Impact of Organizational Change on Employees

This assignment delves into the multifaceted impact of organizational change on employees. It examines the essential leadership competencies required for successful implementation of change initiatives, emphasizing the importance of employee adaptability in coping with transitions. The analysis further explores the role of training programs in equipping employees with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively navigate change and its potential consequences.

Running head: ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Management of Organisational Change at WMC
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Table of Contents
Answer 1:...................................................................................................................................1
Answer 2:...................................................................................................................................3
Listing on a stock exchange:..................................................................................................3
Strengthen its organisational culture:.....................................................................................4
Strengthening and expansion of supply chain:.......................................................................4
Answer 3:...................................................................................................................................5
Part 1:.........................................................................................................................................5
Mentoring and training the employees:..................................................................................5
Motivating and communicating with the employees:............................................................5
Part 2:.........................................................................................................................................6
References:.................................................................................................................................9

2
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Answer 1:
The case study on WMC presents several appropriate leadership approaches and
competencies during implementation of organisational changes in the company. Sofea
founded the business as sole proprietorship where she showed her leadership competencies of
leading human and financial resources to towards earning profits. Hayes (2014) Chapter 9
mentions that the apex management needs to initiate organisational changes. He points out
those organisational changes help organisations to adapt to market conditions. These changes
ensure that organisations can restructure their resources like human resources and capital
structure according to the new conditions. Further, Battilana, Gilmartin, Sengul, Pache and
Alexander (2010) implementation organisational changes call for two types of leadership
approaches namely, task oriented skills and person-oriented skills. Task oriented skills of
leadership approach according to them relate to the organisational structure, designing and
control of resources like the top managers and the junior employees. The leaders following
this leadership approach emphasises on motivating and supporting their teams (Battilana et
al. 2010). They interact with their subordinates and managers about the necessity to bring
about organisational changes to adapt to the market situations. An analysis of the case of
WMC shows that in initial stage the customers purchasing cotton and woollen fabric were
satisfied with the strategy of providing high quality products at high prices. However, in the
later stage during the leadership of Ryan and Mira the market situation changed due to entry
of foreign producers of woollen and cotton producers who offered these products at low
prices and compromised on their quality (Stoppa and Chiolerio 2014). The demand of the
customers also changed and they were more concerned about obtaining low priced products
of inferior quality. In fact, some of the firms were public limited companies like Walmart
who were financially very strong and could offer products at low price. WMC required to

3
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
change its organisational model to compete with these low cost suppliers. However, the case
study does not bear any evidence of Ryan and Mira communicating and motivating the
managers about the need to change the model. Here it can be said they exhibit authoritative
leadership styles because they wanted to bring about organisational changes without seeking
cooperation from the employees. They expected the employees including the directors to
cooperate with them without caring for their fear and insecurity regarding the change. Thus,
it can be inferred that the leaders Ryan and Mira did not exhibit task oriented leadership skills
of planning the organisational change and engaging their employees (Mohajeryami, Schwarz
and Baboli 2015).
Person oriented leadership skills comprise of the ability to establish a transparent
communication with the stakeholders like employees in order to create an organisational
climate supportive to the organisational changes. However, it can be pointed that in the case
study of WMC, the owners Hana, Ryan and Mira do not exhibit these competencies. The case
bears evidences, which show that these leaders consulted with the directors while they were
planning to introduce large scale batch production process to export cotton and woollen
products to China, Japan and Indonesia as well as to the other parts of the world (Nahavandi
2016). The case also points out that they did not consult with the directors regarding the
needs to change the business models or discuss about ways to bring about those changes in
the organisation. This lack of implementing change process and gaining employee support
resulted in insecurity among the directors as they were uncertain about the future impacts of
the changes. Moreover, the firm was suffering from insufficient human resources
management and adoption of the new high technology sustainable production was supposed
to render more employees jobless. This shows that Ryan and Mira lacked task oriented and
person oriented skills to drive organisational changes (Lawrence and Weber 2014).

4
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Implementation of organisational changes and effectively using task and person
oriented leadership approaches require certain competencies from the leaders. The first
competency leaders should possess to drive changes in their organisations is the ability to
communicate the need to bring about the changes to the employees. The leaders having this
attribute consult with their employees to know about their fears and insecurities regarding the
changes in the organisation (Franks et al. 2014). The case however does not bear any
testimony showing Ryan and Mira holding meetings with their employees to discuss about
the process of the change and the effect of it on employees. In fact it can be pointed that the
employees feared losing their jobs due to adoption of sustainable and highly advanced
techniques of production. This shows that Ryan and Mira lacked the leadership competency
of communicating with employees to deal with their fears and motivate them to embrace the
change. The next competency the leaders are expected to have in order to drive the changes is
the power to mobilise the resources including employees and capital to bring about the
change (Palmer and Stoll 2014). The WMC case study shows that Ryan and Mira were
successful to mobilise capital resources to acquire highly advanced sustainable production
plants. However, they failed to mobilise the employees to embrace the change and in fact
took no initiative to evaluate and address their fears. Thus, it can be said that Ryan and Mira
were partly success in showing evaluation and mobilisation when it came to capital but failed
to mobilise employees to implement the change (Azapagic et al. 2016).
Answer 2:
Hayes 2014 Chapter 16 describes that the apex management bodies of the
organisation require to intervene to bring about organisational change effectively. The case
study of WMC reveals that certain interventions are required to implement the organisational

