Lead and Manage Organisational Change Question

1. Develop a change management project plan for your selected change requirement.  Include objectives of the change process, expected outcomes, a budget & resources required or the change program, the methodology you will use in the change program, a timetable of key activities, mitigation strategies to address identified risks.
2. Obtain approval to proceed with the change program.
3. Agree on project resources and reporting protocol.  (If completing this activity in the classroom, your trainer could represent senior management)

Part 3. Implement change management strategy

Task Description

In this activity you will be required to develop communication and education plans to support your change management strategy. In addition, you will be required to implement at least one aspect of the change management strategy and plan the process for evaluation and review.

Task 1

1. Consult with a representative group of people who will be impacted by the change program to identify the need for communication and education.   (If completing in the classroom, your fellow learners could form the representative group)
2. Produce samples of materials that will be used in the communication/ education process.  (e.g. memos, staff flyers, training material, instructions, procedures etc.)

Task 2

1. Prepare a communication/ education plan that addresses the needs you identified through the consultation process above.  The plan should include the needs to be addressed, strategies to be used, how you will measure the impact of the communication/ education plan, a schedule of activities that will be rolled out as part of the communication strategy.
2. Arrange one communication/ education activity as outlined in your plan from task 2a above.

For example, this may involve:

1. Running a staff meeting to communicate the change
2. Conducting a focus group
3. Delivering a one-hour training session for a group of staff
4. Conducting a mentoring or coaching discussion with a staff member

(If you are conducting this activity in the classroom, your fellow learners and trainer could represent people impacted by the change)

Task 3

1. Action at least one intervention or activity as planned in your change management project plan.  (If completing this activity in the classroom, you may choose to role play this intervention.  e.g. conduct a training session, run a team building activity, role play a selection interview or a new performance management process, etc.)
2. Describe the barriers you may face when implementing this intervention and the strategies you will use in response to these barriers.
3. Prepare a report on strategies needed to embed the change.

Describe how you will monitor, evaluate and modify the activities and interventions you have included in your change program.

Introduction

Organisational change management refers to transitioning people and processes to address a deficiency in the organisation or take advantage of a newly discovered opportunity (Hayes, 2014). Bounce Fitness has identified some areas of the organisation that need to be changed so that it can make better use of available resources. The change will involve disrupting staff and their work. For this reason, it is important that the change process is managed to minimise resistance from staff and other stakeholders. Managing the change will also ensure that the process ends successfully; that is, within the allocated budget and time. Managing the change will also ensure that the objectives of the change process are realised to a high degree. This plan outlines how the areas of the organisation that will undergo the change, how the change will be initiated, managed and evaluated for effectiveness. This plan has identified two areas of the organisation that will undergo the proposed changes.

Part 1: Identifying change requirements and opportunities

Task 1

Possible needs to change

After reviewing the organisation’s structure, mission and present situation, the following areas of the organisation have a need for change.

• Customer relationships
• Technology
• Organisational culture
• Policies and legal agreements

Customer relationships and technology are the top priority needs for change. Services in Bounce Fitness have lately been receiving an increasing number of lower ratings. Pursuant to our objectives of providing high quality, fitness services and ensuring customer satisfaction, we believe that this area needs some changes. We have also a gap in technology where our competitors may be overtaking us if we do not integrate our services by employing new technologies. Therefore, the organisation’s technology systems will also get a change.

Management meeting outcomes

From the management meeting, the following stakeholders were identified as likely to be affected by the changes and will need to be managed. It was agreed that changes will be made in the areas of customer relationships and technology.

• Fitness trainers: New policies concerning the handling of customers will be affected. The fitness trainers have the highest exposure time with our clients. Therefore, they will be pivotal targets for the change.
• Customer service team: All staff in charge of receiving, processing and responding to customer inquiries will also be affected by the change. New objectives and customer service policies will be implemented as part of the change.
• Marketing team: The marketing approach will undergo a few modifications to match the new customer satisfaction expectations.  
• IT staff: Significant changes will be effected in the organisation’s information management system. The IT staff will be expected to implement the changes.
• Customers: All the changes are being implemented to improve customer satisfaction. Thus, Bounce Fitness customers may experience the biggest changes. It will be important to manage the customers to to avoid shocking them with the changes.

Action plan

ObjectivesTasksSuccess criteriaTime frameAdopt new service framework based on technology infrastructureIntegrate services through the Information Management SystemAll the organisation’s services can be accessed through the same platform6 monthsImprove customer experience

• Work on knowing customers personally
• Work on reducing time taken to address customer queries

• Staff know the customers (by name & needs)
• Reduced time to answer to customer queries 4 months Increase sales

• Develop a more customer-centric marketing campaigns
• Growth in sales 6 months

Part 2: Develop a change management strategy

Task 1

Cost benefit analysis: Customer relationship change

Costs	Benefits
Increased burden on staff to remember customer names and needs	Reduced time to serve a customer; more customers can be served
Additional staff to increase the ratio of staff to customers	Increased customer satisfaction

Cost benefit analysis: Technology change

Costs	Benefits
$2,500 development fee	$300 monthly saving from integrated services
Increased cost of routine staff training	Faster service delivery
Increased cost of system maintenance	Reduced operation costs in the long term
More efficient marketing (cheaper marketing) based on concrete data
Improved reporting
Improved customer service
Improved information assurance

Risk analysis: Customer relationship change

Risk	Impact	Remedy
Staff resistance	Some interventions will fail	Involve staff when planning for the changes

