Change Process at the Royal Mail - Case Study Example

Change Process at the Royal Mail Introduction For most companies and organizations, it is important to understand the human nature. If a business needs to bring any change in a given situation that may affect the employees, the reaction should be careful managed. Furthermore, changes that are mainly unexplained and rapid can be bringing about resistance in the organization. The employees find it hard to deal with too much commotion that comes all at the same time or understand them, and this will affect that performance of an organization or industry. It is of great good to the company if the employees are convinced to understand and accept the changes in the company. In order for the organization to attain effective changes, there is a need for the employees to be guided through changes. This may include a guide from the first step of denial and anger to the stage of acceptance. Undertaking so means adopting an initiative structure to accommodate the changes and minimizing the negative effects that may be caused by change. Adopting initiative structure can be done in many ways. This may include from involving the employees in a meeting in order to discuss various issues affecting them and ensuring that there is a provision of the employees to provide the feedback. These feedbacks should be mainly on development and suggestions on the way forward. The lynchpin for any process of development is always consistency openness and honesty. Considering Royal Mail, which is one of the companies that have undergone some changes in the United Kingdom? Identifying the changes and the resistance forces faced during the change is of the essence. Furthermore, identifying the approaches and model the company used to solve the crisis of change is important. It is important to know that the Royal Mail is a parent company of the United Kingdom post office limited. Royal mail is one of the most preferred businesses in the United Kingdom (Royal Mail Group Limited, 2015). Royal Mail delivers million of letters to various addresses in the U.K. on a daily basis hence establishing the Royal Mail group. The company employs around 200,000 people for their service in postal (Royal media group, 2015). Why Royal Mail Needed Change The Royal Mail needed change because of three different factors. These included the difficult policies and regulations and organization that are process dominated. Furthermore, the company facing technological logging (Hooper, 2010). DIFFICULT REGULATIONS AND POLICIES: The difference in the company policies and regulation increased the competition and customers choice. Furthermore, the Royal Mail found it hard to accept the proposal made by the post office. The proposal by the post office will have to will have to affect the ability of the Royal Mail to provide service to the customers at a price that is single. These variations are going to affect the company greatly and increase the companies weakness. Royal mail being a postal office group, also face a lot of external pressure from the government which will add up. However, the question of how Royal group was to achieve a stable profit was the main basis for the need of a change of the organization (Hooper, 2010). PROCESS DOMINATED ORGANISATION: Because the process is totally dominated by the organization, there is a need for bureaucratic of passive employment style. This will cause inefficiency in the operation and cause the workforce motivation to go down. These will make the workforce form a union which will then lead to a strike. The strike by the workers will cause the name of the Royal Mail to de-value. For these to be prevented there is a need for change to take place in an organization (Royal mail privatization, 2015). LAGGING OF TECHNOLOGY: In the world of today, technology changes are moving very first, and most organization need to cope up with the speed. These changes in technology have forced most of the organizations to change their way of process style. Transforming the Performance Culture CHALLENGES The royal group was facing changes in businesses that were very radical when they faced new competition and financial pressure increase to increase profitability and reduce the cost (Andrew Hill, 2014). There is a need for the business to be more focused commercially, which needs a change of culture to reflect the new business molded for the organization. The main challenge facing the Royal Mail is that they had redundancy agreement that was a no- compulsory with their unions and the terms of voluntary were not affordable. Over the past years, there was the availability of voluntary redundancy as a tool for change. Regrettably, the companys best employees left the company and performing employees who were low performing remained in the company. The company also consisted of good number of surplus pool managers who are doing limited work and are being paid well. Due to the good pay at the surplus pool, some employees were determined to get into the surplus pool (Mike Barker and Simon Sheppard, 2007). Royal mail identified the oddness of the situation with the organization planned achievements. This forced the Royal mail to partners with Rialto in order to achieve the set targets. The partnership will enable the company to drive a step in performance change. Furthermore, the partnership will also help the company to support the employees to provide the required changes. At the initial stage, Rialto worked with the head of the ER and the group HR Director to understand the challenges that the business is facing. An approach and strategy were developed for managing people. The adaptation of the new change will provide the employee with their future task and the option to align to the requirement of the new business or decide on an optional root. SOLUTION The assessment and strategy phase taken by the Rialto was extensive, and it included engaging with the key executive stakeholders and also interviewing. This was done mainly to understand the new managing appetite. Furthermore, the strategy and assessment phase also included the change in people and the development of individual aligning strategy to the business future requirement. This resulted to a delivery