The Business as Usual (BAU) and Managing Changes
IntroductionMyer is one of the most traditional department store chains in Australia, which manages its trading activities all over the various states and self-governing territories. Every organisations are social systems which comprise of individuals who work and commit themselves to the company entirely. The management of changes within organisations can lead to various implications for the individuals working there as well as to its outcomes (Burke, 2017). The managers have the role of introducing the changes and ensure that the employees can cooperate with each other during the change process with ease and efficiency. Moreover, a static business environment consists of rigid structures, and thus it requires major changes for improving the business structure and ensures proper functioning of Myer and live up to the expectations of employees. This would bring out positive results regarding good revenue generation and competitive advantage too.
The academic essay is presented for evaluating the skills, based on which critical thinking is developed and understand about the management of changes within the organisation. The Business as usual or BAU enables execution of standard functional operations and managing changes. The strategies are implemented within the organisation for making necessary improvements and respond to changes in the external business environment. The change within organisation Myre does not only mean changing the business functions, operations and strategies but also manage a proper culture for implementing the changes in an effective manner. The management of changes within the culture of the organisation can help in resolving issues related to the external adaptation and internal integration (Carlström & Ekman, 2012). This will also allow for sharing of values and beliefs and make the employees gain enough skills and knowledge to take up challenges, risks and achieve the desired organisational goals and objectives properly.
Managing organisational change through the transformation of a static entity to the dynamic entity can develop a healthy culture within the workforce where people are more focused on their individual tasks or roles. This creates a good working atmosphere as well, which can incur a high level of employee engagement, integrity within the workplace, enable communication and create good relationships between employees. One of the major aspects of managing organisational change is the highly effective leadership (Cummings & Worley, 2014).
There are both stable as well as changing things, and it is necessary to manage organisational change, not only for improving the desired outcomes but also to bring out something more from the organisation’s perspective. It is quite easy to plan and control the changes in business operations with the help of various manufacturing theories. There are different theories, which state that the top management creates, identifies and implement the changes within the organization (Georgalis et al., 2015).
Culture Management for Effective Changes
According to the management approach proposed by Taylor, changes are possible within Myre with the recruitment of skilled employees who have necessary knowledge and expertise to manufacture new products and services and ensure successful changing and improvements of the workforce and global environment too. The organisations, to manage changes, have focused on the manufacturing and production of goods and services for increasing the skills of the workforce through empowerment and inspiration. The top management levels have the role of developing a good culture by empowering the employees and sustain changes for ensuring successful change within the organization (Hayes, 2014).
The changes within the organization are done on various terms such as changes in organisation structure and system, changes in climate and interpersonal style and change in individuals’ behaviours who work for the organisation. The changes in interpersonal style and environment of the organisation include management of conflicts; improve the decision-making process and so on (Pollack, 2012). The changes within organisation Myre will allow for changing the work processes and create a more innovative culture and good nature of working conditions for the employees.
There are various approaches to change including the developmental change and transitional change. The developmental change is also referred to as incremental change, and it focuses on the improvement of skills of individuals and business processes. On the other hand, the transitional change is episodic, planned and radical as well. The transformational change is radical in nature, and this creates changes in assumptions made by the organisation and its members (Waddell et al., 2013).
The change management strategy is made possible within Myre with the help of feasibility analysis, which is used to check how much the project is feasible or appropriate to bring out the desired outcomes and whether it will be able to produce good amount of profit or not. The feasibility analysis is done by considering the present state and nature of the organisation. The various methods included in the change management process are transforming, reducing and applying. Before the change process, it is the responsibility of the leader to evaluate the differences between the current condition of the business and the condition, which will be achieved after implementing the change process (Wood et al., 2016). After assessing the goals and objectives, the leaders identify the gaps during the reduce stage and hand over the responsibility to the leaders in each of the departments of Myre.