5
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
to sustainable large scale production. The following are the interventions needed to assist
Ryan and Mira improve the effectiveness of the organisation:
Listing on a stock exchange:
The case study of WMC shows that at the later stage during the leadership of Ryan
and Mira, the company started being threatened by the entry of companies like Walmart and
Nike which are public limited company. These companies are public companies, which were
able to acquire huge amount capital from the market by floating shares (Mohajeryami,
Schwarz and Baboli 2015). This huge capital accounts for their mass production and selling
of products, which allow them to reduce their cost of production. As a result, they can enter
foreign markets like Malaysia and offer goods at low prices, thus giving the resident
companies tough competition (Ahnet et al. 2014). The case study does not bear any evidence
of WMC being listed and it appears it remains a sole proprietorship company with limited
financial resources compared to Walmart. Thus, this sole proprietorship format of WMC
should be intervened with a public limited company format and the company should get listed
on a stock exchange (Palmer and Stoll 2014).
Strengthen its organisational culture:
It appears from the case study that the organisational culture of WMC was not strong
because there was marked lack of communication and understanding between the owners
Ryan and Mira and the directors. The competition from the foreign low cost fabric producers
had already resulted in reduction in the number of employees at WMC (Mohajeryami,
Schwarz and Baboli 2015). The adoption of highly advanced and sustainable large-scale
production technology created panic among the employees to lose jobs. This shows that
though the firm had stable business relationship with its clients, its relationship with the
employees had been breached. The employees were suffering from fear and insecurity due to
the organisational change. Ryan and Mira did not involve the directors in all decision making

6
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
activities related the business (Martins et al. 2016). This resulted in lack of cooperation from
the directors towards the outcome of the change. Ryan and Mira should concentrate on
mentoring and counselling the employees and assure them of job security due to the
organisational change. They should establish a smooth flow of communication with the
employees. This will strengthen the organisational culture and help the employees deal with
their insecurities and fear regarding the change. This would enable the two owners to gain
employee support to introduce the change in the organisation (Mohajeryami, Schwarz and
Baboli 2015).
Strengthening and expansion of supply chain:
The case study points out that the firm, WMC was solely dependent on Australian
suppliers to provide it with high quality wool and cotton. This dependence on Australia solely
led to high cost of importing raw materials from the country. The owners of WMC, Ryan and
Mira should expand their supply chain management and import wool and cotton from other
countries as well (Ahnet et al. 2014). This expansion of supply chain would enable them to
acquire raw materials from the producers offering them at the most economic rates. This
would help them to lower their cost of production and allow them to offer the goods at lower
prices. This, would result in enhanced competitiveness in the market against strong low cost
producers like Nike (Monczka et al. 2015).
Answer 3:
` Hayes (2014) Chapter 27 describes that organisations require forming strategies to
sustain changes in them. The author states that the apex management and middle level
managers should gain support from the lower level managers and executives. This would help
them to enforce the changes more effectively in the organisations.

7
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Part 1:
WMC can sustain change by obtaining employee engagement to bring about the
organisational change. The owners of the firm Ryan and Mire can follow the following steps
to sustain the change in production process towards sustainability:
Mentoring and training the employees:
Ryan and Mira should arrange for training the employees to train them to embrace the
change. The change in WMC was related to adoption of highly advanced and sustainable
production process. They should train the employees to operate the advanced production
process. This will have two positive outcomes. First, the employees would be trained and
become more efficient in using the modern technology which lead to increase in production.
Secondly, it would prevent the employees from losing their jobs which would help the two
owners to deal with employee insecurity (Morin et al. 2016).
Motivating and communicating with the employees:
The two owners Ryan and Mira should communicate with the employees about the
need to embrace highly advanced technology in order to gain competitiveness in the market.
They should communicate to the employees the positive outcomes of the change like increase
in production and profitability. This would help the employees to get rid of their fears and
insecurities. They would be motivated to participate in bring about the change and this would
minimise the chances of conflict between the owners and employees. The owners should
motivate the employees to work harder and reassure them about their job security(Cullen et
al. 2014). This would have two long term positive outcomes. First, the providing job security
to the employees would motivate the employees to achieve higher levels of productivity. This
would result in higher production, which would allow the firm to lower its cost of production.
Secondly, it owners would be able to form business strategies well in advance and allocate
the employees according to those strategies. Thirdly, decrease in termination of employees