plan that was integrated and a number of recommendations for the Royal Mail. The two issues to be considered for the new approaches to working included: changing the responsibility and condition of the surplus pool to make it less accessible or attractive. Secondly, the company will need to enter into an agreement with the union to enable the newly adopted approach to work and providing the employees with the notice on the redundancy terms that exists (Mike Newby & Dave Ward, 2012). Royal Mail and CMA entered into renegotiation. The renegotiation process was vital in sending a strong message to the employees that there were changes taking place in an organization. The unions were involved as part of the solution in reducing the number of employees in the surplus pool. Furthermore, the unions were encouraged to support their members to take their careers ownership. Rialto worked closely and advised the Royal Mail on the development of a healthy process of assessment to assess the workers desires and competencies to prosper in the future structure (Rialto, 2015). Furthermore, Rialto advises on how to engage in honest and open conversation with the managers on their assessment result. To enable the difficult conversation to be handled by the managers, a coaching program was designed by the Rialto custom. This coaching program availed the managers with the organization skills, message, and confidence to discuss the outcome of the assessment in a positive way. The conversation had an aim of achieving one of the three outcomes of each person persons evaluation based on their assessment result against the requirement of the future. If the worker wanted to stay but didnt perform, they could enter a surplus pool. Furthermore, at the pool, the performance of the workers will be managed, and the employee will be assisted in finding a substitute role. Employees who find it hard in making their choices of either to be redeployed, leave or stay, were referred to a Rialto that his independent. The independent Rialto was to support the workers in the evaluation of the options of staying in the organization or to consider a different opportunity. The Rialto support did not certify most of the individuals who hate long service and were not sure of their worth in the external marketplace. In addition, those workers who had plans of taking the enhancement term were very disappointed as it was not part of the offers available. RESULT Royal Mail attained the business change and the target of headcount reduction without the high cost of traditional redundancy. The population of the surplus was reduced to below ten from 1610 managers within a period of nine months (Rialto, 2015). Of the managers who self-selected to leave, only fourteen were rejected. 512 managers resigned from Royal Main after a conversation that was honest had been held during the process (Rialto, 2015). The workers had no mindset of waiting for redundancy. The conversation of performance management has improved. This is so as the managers are using the learned ideas during the program of Rialto coaching. The approach of the trade union was maintained during the entire implementation period of the management change. Reason for Change The cost of Transportation, there is a difference in the price believed to be paid on the rail service and that which is tabled. Other means of transportation should also be utilized as they can provide the same transportation. Furthermore, other means of transport provides same quality and flexibility and also low cost. Inefficiency- the third most operating postal service inefficient in the United Kingdom is Royal Mail with an estimation of forty percent less efficiency. The European couriers have a sequencing machine that is automatic and has a capability of sorting up to ninety percent of the letters and operates at a low cost. On the other hand, Royal Mail procedure is that of a walk-sequencing and walk-sorting and has a capability of sorting seventy percent of the letters they deliver. Competition-digital media is the main competition that the Royal Mail faces. The company reported losses (Spence, 2014). Technology- this has led to a decrease in the sales volume. Customers way of communication has changed to that of online, mobile telephony, email, digital broadcasting, and text messaging because they have a marginal cost that is low, faster and flexible (Hooper, 2009). Pension Deficit- Royal mail has found a black hole in kits postbag for the retirement which is the historical biggest pension deficit in the United Kingdom (BBC News, 2010). Universal service – universal service enables trade and is very important to the economy of the United Kingdom. In the year 2008, an operating loss was made by the Royal Mail. Strained relation – as a result of industrial action in the year 2007, the employees days that totaled 67,000 were lost. The reason of this was the loss of contracts which also included the Amazon contract (Mail Online, 2009). Working practice – the barrier to the efficiency of the organization is due to the outdated working practices. The employees mare paid until the end of their shift even if they finish their morning round up three hours earlier. Lewis Group Dynamics In this study, the effects of autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership style on the group behavior and structure of the members. The result that is Ä shows numerous insights into the structure of the group. Ä are also groups with the change that are efficient which occurred in a democratic ways hence leading to results that are superior. ÄÄ superior results were established on the ground that if all persons can take part and become the group identifiable part acceptance of change is easier. Groups that contained structures that are more authoritarian were identified to hinder creativity are more rigid and lead to a process of decision-making that is dysfunctional. Ä groups that were composed of laissez-faire styles were found to be unproductive and very efficient. The final result for the three styles of leadership identified that the style of democratic leadership leads friendliness, more originality as compared to other leadership styles and conscientiousness for members of the group. ÄÄ laissez-faire and Autocratic groups showed a greater amount of discontent, scapegoating, aggression and hostility that were significant than the leadership style that was democratic. Lewis concluded that the result of changes was from the group dynamics and not from the difference in individuals. Lewis also emphasized that ÄÄ need to guide and facilitate change as dictatorship is forced on individuals but democracy is learned. With the royal mail being under the government of the United Kingdom control, it can be argued that they are subjected to ma more leadership structure that is authoritarian. The decision in the royal media should be made by considering the budget, action and strategies of the United Kingdom, which are all placed before the parliament leaving the Royal Mail management with more power (United Kingdom Essays, 2003). Planned & Emergent Change The three-stage model of movement, unfreezing and regularly refreezing underlies change that is planned. This approach to planned change is taken to be highly effective by most people. However, the three-stage model has been criticized since 1980s. The three-stage seems to disregard that the factors of an environment in which a company is located may be conflicting with the initiative of the planned change. Furthermore, assuming that the organization can move in a manner that is pre-planed from one state that is stable to another, this movement should be in a manner that is not strongly affected by the external factors. The change in an organization should be understood to be a continuous and a more- open-ended process than a self-contained event that are pre-identified. Emergency change stresses that change should not be taken as a sequence of events that are planned within a given period. Relatively, it is best seen as an open-ended, continuous process of adjustment to change condition and circumstances (United Kingdom Essays, 2003). Forces Causing Resistance to Change A resistance to change is an impediment formed by others to stop change. Some forces will be more resistance than others. These may include the planned modernization by the Royal mail. The modernization plan has faced more resistance from the unions and the employees. These have been expressed through various planned strikes over the past two years (The Communication Union, 2014). This is because the employees take the process of modernization as a way of reducing the number of staffs in an organization. The forces identified at the Royal Mail change process are; union resistance, poor management, and employee relation, reluctant for the use of the new technology, and the dislike of the plan for modernization. UNION RESISTANCE The largest union for the industry of communication is Communication Workers Union, which was formed in the year 1995. Because of their large number, it is a very powerful force to be played with. It is documented that the union and the management share different views when it comes to the best way on how the company should be run. This has caused the union to have several strikes towards the planned modernization. This is because the members of the union were at risk for the implementation of the new technology (The Guardian, 2012). POOR EMPLOYEES AND MANAGEMENT RELATION There exists a poor industrial relation history on the relation between the employees and the management of the Royal Mail. This has had a grate effect on the companies plan of modernization and expansion which has affected it efficiency. However, with the introduction of beyond agreement and 2010 Business Transformation, both the company and the union agree on the need for the relationship to be transformed. Furthermore, there is also need to build quickly the mutual interest culture between the union, the employees, and the managers (Silvera, 2014). RELUCTANT FOR THE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY The Royal Mail staffs have refused to adopt the use of new technology believing that some position in the company will be redundant. Furthermore, the staffs have bid to the advice by the CWU and have refused to use the modern machinery that will improve in the company efficiency (Silvera, 2014). DISLIKE OF THE MODERNIZATION PLAN The Royal Mail chief executive from the year 2003 to 2010 said that everyone finds it difficult to change, but the company of Royal Mail has no other option but to change. This is the possible way the company will be in a position to compete in the world of today that is very competitive. This is taken differently by the union and the employees for fear of losing their positions. The management is already seeing some improvement in profit with operating profits of up to £ 7,000,000 in 2009 compared to the previous years (Silvera, 2014). Conclusion The Royal Mail is in a situation that change is a necessity for it to survive in the todays market. The change in the company has to be quickly. The organization needs a communication that is better to enable a joint force of both its management and the workforce (Royal media group, 2015). For the organization to achieve this there is a need for its separation from the political leaders. It is necessary that the new strategy for change is formulated to fit the situation. Progress has been shown through the 2010 Communication Union agreement which will assist in resolving the resistance of the employees towards change. The basic pay of the employees will rise and the week for working will be reduced by a maximum of one hour without a reduction in the salary. In addition, the introduction phase in the workforce change will be accompanied by further payment and the Royal Mail will remain seventy-five percent full-time companies. The Communication Workers Union will play an important role in the deployment, introduction and review of the changes in the organization. Additionally, there will be an enhancement of the existing job security. Additional steps have to be taken put modernization into practice as agreed. Moreover, implementation of Kotters eight steps of change can strengthen the plan which will help in the modernization of the past the agreed three years. Bibliography ANDREW HILL, (2014). Royal Mail: the inside story. 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