MANAGING AND LEADING URGENT CHANGE

The process of implementing changes
Time for a change in any company is naturally accompanied by an increase of disorder and usually by the following three types of reactions of employees: tiredness of those involved in implementing change; vague feelings of frustration due to the lack of visible results; more or less well-defined feeling of one’s own incompetence. The present complicated period reinforces all of these reactions and weakens the stability of the entire organization, not to mention the physical and psychological state of its workers who are affected by these changes (Nankervis, 2008).
The problems solved by human resource management practices should involve the understanding of the direction the company should move in further; defining of the only obvious way of development; determining the rates of implementing the change; development of new management techniques; employees’ understanding of directions of individual changes; and preventing unintended and unexpected consequences.

Further, we’ll focus on building an integrated program for implementation of changes based on the following methods in solving the above-stated issues: strategic sessions with top managers; sessions with experts on adjustment and implementation of changes; conferences with opinion leaders; individual consultations; step-by-step mastering of the new tools by different categories of staff on a specially designed case; conferences with key personnel categories; internal PR of ongoing changes; special trainings for specific skills development for location application, etc.
The results for the company are typically reflected in the staff’s understanding that nothing will be as it used to be; support of the changes by the staff; each employee’s accurate understanding of what he/she has to do in the new situation and in the process of transition from old to new; agreement on the concept and plan of innovation introduction with a clear definition of roles and responsibilities within the team responsible for the implementation, as well as finalization of new tools that are built into the current processes (Nankervis, 2008).

Management by Objectives

First of all, the designed case pushes HR consulting towards implementing the technologies of management by objectives, which is an approach to organization management that can be defined as the process of identifying objectives and criteria of performance of employees of the organization or its subdivisions, as well as the process of coordination of efforts to achieve them. In particular, this choice is predetermined by the following factors specific to the discussed organization:
”¢ Company’s costs are growing; the number of operational functions is increasing, while the strategic objectives are not being solved;
Ӣ Heads of business units are not enough motivated to the result and efficiency growth;
Ӣ Managers constantly face with conflicting goals and cannot find ways to resolve these conflicts;
”¢ Difficulty in assessing the results of employees’ activity and establishing an effective motivation;
Ӣ The businesses included into the holding are not homogeneous, and different directions have different prospects.
Management by objectives could provide the company with such positive changes as (Daley & Vasu, 2005):
Ӣ Improving the manageability of the company;
Ӣ Improving planning (focusing on the tasks which are set within an overall strategy);
Ӣ Establishing standards and criteria for assessing the objectives achievement;
Ӣ Improving control effectiveness and increasing self-control;
Ӣ Improving relations (management as a partnership);
Ӣ Development of mentoring/coaching (managers are not supervisors, but consultants);
Ӣ Providing sound feedback;
Ӣ Facilitating delegation (culture of delegation of powers);
Ӣ Increasing motivation and satisfaction from the job.
HR solutions for the six abovementioned objectives are discussed further in details.



Leave a Reply