Table of Contents
Introduction
Change management refers to a process of handling any change in organizational culture, structure or operational process (Cameronand Green, 2015). Evolving needs of the people, intense market competition and technological advancement have induced companies to make necessary change within the timeline. Making changes within the business process or organizational structure has assisted companies to improve their overall service quality. Both private and public sector companies are facing similar challenges at the time of making any change within the existing business process. In this study, the focus will be on analysing a particular change management situation faced by a public service government authority, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
Section 1
Articulation of situational change
DEFRA is responsible for protecting the environmental condition and maintaining the standard of food production (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2018). With time, issues related with environmental condition and quality of food has increased considerably. Several issues have been identified regarding the dropping quality of the food products in recent times, as the department is using outdate tools and techniques. On the other hand, keeping the environmental condition intact is among the top issues that government department is facing over the consistent period of time. In addition, the public service department has to monitor the quality standard of imported foods as well. As a result, it had to deal with huge amount of data on regular basis, which in turn induced the management to opt for advance ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.
Context behind the change
DEFRA is facing challenges in using all the available data effective for the successful accomplishment of all the responsibilities. For instance, it is critical for the department to maintain historical data about the quality standard to maintain consistency. Inclusion of ERP software can assist the department in maintaining strong coordination with all the employees. It would eventually allow the department to identify any issue at the early stage, which can in turn enhance operational efficiency.
Scoring system for the force field analysis
Kurt Lewin developed force field analysis model with the objective of maintaining equilibrium between the change drivers and other factors that resist change (Kruglanski, et al., 2012). The adoption of force field model can help DEFRA to evaluate whether the adoption of ERP software within the operational process is viable or not. The objective behind the inclusion of ERP software is to evaluate all the available data for enhancing the decision-making efficiency. People within the economy have become extremely conscious about the environmental and food quality standard. Therefore, DEFRA has to improve its existing practices to meet the requirements. Moreover, it will allow DEFRA to reduce the cost of operational procedure in a considerable manner. However, adoption of ERP software can induce the public sector authority to face various challenges including high employee attrition rate, fear of new technology, disruption and cost of training.
Figure 1: Force field analysis of DEFRA
Meaning of the total result of the force field analysis
The analysis above has illustrated that the total score of ‘forces for change’ is 17 while ‘forces against change’ has only 8 points. It clearly articulated the fact that the focused public department has to introduce advance ERP software for fulfilling all the operational responsibilities in an effective way. Factors like ‘People want greater environmental and food standard’ have received highest points of five, as it cannot be controlled by any other alternative solutions. In addition, the department is facing increasing workload as the amount of food imported and produced within the economy has increased at the rapid rate. On the other hand, environment can be affected by many factors including pollution, decreasing number of plants etc.. Therefore, it would be critical for the department to analyse the adverse impact that each factor is making individually. This in turn enhances the importance of adopting advance ERP software solution.
Management literature around strategic change
Over the years, several studies have been conducted on identifying best possible way to make changes within the operational process (Bucciarelli, 2015). ADKAR and Lewin’s change management model is among the most popular processes of making change within the business process successfully. As per Lewin’s model, organizations need to follow three steps namely unfreeze, change and refreeze for accomplishing all the change management objectives (Manchester et al., 2014). On the other hand, ADKAR model has described five steps including awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement that organizations can follow in order to accomplish all the operational objectives. Both these models have provided systematic processes, which can allow companies in dealing with any disturbance successfully. Therefore, the selection of any particular change management model will have to depend on various external factors like time, money and resistance from the employee.
Section 2- Implementation strategy
Strategy to implement
The Kurt Lewin’s 3 stage change management model is widely accepted as a prospective way to implement change in an organization (Cummings, Bridgmanand Brown, 2016). The understanding and recognition of the need for the concerned change is significant to earn commitment of the individuals associated with the change without which, a considerable amount of resistance to change is generated from the workforce. At the same time, the preparation of the workforce to implement the targeted change measures is essential to enact a successful change process deriving the desired outcome.
