19-05-2014, 11:09 AM
A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT AT HMT MACHINE TOOLS LTD, KALAMASSERY, ERNAKULAM.
A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS.pdf (Size: 666.94 KB / Downloads: 26)
BACK GROUND
To keep pace with a constantly evolving business world, organizations often
find it necessary to implement major enterprise-wide changes affecting their
processes, products and people. Going beyond project management and technical
tasks undertaken to enact organizational changes, change management leads the
‘people side’ of major change within an organization. The primary goal of change
management is to successfully implement new processes, products and business
strategies while minimizing negative outcomes.
Organizations can have a clear vision of the changes they want to implement
and a technically and structurally sound foundation for making these changes, but the
change initiatives can still flounder due to obstacles that the arise during
implementation. Failing to engage employees and to inform them of the reasons,
processes and expected benefits of major organizational changes can lead to lack of
acceptance of the changes and, ultimately, failure of these initiatives. This can affect
not only the organization and relations within the organization, but also clients and the
organization’s reputation. Change management leaders must promote awareness and
understanding of the change initiatives to influence employee’s willingness to
embrace the change.
NEED AND SIGNIFINANCE OF THE STUDY
Organizations perceive changes are very important for survival on the
prosperity in today’s most competitive environment and new business challenges.
They make change initiative to keep up the pace with changing environment and new
challenging competitions. The success and performance superiority of organization
are very much dependent on its ability to align its internal arrangements with the
demand external world.
The study is for understanding the effectiveness of change management in the
organization. The study examines the types of major changes in organization planned
or implemented, the ways that HR had been involved in those changes how
employees received communications related to major changes with the organization
and out comes achieved as a result HR involvement in change management
initiatives.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research adopted descriptive research design. Descriptive research
includes surveys and fact findings enquiries of different kinds. The major purpose of
descriptive research is description of the state of affairs as it exists at present. This
research design is purely and simply the framework or plan for a study that guides the
collection and analysis of the data.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study “Effectiveness Of Change Management In HMT Machine Tools
Ltd” has thrown light to Planning, Implementation and Evaluation of Human
Resource related changes in the organization. This study will help the management to
improve their change management in favourable to the employees and the
organization. The study covers the whole organization is taken into consideration and
the survey is conducted among the employees through questionnaire.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT
The importance of the psychological contract in change management is
twofold. Firstly, the content of the contract is informal, implicit and unwritten.
Consequently, employees and employers may hold different views on the content of
the contract and the degree to which each party has fulfilled their obligations. For
example, in a study by Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler (2000) it was found that managers
were more positive in their assessment of the employer’s fulfilment of their
obligations than the employees were.
Through creating an open working environment and effective channels of
communication the manager can ensure that the expectations of both employees and
the employer are clear and well communicated. The manager is then well placed to
address the expectations of the employees effectively. This openness about the
contract is particularly crucial within a time of change, when employees often worry
that a negative change in the psychological contract may occur, for example in terms
of their job security or development opportunities. The second way in which the
concept of the psychological contract is useful when thinking about organisational
change is that it forces manager to consider the balance of the contract. Consequently
if an employer wants to make changes that will affect what employees are expected to
“give” to the organisation, for example a change in working hours, by implication
they should also consider changing what they will offer to the employees to maintain
a balance, for example increased flexibility.
RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Fundamental to the success of organisational change is the acceptance of the
change by employees. The work of Kubler-Ross (1973), who argued that all humans
go through 5 stages of ‘grief’ (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance)
when faced with a loss or change, has been seen as relevant and has been applied to
the management of organisational change. Wiggins (2009) uses the model to help
guide communication and support during the period of change, which she suggests
should be tailored to the stage of change that the employees have reached. For
example, after the news of change is delivered, employees need to be given
information to tackle their denial.
Once the information has sunk in and they experience anger, bargaining and
depression they require various kinds of support. Once employees have begun
accepting the situation they need a vision to put their commitment into. Others take a
more individualist approach to studying resistance to change, arguing individuals
reactions are highly complex and vary greatly. One advocate of such thinking is Shaul
Oreg who proposed that resistance to change is based both on personality and also the
context in which the change occurs. In his initial study (2003) he developed and tested
a scale called the “Resistance to Change Scale” (RTC) which he conceptualised as a
stable personality trait. In his following study he found a positive and significant
relationship between the individuals’ RTC score and their affective and behavioural
resistance to a particular organisational change they were subject to.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change management is an approach to shifting/transitioning individuals or
teams, and - in general -organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It
is an organizational process aimed at helping change stakeholders to accept and
embrace changes in their business environment or individuals in their personal live. In
some project management contexts, change management refers to a project
management process wherein changes to a project are formally introduced and
approved.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT HISTORY
Change Management as a discipline began to emerge in the 1980s driven by
leading consulting firms working with Fortune 50 companies. Early adopters, such as
GE, Ford, and AT&T, were very large corporations that could derive significant
savings through more efficiently implementing new programs and were accustomed
to cutting edge thought leadership roles. This work resulted in early Change
Management models such as GE’s Change Acceleration Process (CAP) and John
Kotter’s Eight Step Process for Leading Change. At this time, Change Management
offerings were mostly available through consulting services, with a limited number of
books and textbooks available.