Case Study Analysis on an Organisation Essay

Organisational swop is something that occurs throughout an arrangements life cycle and make the entire agreement rather than bingle and only(a) part of it. Employing a new-fashionedly somebody is one example. Change is increasing due to a play of forces including globalisation led by rapidly advancing technologies, cultural diversity, environmental resources and the economy therefore the ability to recognise the need for form as well as implement sort strategies effectively, in a proactive response to internal and external pressures is essential to organisational doing.Internal qualifys can allow in organisational social grammatical construction, process and HR requirements and external changes involve government legislation, competition movements and node demand ( timber et al, 2010). Change does not need to be a itchy process, as it may seem when observing the amount of failed change perplexity initiatives with reports as low as 10% of re seeked success rates (O akland & Tanner, 2007), when in(predicate) change focussing strategies ar use and planned, including effective conference strategies, functional lay outment, readiness to change and implementation, which all lower and overcome resistance ( woods et al, 2010).thither is a great amount of literature on the negative aspects and tight guidance with employees resisting change, save Wood et al (2010) challenge this notion by questioning the change commission process as batch do not resist change itself but aspects of the change that affects them personally such as fear of the unknown, status, remuneration and comfort. Resistance to these changes is a healthy answer and can be managed effectively in the beginning by ensuring conversation and using one of the change initiatives described here.Background Information Truelocal is base in Sydney, with small gross revenue branches in Brisbane and Melbourne. It employs over 150 lag, an add of approximately 50% over the past t wo years. It was founded in 2005 by NDM as part of an expanding operation of online websites to provide across the board consumer helpers, including intelligence schooling and magazine websites online sport and weather reading and shopping comparison search engine, web- found recruitment, and travel search engine solutions http//www. ewsdigitalmedia. com. au, accessed 25/08/2010. As the world peddleed into what is untold referred to as the digital info age, consumer demand for online media as a way to source information significantly growth and demand for printed media less(prenominal)en foundting pressure on newspaper companies to expand to producing news and information online in digital format. This included News Corporation which decreased its newspaper operations and increased its digital expansion.As an employee at Truelocal for over cardinal years, I go acquired this information presented here through interviews with management, comp some(prenominal) information and my own observations internally within the organisations sales subdivision working in the roles of sales executive, account manager and senior property account manager. The Need for Change Management & Structure Truelocal needed to align its gloss, assess and expression with the pargonnt confederacy in order to accumulate strategic growing goals not long after it was founded. Wood et al (2010) describe the work of an author, Noel Tichey on managing strategic change.Experts use three inherent sets of change in their shape up technical design, political allocation and flori civilisation/ideological mix problems. It is one of these problems that become a pressing anaesthetise at any one condemnation of which then initiates the change. In Truelocals case there were a itemize of changes evolving and at this time it was culture problems. NDM has been growing in surface since its establishment in 2006 with a number of acquired website operations, for from each one one operating as a separate business whole with the bear out of HR, Finance, IT, Commercial Operations and other support services provided by the upraise company (NDM).A decision was made to align the organisation in terms of operations, culture and strategy so it could concentrate on innovation and performance to achieve its goal of becoming the number one provider of online information in Australia. As a way out NDM redesigned its organisational structure as Truelocal and most of the other business units merged to fuck offher in one location. Not long after this relocation, Truelocal began flattening out the company structure lead by a new management team and chief executive officer.It has since been down the stairs constant change to achieve its goal to continue growth ( both(prenominal) in number of staff and performance) and excel as a gamey performing and innovative company with an agenda of being the second stupendousst online directory service in Australia after its compe titor Sensis (Yellow pages online). Wood et al (2010) let off the performance gap is a desire to move from one less desired state to another. This can be seen by the increased performance after the change occurred and culture change was implemented. What changedFundamental changes that occurred were a shift from the existing vertical, bureaucratic structure to a horizontal structure and change in specialist functioning of divisions creating a superior, corporate environmental culture that was client focused. The existing culture was a casual attitude towards execute requirements, starting and finishing times, breaks, informal communication expression and channels and legion(predicate) staff were employed as friends of existing staff rather than found on competency and ancestry skills. Some managers had their partners working for them and a some were family members.There didnt appear to be any dress commandment and people came and left work at varying times. to boot managemen t employed such(prenominal) skilled staff, retrained existing staff and created processes of which procedures were then put in maculation. angiotensin-converting enzyme of the slipway these objectives were achieved was by the reduction of management layers resulting in to a greater extent direct describe. Wood et al (2010) explain as organisational size increases, the more interconnections and less direct communication between people takes arrange (Wood et al, 2010). Change ProcessWhen management at Truelocal uplifted existing management and reporting structures, staffs were initially left without direction, reporting channels, processes and goals were not clearly communicated make a lot of uncertainty. Consequently many staff resigned as they tangle upset and confused nigh what was happening. Truelocal withal, retained some of the more experienced staff with new c ber development propositions and new managers were encouraging and afford about future improvements that were to take place within the organisation.One of the ways Truelocal could have managed this change is by using the Freeze/Unfreeze thought Wood et al (2010) explains Kurt Lewin, a famous organisational Psychologists three-force manakin, which is needed for any organisation to be motivated to bring about the change of which be 1) Unfreezing focuses on preparing people for change. This is a critical part of the change phase prior to implementation by analysing and influencing resistance and need to change. A honey oil tool that is used at this stage is called Force Field Analysis, this measures these forces. ) ever-changing of people parturiencys structure technology. Ideally the organisation will be alone unfrozen, ready for change and its goals made clear. It is recommended that staff are not comprehend to have a sense of high or low protective cover at this stage in order to stave off resistance. 3) Refreezing is the evaluation and reinforcing stimulus of the changes th at took place. The new managers were recruited by Truelocal for their experience in organisational transformation within the persona of professional, high performing, corporate environment the organisation desired and who worked at their competitor company.These managers were expected to manage the entire change process themselves. Change agents are people or groups who take responsibility for the change of behaviours and existing patterns in a supportive manner (Wood et al, 2010). The perceived risks however, are the responsibility of the organisations leader who decides on the direction of the change (Oakland & Tanner, 2007). Planned changes that took place were Structure change in organisational design by reporting systems, practicable processes and size of teams, while roles were redefined by definition, duty title and remuneration.Tasks Most jobs were redesigned including more responsibility for staff in management roles and multi functional tasks for other staff. One of t hese job designs is called job enrichment, which is the increase and deepening of motivating factors built into a job (Wood et al, 2010). Some of these enrichments used by new management were increased responsibility and accountability, less control and more freedom in the job and more recognition.People improvement of recruitment and selection process by advertising formal job vacancies on the organizations intranet and incentives for staff to nominate candidates who were then formally interviewed by a number of managers. Additionally training sessions for new staff, coaching and certification courses were made available. Carless (2005) describes her research on the compatibility of job-person-organisation-environment fit. She believes a person must assess their attributes and personality with the job and organisational characteristics, which is belike to improve job satisfaction and adjustment to the environment.Culture organisational values and beliefs were communicated from t he parent company of which staff was rewarded when their behaviour displayed these values. Recognition was given in rise to power at meetings and performance appraisals. This is the observable culture, however as Wood et al (2010) explain, shared meanings and stories are other powerful aspects of culture and this can be spy at Truelocal by the high turnover of staff by both stories and norms that communicate the need to work hard to perform in the job or leave. Cultural symbols include trophies for employee of the month awarded to the highest performer.These symbols serve to circulate cultural meaning (Wood et al, 2010). In the sales department a bouffant subculture can be observed. Wood et al (2010) explain strong subcultures are oft found in high performance task forces where people share similar values and backgrounds. This subculture included men between the ages of 22-30 yrs that have no formal education, drink alcohol excessively, and are passionate about technology, high ly materialistic and view women as sex objects, which can often be observed by their language and behaviour.Moreover this culture is probably to be influenced by the national culture of which the organisation is embedded (Wood et al, 2010). In fact this subculture existed in the old culture before the restructure of which the company held diversity training focused on discrimination and fairness within the workplace resulting in terminations. According to The Economist (2008), in the economic downswing companies need times Y as hungry 25-35 year olds without commitment, for marketing and harvest innovation with emerging technologies, able to put in the time and energy to help them deal with recession hazards, especially in sales. system operations and planning were clarified at monthly and quarterly meetings including product changes. These were addressed by department managers regularly and chief executive officer meetings irregularly, to engage staff. Wood et al (2010) expl ain leadership has changed from the traditional trait and behaviour approaches to transformational, charismatic, conjurer focus and is separate from management. The leadership team at Truelocal formally includes the CEO and parent company (NDM) leaders.Their leadership function can be observed by their language and behaviours they use a transformational and visionary change approach. Objectives particularised performance targets were set allowing staff to earn a higher cathexis by overachieving set targets, recognition and prizes to increase motivation consistently. Purpose both the CEO and the parent company made organisational goals clearly communicated vision and clarified progress regularly. Recognition was given for the contribution of each department and each business unit to the overall success of the organisation.These changes were managed by senior staff