Change Management in Commonwealth Bank

This report discusses the issues faced by Commonwealth Bank due to weak communication strategies and the implementation of change to enhance organizational performance. It includes intervention strategies for change, factors influencing change, and Lewin's Change Management Model.

Running Head: Change Management
Commonwealth Bank
Change Management

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Change concept................................................................................................................................2
Change identification.......................................................................................................................3
Factors influencing change..............................................................................................................3
Intervention strategies for change....................................................................................................4
Change model..................................................................................................................................4
Lewin’s Change Management Model..........................................................................................5
Unfreeze...................................................................................................................................5
Change......................................................................................................................................5
Freeze.......................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Primary objective of every organization is to move towards growth and expansion along with the
long survival in the global market. Growth and expansion objectives are considered as the major
part of every organization's long-term vision and these objectives act as the motivation for the
organizations in terms of regular updating its strategies and policies so that the right path could
be followed in order to reach towards desired destination. While updating strategies, organization
faces numerous issues change impacts the whole organization along with its employees. Thus, it
is necessary for the organizations to address every challenge and issue faced by their
stakeholders with the objective of attaining positive outcomes with the effect of implementation
of change at workplace. In order to mitigate these challenges and issues, this report will include
relevant plans to implement change at workplace in order to attain sustainable and ethical change
solutions. Before implementing change program, an organization requires to follow certain steps
through which the issues and challenges which could be faced by the stakeholders could be
identified along with determining appropriate and relevant ways for the objective of reaching to
the desired aims (Doppelt, 2017).
In this report, implementation of change will be discussed in relevance to the Commonwealth
Bank of Australia. It is a multinational bank who operates in New Zealand, United States, United
Kingdom, and in Asia along with Australia. The company is engaged in rendering numerous
financial services including business, retail and institutional banking services. Along with this,
organization also renders funds management, insurance, investment and various other types of
services. This has helped the organization to create their brand image in the global market along
with targeting all types of customer segments. Being a mammoth player in the global banking
industry, organizational functionalities should also match up with the international banking
industry but the fact is that, organization was struggling with their communication strategies as
they were not trending as per the latest business trends. Thus, the report will showcase issues
faced by the organization with regards to their communication strategies along with an effective
plan which could effectively diagnose the causes and the impact of change problems in relation
with resolving those issues.

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Change concept
Change is a practical concept and it is necessary in every field with the objective of moving
forward. Process of change is considered as challenging and the nature of change is critical, thus,
it requires substantial planning and application of resources to ensure that the organization could
be able to attain positive and desired goals (Chang, 2016). In this scenario, Commonwealth Bank
of Australia was practicing traditional methods of communication to get in touch with their
employees and customers. With the effect of these communication methods, whole
organizational functionalities were getting affected and this not only affected organizational
functionalities but it also created an enormous gap between the top level management and
employees due to lack of communication. Apart from this, all branches of the banks were also
not operated in an appropriate manner due to traditional forms of communications methods
(Clegg, Kornberger & Pitsis, 2015).
Change identification
Communication issue is considered as one of the top management issues and it is also considered
as the failure for the organization because top-level management finds various issues in terms of
communicating with the employees. It is necessary for every organization to develop
transparency amongst its functionalities because employees are the people who actually execute
the plans made by the top level management. Although, Commonwealth Bank is a mammoth
player of the banking industry due to non-upgradation of their communication strategies,
organizational performance was getting affected. In the scenarios of implementation of change,
resistance and anger from employees are obvious as they were never getting involved in any
crucial functionality, decision making processes and other important affairs (Cummings &
Worley, 2014). No matter, how big or small change is being implemented at the workplace, if
employees were always kept out and never aware of the changes, it will never fulfil
organizational expectations.
This was the major issue for the organization this issue was the most determinant factor through
which not only functionalities of one department, it affects the overall performance of the
organization. In order to change workplace communication methods, organizational top level
management decided to implement certain advanced and trending communication methods. This

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change was recognised by the organization after realising issues and challenges faced by the
whole organization due to weak communication tools (Cameron & Green, 2015). The
communication methods used by the Commonwealth Bank was affecting relationships between
top level management and employees due to which their efforts were not aligned towards the
organizational vision. This was ultimately hampering organizational overall performance.
Factors influencing change
Bonding and coordination amongst the employees, the weak relation between management of
organization and employees, lack of motivation for the employees, lack of communication
mediums to connect with external stakeholders, etc. are some of the influential factors which
made organization realised the need of change (Hayes, 2018). Due to these factors,
Commonwealth Bank suffered from consistently declining performance, high labour turnover
and resistance from employees towards every implementation of change at the workplace. The
primary reason behind these factors was the weak communication strategies and this was
affecting organizational performance at domestic as well as the international level (Head &
Alford, 2015).
To address these issues, organizational management realised that there is an immediate need for
change in the communication strategies with the objective of enhancing organizational
performance and to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Commonwealth Bank operates at
international level and to manage the activities at international level, trending communication
methods need to be adopted as these are capable enough to develop and maintain appropriate
coordination between the headquarters, branches in other countries and subsidiaries so that
desired goals could be adopted. With the help of effective communication strategies, the
organization would also be able to develop coordination amongst the employees and
organizational policies (Pugh, 2016). This will result in enhancing organizational performance
along with developing the relationship between the organizational management, employees and
its subsidiaries.