8
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
would reduce employee turnover. This would help the company to save excess costs to
acquire new human resources from the market and allocate more financial resources towards
adoption of the sustainable technology and mass productivity facilities (Ahnet et al. 2014).
Part 2:
The owners of WMC should identify the strategies and counter the problems like
decrease of competitive advantage in the market by obtaining support from the important
stakeholders like directors and employees. First, they should make the strategies to counteract
the market capturing of strong competitors like Walmart from WMC. They should involve
the directors and the top managers in making the strategies to increase the current level of
production like motivating the employees and making them feel secure. Secondly, it appears
from the case study that WMC did not emphasise on marketing its products aggressively and
depended on its existing brand value to attract suppliers and distributors. The firm should
form aggressive marketing strategies to attract new suppliers and distributors (Hornstein
2015). This would enable it to counteract the problem of limited supply and distribution
chains. The first strategy would help the firm to enhance its production capacity. The second
strategy would help the firm to choose from a large numbers of suppliers and purchase raw
materials from the suppliers offering them at economic rates. The combined effect of these
two strategies would enable the firm to lower its cost of production and yet maintain its high
quality parameters (Hayes 2014). Large-scale marketing would allow the firms to acquire
new customers, which would allow it to earn more profit. The third strategy would be
acquiring more human resources and retaining its present employees. This would help the
company to retaliate the problem of employee shortages which resulted in fall in productivity
(Ahnet et al. 2014). The acquisition of advanced technology would lead to expansion in the
production capacities of the employees. Retaining its existing human resources and acquiring

9
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
more talent would allow the company to allocate its human resources to the new production
facilities in advanced. This would result in low cost production due to increased productivity.
It would also help the firm to achieve sustainability and cost effectiveness (Kiboss 2015). It
can reiterated that the owners Ryan and Mira should obtain support of the directors and the
employees to successfully form and implement these strategies and counteract threats from
powerful competitors like Walmart.

10
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
References:
Ahn, H.J., Cai, J., Hamao, Y. and Melvin, M., 2014. Little guys, liquidity, and the
informational efficiency of price: Evidence from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on the effects of
small investor participation. Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, 29, pp.163-181.
Azapagic, A., Stamford, L., Youds, L. and Barteczko-Hibbert, C., 2016. Towards sustainable
production and consumption: A novel decision-support framework integrating economic,
environmental and social sustainability (DESIRES). Computers & Chemical Engineering, 91,
pp.93-103.
Battilana, J., Gilmartin, M., Sengul, M., Pache, A.C. and Alexander, J.A., 2010. Leadership
competencies for implementing planned organizational change. The Leadership
Quarterly, 21(3), pp.422-438.
Cullen, K.L., Edwards, B.D., Casper, W.C. and Gue, K.R., 2014. Employees’ adaptability
and perceptions of change-related uncertainty: Implications for perceived organizational
support, job satisfaction, and performance. Journal of Business and Psychology, 29(2),
pp.269-280.
Franks, D.M., Davis, R., Bebbington, A.J., Ali, S.H., Kemp, D. and Scurrah, M., 2014.
Conflict translates environmental and social risk into business costs. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 111(21), pp.7576-7581.
Hayes, J., 2014. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hornstein, H.A., 2015. The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
pp.291-298.

11
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Kiboss, E.V., 2014. Training Measures Used to Improve Employees’ Ability to Cope with
Challenges Posed by New Advances in Technologies in North Rift Region Kenya. Journal of
Human Resources, 2(2), pp.243-263.
Lawrence, A.T. and Weber, J., 2014. Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public
policy. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Martins, C., Bispo, L., Campos, S., Moreira, T., Martins, R. and Vieira, M., 2016. Stress
vulnerability: implications for teacher well-being and satisfaction. European Proceedings of
Social and Behavioural Sciences, pp.746-757.
Mohajeryami, S., Schwarz, P. and Baboli, P.T., 2015, October. Including the behavioral
aspects of customers in demand response model: Real time pricing versus peak time rebate.
In North American Power Symposium (NAPS), 2015 (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Monczka, R.M., Handfield, R.B., Giunipero, L.C. and Patterson, J.L., 2015. Purchasing and
supply chain management. Cengage Learning.
Morin, A.J., Meyer, J.P., Bélanger, É., Boudrias, J.S., Gagné, M. and Parker, P.D., 2016.
Longitudinal associations between employees’ beliefs about the quality of the change
management process, affective commitment to change and psychological
empowerment. human relations, 69(3), pp.839-867.
Nahavandi, A., 2016. The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson.
Palmer, D.E. and Stoll, M.L., 2014. Ethics in e-business: Emerging issues and enduring
themes. In Handbook of strategic e-business management (pp. 865-887). Springer Berlin
Heidelberg.

12
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Stoppa, M. and Chiolerio, A., 2014. Wearable electronics and smart textiles: a critical
review. Sensors, 14(7), pp.11957-11992.