Constantly, businesses evolve and adapt to address some particular challenges that may affect the entire operations putting the business at risk of collapsing or crashing. Therefore, to adapt to the competitive environment, the business must undergo change processes to sustain the business in the competitive environment. Changes may be done due to new emerging technological changes or revolutions, the rise of new competitors, shifts in laws and regulations, and underlying economic trends. Consequently, initiating change processes is an essential exercise in an organization that, if not adopted, may lead to a stalemate situation in business accompanied by poor performance. Reports suggest that 50 percent of change processes initiated by a business organization fail or are unsuccessful (Harmon & Trends, 2010). Therefore, business managers need to acquire sufficient skills necessary in staging and managing a change process to succeed during these significant processes. Consequently, the paper aims to reflect on a business change process and provide future recommendations concerning the lessons learned through the process through a critical review of significant theories and paradigms.
I worked with the local hotel company during my internship, specifically in the department of Huma Resource Management. I served in the healthy safety department under the Department of Human Resource Management. Therefore, it came a time that the organization was going through a significant change process that would affect the entire operating system of the local hotel company. Specifically, the hotel company was to undergo technological changes to adapt to the new rapidly business world. Furthermore, the movie or the strategy by the company was to help the business beat the local competition for the business to remain relevant and achieve its objective and business goals. Specifically, through strategic management, the hotel company had decided to incorporate the use of digital tablets and interactive tables (Nadarajah & Kadir, 2014). Technically, the tables are made of diamond-hard safety glass that is strong and hardly breakable. The glass table is an enormous good-looking glass that helps to attract customers.
Additionally, the glass is designed to sense the human touch and conveniently serves the people leaving the customers with an unforgettable experience. The adaption of the digital dining tables is among the marketing strategy of the local hotel company to go international. Following the technological change process, all employees in all departments were subjected to a three-week training. Therefore, the hotel business chose the on-the-job type of training, which involves employees being trained to acquire skills necessary to use some particular tools. Typically, on-the-job training involves an employee equipped with the right skills to some equipment or tools during a live-work practice.
Therefore, we learned how to use a piece of new work equipment while we were doing our daily job routines instead of the other types of training where the employee is given presentations and worksheets. The type of change process for the organization is categorized as transformational changes, which are prominent in scope and scale. The type of change process is applied through the process where a new product is being launched, a business division, or a situation where the company has decided to expand its operations. Therefore, the change process in the hotel company is categorized as transformational change since it involves the launching of a new brand, the digital dining tables, which acts as a marketing strategy for the business. Technically, change processes require that a business planning on bringing changes follow the five significant changes to execute the process effectively. The first step is that of preparing the organization for changes both locally as well as culturally. During this step, the organization’s managers are required to help the employees understand and recognize the need for change within the company (Chmielarz et al., 2013). The second step is crafting a vision and a realistic plan on how the change will be initiated in detail. Significantly, the plan should also have contingencies for anticipated roadblocks to s smooth transition or transformation. The third step is implementing the actual change to arrive at the goals and objectives of the business. The fourth step is embedding changes within the company’s culture and practices to prevent failure or backsliding of the change process. Lastly is the step of reviewing the progress and analyzing the results.
We prepare followed all the significant steps in the hotel company to effectively stage and implement the change process in the organization successfully, notably during the change process.
Through this change process, I learned several concepts that are useful in guiding the process. Some of these concepts, which are referred to as the pillars of change, include:
- Change Planning is the concept that deals with a roadmap of change. It requires individuals in managerial positions to draw and explain the road map that can be followed to execute the change process effectively.
- Change leadership: this concept explains that change in a business is an issue that requires managerial leaders to build an architect in the company that supports the elements of organizational change.
- Change management: the concept shows that management during the change process is a significant body that oversees the resources and people involved, among other significant aspects of the change process.
- Change maintenance: the phenomenon involves significant activities to ensure that change initiation remains a priority. This is the step whereby changes are monitored to ensure that they eventually become successful during the final stages.
Through the change process in the hotel company, I managed to learn significant theories that helps in the process of change implementation within an organization. Some of these theories of the change process in social systems include the social construction of reality, heliotropism, hypothesis, the inner organizational dialogue, appreciative theory processes, and paradoxical dilemmas. All these theories are essential to understand and adhere to while initiating a change process within a business organization. When developmental change is a priority, the theoretical concepts direct the management in different ways of thinking to effectively execute change processes within a business (Cowpertwait, 2010).
Significantly, implementing a change process within a business organization is a complex exercise and essential while transforming a business helps build a company and improve its profit margins. Additionally, some change process is specifically meant to improve the performance of a business, which revolve around improving the profit margins and staying relevant in the competitive environments. Some of the benefits that are enjoyed by an organization implementing change processes include
- Improves the productivity of the employees.
- We are improving collaboration and corporation among the organization’s staff members or business.
- Improves work process efficiency
- Enables the business organization to adapt and respond to changes quickly quickly
- It also helps to provide a path or guide for the business towards achieving the goals and objectives.
Consequently, as mentioned earlier, the process is a complex exercise that requires critical analysis to avoid the process becoming a failed project. Therefore, it is recommended that before starting a change process, the leadership and management of the business identify the change and assess the impacts of the change process on the entire staff. Additionally, it is also essential to create a plan and complicate the plan for the employee. It also recommended that the individual responsible for the change exercise provide a reason for the changes to the employee. Technically, employees in every organization are notable stakeholders that should always be informed of the change process and provided with a valid reason for implementing an inevitable change process within the company. It is also advised that any business planning on initiating a change process should also collect feedback from all the critical stakeholders, such as the employees, after informing and providing them with reasons for implementation.
Tacking or collecting feedback from the employee is a vital exercise since, at times, the employee may resist the changes due to poor presentations and lack adequate or convincing persuasion from the those initiating the change process. The other steps that should also be implemented to affect the exercise are launching the change process and being cautious not to overwhelm the employees with the lengthy process. After launching the process, it is essential to monitor the change process to confirm if all the employees in the company are following recommended or proper implementation procedures (Rosenbaum, More & Steane, 2018). Evaluating is the last significant action to take in the final stages of the change process in a business. Therefore, it requires that the management or individuals responsible for the implementation process involve the employees or generate a team of experts to conduct the process of evaluating the change process.
Therefore, the change process is an essential exercise in a business that helps an organization improve its performance, among several other aspects. Significantly, change processes are categorized into two parts depending on the area of impact of the size change process. The first is the transformational change which involves commercial changes such as introducing a new brand or a business expansion. Structural change is the second change process in a small business, such as shifts in the management hierarchy.
References
Chmielarz, W., Zborowski, M., & Biernikowicz, A. (2013, September). Analysis of business process management’s importance depends on the organization’s structure and culture. In 2013 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (pp. 1079-1086). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6644149/
Cowpertwait, P. S. (2010). A spatial‐temporal point process model with a continuous distribution of storm types. Water Resources Research, 46(12). https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2010WR009728
Harmon, P., & Trends, B. P. (2010). Business process change: A guide for business managers and BPM and Six Sigma professionals. Elsevier. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wSLnCTBjbn8C&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=change+process+in+business&ots=2-PZQJNq8x&sig=GLiwRJB6oirAfFak5j0kCVvlLd8&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=change%20process%20in%20business&f=false
Nadarajah, D., & Kadir, S. L. S. A. (2014). A review of the importance of business process management in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. The TQM Journal. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/TQM-01-2013-0008/full/html
Rosenbaum, D., More, E., & Steane, P. (2018). Planned organizational change management: Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review. Journal of Organizational Change Management. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JOCM-06-2015-0089/full/html
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