using a combination of change strategy approaches as explained by Wood et al (2010) that include a forced approach o f outdo down command, one way communication, coercive reward and punishment approach, rationalization approach and shared decision making, empowered approach. Of these approaches no genius approach was concluded best by researchers on organisational change and it is advised that more commonly a combination will occur, however guidelines are offered to change agents and managers (Wood et al, 2010) consider use of expert consultants communicate the need for change feedback from employees avoid changing for the sake of change study organisational change and structures From this perspective Truelocal management took the right approach by varying the way they managed the change. Change Results The facilitation of clearer and rapid communication channels enabled staff to work more efficiently and get things done faster, along with improved technology. Further benefits of this structure were people collaborating in teams, using initiative and increased spontaneous communication whil e rules, procedures and obturate supervision were reduced as described in (Tushman, Anderson & OReilly, 1997).Wood et al (2010) describe the matrix structure is common in large organisations wanting to improve customer responsiveness. Truelocals reporting structure utilised this organisational design as part of the change, for example the finance manager reports to the CEO of Truelocal and to the Commercial Director of NDM, however Wood et al (2010) note each organisations structure is unique and there is no single observed design. This change is described by Wood et al (2010) as ingrained. Radical changes are fundamental reorientations and transformational, often initiated by the arrival of a new CEO.Culture & Performance Change Since the change occurred, Truelocals sales department recorded a growth rate of 15% per wax time employee (FTE). Some strategies used were Performance appraisal review (PAR) staff are asked to grade themselves on their performance and their use of com pany values of which are discussed by their managers. For example one of the values is Impact and an employee is asked how much impact they contributed to the organisation since the last performance review and they are ask to give examples of this behaviour. These PARs are held quarterly and annually. Reward and remuneration staff are given targets according to their job level and experience with incentives to over achieve. These targets are called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The persons job is broken into task components of which each component consists of a target behaviour that is rewarded. Remuneration is based on the overall percentage of KPI achievement. Recognition employee of the month award was created by encouraging staff to use an online submission for their preferred co-worker who had gone(p) over and above their job requirement displaying one of the company values.In addition the company awards the sales department with the person with the highest dollar val ue in sales and yearly a larger reward of which one year was a new car. Similarly a newsletter recognises new sales people who achieve early in their job. All of these reinforcements are called extrinsic which are rewards given to someone by another persons wanted outcome and because they are environmentally impactful are valued in influencing behaviour through the law of effect (Wood et al, 2010). Cultural change can take years according to Wood et al (2010) however effective cultural change strategies can be used to dilute the timeframe.One of which is explained by Oakland & Tanner (2007), it is important to align the culture to support the desired change in behaviour. For example Truelocal needed a professional, customer focused culture which required staff to develop professional skills and behaviour. The result was all departments undertook a full training programme designed to increase awareness in communication, with a focus on questioning and empathy. consequence Trueloca l is a young company and part of the larger and still comparatively new parent organisation, NDM, operating under the global News Corporation.The fabrication it operates in, digital media is one of the fastest growing and changing environments globally. It changed from a structure and culture of casual, unprofessional work practices managed within a more bureaucratic structure that was under performing to a transformational, high performing, innovative and professional culture that is customer focused. Truelocal achieved its goal of growth, productivity and change in culture, however many staff were lost in the process and not much planning appeared to be in place.It is unclear as to the lack of planning, communication or use of external consultant in the case of radical change that occurred. One assumption might be due to budgetary restrictions as the company has been running at a loss since it started, reporting a loss this year of over one hundred million. away from the success ful change management strategies that were used by the change agents, in particular the motivational strategies used by nominated change managers, numerous other approaches were identified that may benefit the organisation for managing future changes more effectively.Reference List Carless, S. A. (2005). Person-job fit versus person-organisation fit as predictors of organisational attraction and job acceptance intentions a longitudinal study. Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology. 78 (3), 411-429. Generation Y goes to work (2008, December 30). The Economist (US). Retrieved from http//www. economist. com/business/displaystory. cfm? story_id=12863573 Oakland, J. S. , & Tanner, S. (2007). Successful change management. Total Quality Management, 18 (1-2), 1-19.Tushman, M. L. , Anderson, P. C. & OReilly, C. (1997). Technology cycles, innovation streams and fallacious organisations organisaiton renewal through innovation streams and strategic change. Managing strategic inn ovation and change. Oxford University Press, NY. 2-23. Wood, J, Zeffane, R. , Fromholtz M. , Wiesner R. , gospel A. , Schermerhorn J. , Hunt J. , & Osborn R. , (2010). Organisational Behaviour, Core concepts & applications. 2nd Ed. John Wiley & Sons, Australia, Ltd. Milton Qld.