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Intervention strategies for change
Role of intervention strategies for change is effective implementation of change at workplace
along with dealing with the obstacles and barriers faced by the organization. Apart from this,
intervention strategies are implemented for enhancing organizational performance as these
strategies are capable enough to manage appropriate relation between the expected outcomes of
the organization and the outcomes attained (Kuipers, et. al., 2014). In terms of Commonwealth
Bank, major issues faced by the organization were suffering from issues like resistance and anger
from employees as they were not involved in any of the organizational matters and there was no
involvement of the employees in the organization and due to this, numerous issues such as weak
coordination, correlation amongst the departments of the organization, etc. were faced by the
organization (Hill, 2017).
Adaptation of trending communication strategy is one of the most appropriate and relevant
intervention strategies for Commonwealth Bank. Digital media tools will be the prior choice for
Commonwealth Bank in terms of making organization sufficient enough to deal with the
challenges faced by the employees as well as by the organization. In addition to this, the
organization could also focus towards adaptation of the internal chat system through which
employees would be able to communicate with each other. This will lead the organization to
develop coordination amongst the teammates and employees would also be able to communicate
with the top level management without facing any sort of barrier or obstacle (Kuipers, et. al,
2014). Social media strategies could also be adopted by the organization in order to get in touch
with their target and potential customers and it will help the organization to build appropriate
brand positioning in the customers' mindsets. Social media channels are considered as two-way
communication methods under which customers could be able to share their views, opinions and
other concerns directly with the organization. On the other side, by providing immediate
responses to those queries, organization would be able to establish an appropriate relationship
with their target and potential customers which will ultimately help in originating opportunities
to gain positive outcomes (Botha, Kourie & Snyman, 2014).
The major issue faced by the organization is resistance towards change and with the help of
trending communication tools, employees will be informed for every change which will be
implemented at the workplace before implementation. Openness in the communication will be

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developed along with making organizational functionalities transparent which will lead to
encouraging employee engagement in the organizational procedures and it will boost up
organizational performance.
Change model
Change is considered as the common process which is adopted by all organizations irrespective
to their size, nature, and age. With the fast moving world, change has been the major aspect for
the purpose for the purpose of matching up with the global standards, latest business trends, and
customer’s preferences and demands. Regular adaptation of change helps the organization to
deal with the rapidly changing business environment and it also helps the organization to sustain
for a longer period of time (Doppelt, 2017). Change management is common topic nowadays,
and the issues linked with this common topic are also common and in order to deal with the
change in an effective manner, following change model will be adopted by the organization in
terms of enhancing organizational performance along with dealing with the challenges and
issues:
Lewin’s Change Management Model
This change model is segregated into three steps i.e. unfreeze, change and freeze. This model
describes that organization first needs to develop its goals and objectives and on the basis of
those goals and objectives, their existing strategies need to be amended for the objective of
developing new and modified strategies (Hussain, et. al., 2016). Following are the three steps of
this model:
Unfreeze
Under this step, the Commonwealth Bank's existing strategies will be demolished in order to
make them as per the goals and objectives of the organization. This will help the organization to
make their own way to reach towards its desired goals. As the organization is facing severe
communication issues, thus, their existing communication strategies will be aborted (Smith &
Wong, 2016).

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Change
In this step, relevant communication tools will be adopted for the objective of attaining desired
goals along with reaching towards the desired destination. Under this step, relevant stakeholders
will be invited so that they could share their views and opinions for implementing change at the
workplace (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016).
Freeze
This is the last step of this change management model and under this step; all changes made in
the second step will be freeze to make new strategies in relation to the organizational goals and
objectives. Implementation of new and trending communication tools will be the final step of
making a change at the workplace and this will also help the organization to maintain appropriate
and better work environment for the employees to deal with the issues as well as to enhance
organizational performance (Ellis & Abbott, 2018).

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Conclusion
It has been concluded that change management is a necessary aspect for every organization and
with respect to the revolutionary changes occurred in the global business environment in the past
few decades, it has been observed that organizations need to mould their policies for dealing with
the change so as to sustain in the global business environment for longer run. In this report,
issues faced by the organization in relevance to the change adopted by Commonwealth Bank
have been discussed. It has been concluded that the Commonwealth Bank was practicing with
traditional communication approaches due to which there was no employee motivation,
employee engagement, and openness in the communication at the workplace. This made the
organization realised for implementing change at the workplace in terms of adaptation of
trending communication channels for the objective of enhancing organizational performance.

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References
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Hussain, S.T., Lei, S., Akram, T., Haider, M.J., Hussain, S.H. and Ali, M., 2016. Kurt Lewin's
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