Effective Leadership for Managing Organizational Changes
The changes within organisation require good teamwork and communication between the team members, which can allow the employees to express their ideas and manage issues regarding the process of change with ease. The most effective change model is Lewin’s change model, which includes three steps including the unfreezing, change and refreezing. The various steps are followed for understanding the process of change and develop a perception regarding the necessity of change within Myre and embracing a new culture and behaviour as the norms of the organization (Burke, 2017).
Prior to the change process, the unfreezing step is followed by creating a sense of awareness among the individuals working within Myre. This would allow them to know about the status quo, the level of acceptance and even examine the old behaviours, approaches of thinking, organisational structures and processes associated with it. It can make the employees think about the necessity of changes and how can the company create a sustainable place by gaining the competitive advantage within the business environment (Carlström & Ekman, 2012). Communication is important during unfreezing stage and is managed by leaders and employees for knowing the changes and its benefits to organisation and employees. With the understanding and knowledge of change, it would be easier to motivate the employees and drive them towards accepting the change for ensuring business improvements (Cummings & Worley, 2014).
There are very fewer companies, which can be considered as frozen entity because most of them have become unfrozen and made its employees aware of the upcoming changes before the implementation of a change process. After the individuals within Myre are unfrozen, the organisation moves towards a transition state where changes are done for resolving uncertainties and approach positively by supporting a new direction. Things become difficult for the workers of Myre to embrace the new changes, though, with time, they will slowly be able to respond to the changes efficiently (Georgalis et al, 2015). The company must provide the employees with proper education and training sessions so that they are aware of the changes implemented and gain relevant skills and expertise to deal with the challenges easily. The employees should also be informed about the causes of such changes and how can they position themselves in a much better working environment in the future (Hayes, 2014).
The final step is refreezing, which enables reinforcement of change management procedures and creates a good position of the company after the change is implemented. The acceptance of new organisational goals, processes, structure and culture are widely accepted by the individuals working within Myre and are considered as the new norm, rule and regulations. The refreezing stage is the final step, and it prevents the people of the company to get back to the existing ways of thinking and support the old business processes. The organisation has put efforts in ensuring that the changes bring good results and the change is not lost, rather it is carved into the culture of the organisation, and new horizons are opened, thus providing a better direction to the organization (Pollack, 2012).
Acknowledging the efforts and providing them rewards can be useful for embracing the new state of business and create a better organisational behaviour and structure where people have enough scopes and opportunities to learn and become skilful. During this stage, proper leadership support must be promoted along with reward system for rewarding the employees who have contributed to the change process and finally adapt the new organisational structure and culture (Waddell et al., 2013).
Conclusion
Myre has used the Lewin’s model of change process for creating a new sense of stability and make employees more confident to think innovatively and embrace the new working atmosphere of the organisation after the change process is implemented. Nowadays, with the immense competition in the marketplace, it has become important for the business organisations to manage changes in business structure, organisational behaviour and culture for transforming the business from stable to dynamic.
It is necessary for coping up with the needs and requirements of market segments and ensure that the change within organisations brings good outcomes for itself and its employees. When there is no frozen state, there can be issues related to the implementation of change management procedures. Change is relevant for improving the efficiency of business processes, strategies and allows the company to enter a new working environment, embrace new things and contribute largely to the company.
References
Burke, W. W. (2017). Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
Carlström, E. D., & Ekman, I. (2012). Organisational culture and change: implementing person-centred care. Journal of health organization and management, 26(2), 175-191.
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning.
Georgalis, J., Samaratunge, R., Kimberley, N., & Lu, Y. (2015). Change process characteristics and resistance to organisational change: The role of employee perceptions of justice. Australian journal of management, 40(1), 89-113.
Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Pollack, J. (2012). Transferring knowledge about knowledge management: Implementation of a complex organisational change programme. International Journal of Project Management, 30(8), 877-886.
Waddell, D., Creed, A., Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. (2013). Organisational change: Development and transformation. Cengage Learning.
Wood, J. M., Zeffane, R. M., Fromholtz, M., Wiesner, R., Morrison, R., Factor, A., … & Osborn, R. N. (2016). Organisational behaviour: Core concepts and applications. John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd..