss of almost $151 million in the letter business which was worse than the previous years’ loss(newsroom.com 2018). It encouraged Australia post to request the government to allow the changes they wanted to implement in their business. The loss was remarkable and originated the need to compensate the gap in some way or the other (Frame & White, 2014). Since the letter volumes peak in the year 2008, the letter volumes fell 8.2 % referred to as the worst decline ever experienced by the corporation. It had been forecasted that the loss in the letter business might overwhelm the profit of the parcel businesses. The CEO of Australia post also said that the decline had reached an uncontrollable point. It was becoming difficult to maintain the nationwide networks, profitability and service reliability(McKinney,2018). The reform was much needed to elevate the letter services. The customers also expressed the necessity to change the existing age old systems of Australia post. The corporation got driven by such issues and decided upon finally changing their entire service system.
Outline key changes and reforms implemented by Australian Post
The Australia post focuses on the members because they consider people to be the foundation of their business. They employ some unique people management strategies to overcome the resistance to change. According to Al-Haddad & Kotnour (2015), the change management strategies are important to run a business successfully because business keep evolving in order to keep up with the current market developments and competition. According to Tyssen, Wald & Spieth (2014), the management of people becomes important with the change in business products and services. The workforce of Australia post supported the transition in the postal and parcel business of the company designed to meet the variety of customer needs (Chang, 2016).
They focus on communicating openly with the employees and maximizes the future prospects of employment. They treat their employees with proper education and training that they understand the need for the change, do not tend to resist the change and make themselves adoptive towards the change following the views of Ceptureanu (2015). They have a workforce conversation portal where the employees engage in a two –way conversation about the change and future of the business. On this portal they welcome the different opinions of the employees and provide avenues to the people who actually have established the business (Grant, 2016). In the year 2014, they had invited over 30,000 employees to know their views about the upcoming change in the postal services and there were 80% response(newsroom.com 2018). This employee engagement strategy has enabled Australia Post to manage people keeping in terms of their profits and losses.
The Australia post aligns the future strategies to manage change ad innovation to lead the global business in many ways. First of all, they strengthen the safety culture by ensuring a secure and hazard free working environment (Cummins, 2018). They prioritize their safety programs and ensure zero injuries and zero tolerance in the business operations (McKinney,2018). Their safety strategy also comprises of leadership commitment in order to heighten a level of personal accountability. It has been observed that their safety programs have reduced the injury rates 2.4 % in the year 2014. Another strategy is their workforce engagement in the business proceedings(newsroom.com 2018).
The leaders, managing directors and executives conduct briefing sessions with the employees on a regular basis at more than 30 post offices(auspost.com, 2018). Their Future Ready strategy is beneficial in encouraging the attendees to speak openly with the leaders regarding the future perils and ways to sort those issues out. The post people are trained for improvement on their skills. Moreover, the career development plans are also an integral part of their people development and change management(McKinney,2018). Their exceptional ways to support the licensees and community postal agencies are remarkable. The efficient leadership that Australia Post has adopted and nurtured contribute a lot to make the organization lead in the global business environment.
After going through the case of Australia Post I have learnt that the Australia Post is an extremely agile corporation that has effectively responded to the customer requirements after having been allowed by the Australian federal government to implement change in their business process. They have hugely reformed and infused innovation in their existing services and sped up the business operations. However, the change in the system is possible only when all the members agree with the transition and adopt the change as supported by Hornstein (2015). In order to manage people in favor of the change organizations must train, communicate and encourage the employees. Apart from these there are other leadership management strategies that help in advancement of the business.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above analysis of the discussion questions regarding the case study of Australia post, it can be said that change management plans and practices are much needed in an organization. It is important for the implementation of changes. The report described the various changes, results of the changes, reasons behind the transitions of the Australia Post corporation. It is public organization famous for their promising customer services. They have modified their services by implementing some changes and utilized some strategies for the change management in the organization. Hence, it is recommended that the organization has greater opportunity to shine and become Australia’ number one postal corporation if they keep the well-structured people management strategies evolve towards betterment every day.
References
Frame, W. S., & White, L. J. (2014). Technological change, financial innovation, and diffusion in banking. The oxford handbook of banking, 271.
Kuipers, B. S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J., & Van der Voet, J. (2014). The management of change in public organizations: A literature review. Public administration, 92(1), 1-20.
McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.
Ngotngamwong, R. (2014). Impacts of frequent leadership changes as perceived by employees. AU Journal of Management, 12(1), 51-62.
Petersen, D. J., Finnegan Jr, J. R., & Spencer, H. C. (2015). Anticipating change, sparking innovation: framing the future. American journal of public health, 105(S1), S46-S49.
Schad, J., Lewis, M. W., Raisch, S., & Smith, W. K. (2016). Paradox research in management science: Looking back to move forward. The Academy of Management Annals, 10(1), 5-64.
Van der Voet, J. (2014). The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure. European Management Journal, 32(3), 373-382.
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