Cummingsand Worley (2014) asserted on the significance of assessing the effects produced through the change process to ensure the effectiveness of the change strategy failing which successful attainment of the desired results is not possible. The three stages of Lewin’s change management model include Unfreeze, Change and Refreeze (Burke, 2017). In the initial phase, Unfreeze, the status quo of the workforce is targeted to be broken to prepare the base for change. In the second phase, Change, the individuals are provided with the support and guidance to adapt to the change. It is followed by the third stage, Refreeze, where the change is established as the new status quo across the individuals (Manchester et al. 2014).
In this current context of DEFRA intending to adopt to the ERP software usage in their data handling process, the change can be implemented through the strategy in alignment with the Lewin’s 3-step change management model. The strategy would initiate with the Unfreeze stage when the workforce will be made aware of the need for the change at the organisation. As asserted by Hossan (2015), commitment of individuals to change at workplace is attained by highlighting the benefits of change to both the organisation as well as the workforce themselves. The strategy is to progress the change implementation process through the next stage of Change by providing the staff with relevant resources, support and guidance to develop the skills of using ERP software effectively, which is the new change intended to be incorporated at DEFRA. As opined by Boohene and Williams (2012), the providence of suitable support to individuals not only encourage them to progress with the change process but also facilitate the fast integration of the change into the work processes.
The summative stage of the strategy will be implemented through the action of assigning appropriate tasks of ERP software usage to handle the food and environmental data at DEFRA to relevant trained employees. This process will complete the last stage of the Kurt Lewin’s change management model, refreeze in which the change is established at the organisation. Although the model concludes at this stage, the strategy will progress to assess the effects of the change to detect any anomalies and undertake relevant measures to address them thereby ensuring the retrieval of desired results from the strategy.
Linking with FFA results
The FFA results depict a higher score of the change drivers at 17 than the change restrictors at 8 indicating the greater chances of change implementation than facing obstruction in the change process at DEFRA. The strategy opts to provide employees with the information regarding the need for change. The demand of people for greater food and environmental standards, organisational needs to make faster decision, reduce operational costs and development of efficiency for dealing with increasing pressure of data are identified as significant through FFA. These factors are to be projected to the employees to drive awareness among them for the use of ERP software to meet these needs.
The FFA identifies the restricting factors to the change as well. The strategy involves the measures of providing suitable training courses and guidance to employees for developing the required technological skills to use the ERP software effectively. This could be analysed as a prospective measure to address the restricting factor of staff fear of the new technology. Cummings and Worley (2014) asserted that the fear to adapt to change and job insecurity leads to attrition. This restricting factor to the change is evident at DEFRA as identified through the FFA. It can be overcome through the effective communication of the need and benefits of using ERP software by employees at DEFRA. Since, DEFRA is a governmental department, it could be expected to attain subsidy and donations from government to meet the training costs associated with the training of employees to use ERP software. The strategy includes activities of training and assessment followed by formulation and implementation of necessary actions to address the detected concerns in the change process. It is potential to overcome the restricting factor of disruption as recognised by the FFA result.
Section 3- Action plan
Action plan to implement the change process at DEFRA
In order to implement the strategy developed for ERP software usage by employees at DEFRA the following action plan is recommended.
Table 1: Action plan
We can do it today.
Conclusion
Adoption of efficient change management procedure is one of the key criteria for any companies to achieve success on regular basis. Without developing effective change management process, the objective of initiating change might not be accomplished completely. The force field analysis has clearly indicated the need for adopting advance software for reducing the time required to perform various operational responsibilities. However, the use of Lewin’s three-step model along with clearly defined action plan is likely to assist DEFRA in accomplishing all the objectives of introducing ERP software. The development of 12 weeks action plan will allow the department to cover all the critical areas that can damage operational efficiency. The action plan will help the organization in identifying the required level of knowledge and skills for the maintenance of operational flow. Thus, the management needs to possess effective change management skills to ensure consistent success within the targeted market.
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