Risk analysis: Technology change

Risk	Impact	Remedy
Staff/ customers being unable to use it	No objective will be met, An organisation may incur losses	Involve stakeholders during planning, Consider their usability requirements

Task 2

Change management plan

Objectives of the change process

1. Restore customer rating of our services
2. Take advantage (cost and efficiency) of integrated services from the Information Management System

Expected outcomes of the process

1. Better response of customers towards our services
2. Faster service delivery though an integrated system
3. Cost savings from reduced information management needs

Budget

Expenditure	Cost ($)
Printed communication material	300
Service integration into the information management system	2,500
Publicity (including change documentation)	500
Total	3,300

Schedule

Time	Activity
Week1	Review organisation’s strategy, policy, environment, opportunities
Week2	Identify change requirements
Week2	Develop a change plan
Week3 – Week 27	Implement customer relationship interventions
Week4 – Week 28	Implement technology interventions
Week 29	Evaluate change against performance indicators

Project resources and reporting protocol

• Printed communication material
• Venues for holding education programmes
• Consultation services
• Outsourced system development team

Reporting protocol: Individuals will report to their team leaders who will report to the human resource manager. Reporting will be done individually by each person assigned to a role. Feedback may be relayed directly from a team leader (who will be the manager in a particular section) to a team member. Feedback from the human resource manager to individual team members will be communicated through their leaders.

Part 3: Implementing change management strategy

Task1

Communication/ education needs

All the affected stakeholders will need to be educated on the changes implemented for the changes to achieve maximum results. The following table shows the stakeholders affected and the education needs of each of them.

Stakeholder	Education need
Fitness trainers	Need to be aware of new customer handling protocols/ procedures/ objectives
Marketers	Need to understand the new customer-centric marketing approach
Customer service staff	Need to be aware of new plan to achieve the decided level of customer satisfaction
Customers	Need to be aware of the changes to the information system services to be able to utilise it as it was intended
Managers	Need to understand the overall objectives of the changes to provide strategic direction to the teams in their departments

Task 2

A communication plan

Goals of the communication: To ensure all involved stakeholders are not affected negatively by the changes. Also to ensure that those involved in actualising the changes understand the specific roles they are required to play.

The risk of not communicating the plan: People involved with actuating different elements of the change program may not understand what is required of them (Quinn et al., 2012). Thus, the change will fail. Also, stakeholders who do not understand the change may increase resistance to the proposed changes and cause frustrations of those who are trying to actuate different components of the change program.

Below is the communication plan that will be used to facilitate communications during the change process.

Communication	Recipients/ respondents	Method/ channel
The new customer handling protocols	Fitness trainers, all managers	Documented procedure (customer interaction handbook), meeting with recipients
The new customer-centric marketing approach	Marketing team, all managers	Documented approach, meeting with recipients
Proposed customer satisfaction improvement objectives	Customer service staff, marketing team, all managers	Documented approach, meeting with recipients
Changes made to the information system	All staff, all managers, customers	Company website, handbook, meeting with relevant stakeholders, email communication to customers
Overall objectives of the change program	All managers	Meeting with recipients
Feedback	Customers, all staff	Surveys
Issues arising from the change (i.e. Technical/non-technical support)	Customers, staff, managers	Email to relevant

As it is seen from the plan, some communications in the form of feedback and support are expected and will be addressed in the manner shown above. These communications will come during and after the changes have been implemented, such as during monitoring and evaluation.

Sample communication materials

Task 3

Acting on one intervention

Intervention: Knowing customers by name and needs

Barriers and how to respond to them

• Some staff may think this should be the responsibility of trainers who interact directly with the clients. This barrier will be addressed by educating the entire staff fraternity on the holistic objectives of the change program. They will be reminded that each employee improves the experience of a customer
• Some staff may not be good at memorising names. This barrier can only be addressed by encouraging them and giving them more time.

Strategies to embed the change

Embedding the changes entails integrating them into the organisation’s culture. We will use the following guidelines to ensure that the changes stick.

• Linking the changes with the organisation’s strategic objectives and communicating this link
• Enlivening a compelling rationale for the changes among the implementing stakeholders
• Establishing the link between the organisation’s vision and the changes
• Pick influential members of the organisation to lead the changes in the future
• Focus on changing the behaviours of the involved stakeholders to conform to the expected
• Build the changes into a culture so that involved stakeholders begin to naturally feel and think in the direction of the change objectives

The process of monitoring, evaluating and modifying the change plan

After implementing the changes, they will be monitored and evaluated for the purpose of their improvement. The process of monitoring and evaluation will entail periodically comparing the progress of an intervention against its performance indicator (). The performance indicators will be derived from the objectives of the changes that were set during the initial stages. The process of modifying the change plan will follow the results of monitoring and evaluation. If an intervention matches up with its performance indicator, it will need no modification. If an interventions fail behind its performance indicator, the case will be investigated and a modification proposed evaluated and implemented.

Conclusion

The two areas of Bounce Fitness’ operations have been identified and earmarked for change are customer relationships and technology. Customer relationship was selected after discovering that customer ratings for services were declining. Technology was chosen because of the opportunity that lies in the integration of services. Communications that will be needed throughout the change process have been identified and planned for. There is also a plan for monitoring, evaluating and modifying interventions as may be found necessary. Al in all, this change management plan has all the components needed to actualise the proposed changes in the organisation.