Human Resources Change Management

A lot of organizations initiate change programs and action plans that vanish after a while but have had, it's hoped, some impact on performance, even though one cannot be sure. The first challenge when initiating change is to make sure that every employee understands that this business system is not an action plan; it's a faith that is about what should characterize a really good company, and there are no option to this faith. It is important to put a lot of effort into making everybody understand this (Ahlberg & Naucler, 2007).

Long-term structural change has four characteristics: scale which is the change that affects all or most of the organization, magnitude which entails significant alterations of the status quo, duration or the length of time it lasts, and strategic importance. Yet companies will garner the rewards only when change takes place at the level of the individual worker. There is no single methodology fits every company, but there is a set of practices, tools, and techniques that can be tailored to a variety of situations. Using a systematic, comprehensive framework, allows executives to understand what to expect, how to manage their own personal change, and how to engage the entire organization in the process (Jones, Aguirre & Calderone, 2004).

An official approach for managing change that starts with the leadership team and then engages key stakeholders and leaders should be developed near the beginning, and modified frequently as change moves through the organization. Since change is intrinsically unsettling for people at all levels, when it is on the horizon, all eyes will turn to the CEO and the leadership team for strength, support, and direction. The leaders themselves must accept the new approaches first, both to challenge and to inspire the rest of the company (Jones, Aguirre & Calderone, 2004).

As change programs progress from defining the strategy and setting targets to design and execution, they affect different levels of the organization. Change efforts must comprise plans for identifying leaders all through the company and pushing accountability for design and execution down, so that change flows through the organization. Individuals are intrinsically rational and will question to what degree change is needed, whether the company is headed in the right direction, and whether they want to commit personally to making change take place. They will look to the leadership for answers. The expression of a formal case for change and the creation of a written vision statement are priceless opportunities to generate or induce leadership-team association (Jones, Aguirre & Calderone, 2004).

Leaders of large change efforts must over perform throughout the transformation and be the supporters who generate a critical mass among the workforce in favor of change. This necessitates more than mere buy-in or passive agreement that the direction of change is adequate. It demands ownership by leaders willing to accept accountability for making change take place in all of the areas they influence or control. Too frequently, change leaders make the mistake of believing that others understand the issues, feel the need to change, and see the new direction as unmistakably as they do. The best change programs strengthen core messages through regular, timely advice that is both inspirational and practicable. Communications flow in from the bottom and out from the top, and are targeted to provide workers the right information at the right time and to ask for their input and feedback (Jones, Aguirre & Calderone, 2004).

Successful change programs pick up pace and strength as they cascade down, making it significantly important that leaders understand and account for culture and behaviors at each level of the organization. Companies frequently make the mistake of evaluating culture either too late or not at all. Once the culture is understood, it should be addressed as systematically as any other area in a change program. Leaders should be open about the culture and fundamental behaviors that will best support the new way of doing business, and find occasions to model and reward those behaviors. This requires developing a baseline, defining a clear end-state or desired culture, and devising comprehensive plans to make the transition (Jones, Aguirre & Calderone, 2004).

No change process goes entirely according to plan. People respond in unexpected ways; areas of probable resistance go away; and the external environment moves. Effectively managing change necessitates recurrent reassessment of its impact and the organization's readiness and ability to accept the next flourish of transformation....

Change is both an institutional voyage and a very personal one. People spend lots of hours each week at work; numerous think of their colleagues as a second family. Individuals or teams of individuals need to know how their work will alter, what is expected of them throughout and after the change process, how they will be evaluated and what success or failure will mean for them (Jones, Aguirre & Calderone, 2004).
Aster Group

For Aster there were a number of internal and external drivers for change which changed the future orientation of the company. There was the move away from local government culture and mindset towards a more entrepreneurial one, the untimely death of the Chief Executive, the significantly increasing competition in the sector, a continuing housing crisis in the UK and the Housing Corporation's decision to restrict the number of housing associations it did business with. These factors led Aster to appoint a new chief executive who would meet these challenges and develop a strategy based on growth, building houses and securing efficiencies of service and economies of scale as it went. This was all underpinned by the need to create a culture that would underpin the delivery of his (Green, 2007).

A number of growth strategies were considered but two stood out. The first was organic growth through the acquisition of land to build new homes, and the possibility of partnering, merging or acquisition. Both needed to produce economies of scale and synergies across the organization. This was later encapsulated in its vision- passion for excellence, pride in performance- and its values to be customer responsive, honest, open and true to their world and fair to all. Although quite clear and the direction, it realized that sensitivity to the external environment is one of the key factors affecting its change process. In many senses it it's operating under the organism metaphor (Green, 2007).

The HRM's role in this organizations change management was to lay out the plan and then disseminate it so that everyone in the company was aware of what the plan was. This was very important in this case since the company decided in their change movement to completely change directions from the way they were operating before. They moved away from a local government culture and turned their mindset towards a more entrepreneurial one. This took a lot of communication in order to pull this off and be successful.

Biogen Idee

A key aspect for this company in its orientation was it ongoing commitment to constantly reviewing and refreshing it global development, manufacturing and commercial capabilities in pursuit of its vision of making advances in human healthcare. It was uncompromising in its challenge of existing processes and practices and therefore didn't shirt from asking the tough questions of whether or not its European structure and way of doing business was fit for purpose. If it was challenging in this respect it was also very clear in adhering to its core values in making those challenges and subsequent decisions about quality, integrity, honesty and team strength. So the combination of having a clear vision about excellence in its field coupled with an emerging dissatisfaction with the status quo led it to start a review process into its European structure, which was the first practical step on the road to change. The approach that Biogen Idee took was a relatively planned one, given that the nature of the change was one of restructuring, which had a number of employment law implications (Green, 2007).

The HRM's role in this organizations change management was to plan out the change process and to continually review it to make sure it was headed in the right direction. Since this company's change was also a restructuring it was just as important for them to keep an eye on their change process in order to make sure that it was going correctly. The HRM especially had to pay attention to the employment law implications that came along with their change process.

If a company orients themselves, organizes and mobilizes, implements and makes the transition, they will achieve the goals of the change that they set out to make. In order for a company to maintain change there are five disciplines that need to be mastered. The first is personal mastery. Formulating a rational picture of the results people most wish to gain as individuals alongside realistic assessment of the current state of their lives today. The second discipline is mental models. Discipline of reflection and inquiry skills focused around developing awareness of the attitudes and perceptions that influence thought and interaction. The third discipline is shared vision. This…