Case Study: Simmons Laboratories. After reading the case study in the textbook, answer the following questions: What course of action would you recommend? Why?
After reading the case study in the textbook, answer the following questions: What course of action would you recommend? Why? How are you or an appropriate organization going to implement changes? Resource: McShane, S. (2020). Organizational Behavior: Emerging Knowledge. Global Reality (9th Edition). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US). https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781264075355
Helping your business grow and thrive often requires implementing change throughout the organization. Knowing which changes to make will help ensure a smooth transition for your company. In this article, we discuss what it means to implement change within an organization, the benefits of change implementation and eight helpful steps plus tips to help you with this process.
When implementing change within an organization, it means you are shifting the way that you do business in some way, whether that involves a new business strategy, employee practices or the implementation of new software or equipment.
Implementing change effectively requires change management, which is a process that helps employees prepare for an organizational transition using various resources and strategies. It’s recommended that you develop a plan that will gain employee buy-in and provide them with the necessary tools to achieve the intended change.
Changes are usually implemented to achieve greater efficiency in meeting business goals or to adjust processes for new goals.
The type of change you implement will vary on your organization’s objectives and industry. However, some general benefits of implementing change in an organization include:
Improving collaboration or cooperation within the business
Improving employee productivity
Improving the efficiency of work processes
Ability to adapt or respond to changes more efficiently
Providing a path to achieve specific business objectives
Related: Adaptability in the Workplace: Benefits and Importance
Successful change management requires implementing multiple phases to ensure the transition runs smoothly. By following these eight steps, you can keep your business on track while achieving a transition:
To begin, you should first identify the necessary change and make sure that it aligns with your company’s overall objectives. Once you identify your goal, perform an impact assessment to evaluate how the change will affect all levels of your organization. This assessment will provide guidelines on how to implement the change because it shows who faces the most impact and will need the most support or training.
Use the insights you gained in the preparation phase to determine how to implement the changes needed. Create a plan that sets the direction for your organization, including how to achieve the necessary changes and ways to measure whether the changes were successful.
Depending on the scope of the change you implement, you may need to include a plan on how you will support employees through this transition. Your impact assessment identified the most impacted employees, so your implementation plan also needs to include any type of support or training that these employees may need. Things to consider include mentorship programs, cross-training plans and open-door policies where employees can ask for assistance and receive clarification.
To effectively convey the change to employees, you’ll need to develop a communications strategy. In this plan, outline your main messages, identify your audience and determine who or what medium will deliver this information. Depending on the change, you may also need to consider how management will respond to resistance or feedback from employees.
Due to your impact assessment, you will likely already know which level of the organization will be affected most by the change. It is recommended that you communicate with these employees first and most often.