Managing Human Resources: Change Management, Leadership and Motivation during Covid-19 Crisis

This study material from Desklib discusses change management theory, barriers and enablers of change, leadership and management styles, and motivation during Covid-19 crisis. It provides insights on how to manage change effectively and motivate employees to achieve organisational goals. The material includes a short report on identifying barriers and enablers of change within EMTA and suggestions on how to manage change effectively during the current business decline and as part of the future growth strategy. It also discusses the management and leadership styles of the Office Manager and Executive Director, and the impact of Covid-19 crisis on employee motivation and engagement.

Managing Human
Resources

Table of Contents
QUESTION 1...................................................................................................................................1
QUESTION 2...................................................................................................................................5
QUESTION 3...................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

QUESTION 1
Using knowledge of change management theory, a short report to identify the barriers and
enablers of change within EMTA and suggest how the office manager can manage change
effectively during the current business decline and as part of the future growth strategy.
Electronic Manufacturing Trade Association is the manufacturing firm located in UK that
produce, sell and distribute electronic items. As the case study given it has been analysed that
after the departure of UK with EU, there is lots of restrictions impose on export and import of
company (Alehosseini and Jafari, 2020). Such as cost of import increases due to increase in
transportation as owner take long route to delivered goods which decline the profit margin
company along the export opportunities of EMTA is also decreased. Many members of firms
decided to left the UK and focus on their sole business which declines the revenue of company.
It has been analysed that EMTA cannot afford and bear to retain all of their staff members and
current premises. Also during COVID there are various changes take place related to staff
members, retail outlet and manufacturing of electronic items due to this they have to close down
their stores which suffered from loss. Also their members firm also suffered from financial loss
and need to cost effective policy (Galli, 2019). The old office manager decided to take retirement
and company hire new office manager which makes various policies related to make cost
effective strategy. During Pandemic all staff member conduct their working from home and
reporting to manager via online technology to compile with Trade Association's response. After
this situation of COVID19 new manager formulate and introduced new HR policies like
disciplinary as well as grievance procedures which is mandatory for each member to adopt in
their behaviour and working. With lack of coordination and previous culture of company
employees feel demotivated which leads to decline in their team spirit and engagement in
adopting new processes. In order to overcome from this Executive director of company decided
to take advice regarding necessary staff deduction, new organisation staff membership
communication strategy and homeworking initiatives in pursuit of an increased membership
subscription and lower cost base. They also want to take advice as how they train, engage and
motivate their staff member in order to increase their capability, organisation culture and
leadership and management. so employees adopt changes quickly along with contrive in growing
membership to raise revenue and profitability in future.
Lewin's Change management model
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As a HR consultant, it has been analysed that to apply change in EMTA the manager
must use effective change management theory. The most model is Lewin's Change management
model which helps new office manager to make effective strategy for implementing change and
motivate their staff members (Kotarba, 2018). Lewin's Change management model is most
famous model which makes it possible for manager to understand structured and organisational
change for company. This model consists three stages such as unfreeze, change as well and
refreeze.
Unfreeze- In this stage, working is stop at EMTA due to COVID 19 as well as new
manager is appointed as the replacement of retired manager which makes new policy for
systematic working. After that, they stopped working which is conducted with old rules and
policies. At this level they analyse the whole situation and identify the needs for changes in
organisation related to culture, technology and staff member along with take decision to future
changes and development.
Change -At this stage, new manager of EMTA formulate policies for employees which is
compulsory to follow by each staff members in their working. Further, they implement all
changes which is essential for organisation to survive in dynamic environment COVID
environment and developing membership subscription.
Refreeze– In, this stage, employees start working and it has been analysed that they find
difficulties to adopt new disciplinary as well as grievance procedures which decline their morale
and productivity (Lamba and Singh, 2018). Due to many barriers the current staff members feel
demotivated, but there is also various enablers of new policies which helps company to increase
their revenue in future.
By using this model it has been identified that there are various Barriers which occurs due to
new changes and disciplinary as well as grievance procedures in EMTA are as follows-
 Lack of clarity among employees as they working with same culture and policies form
very long time and it is very difficult to them to adopt new policies. All most all
employees deny to adopt changes as they are habitual form all method of working.
 Failure to include staff members in change process, as most of the people are at work
from home which unable new manager to involve them in new changes effective. Also
they are familiar with new manager which do not allow employees to trust.
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 Inefficient and poor communication, after COVID members of EMTA are connected
with online technology as there is no direct interaction among employees and manager
(Shelygov, Filonova and Gorlova, 2019). As the result of this, there is a huge possibility
of miscommunication which leads to demotivate and decline the productivity of
employees.
The enablers of change in Electronic Manufacturing Trade Association are it increases
the productivity and save their cost. As previous they operate their business offline for that they
look land on lease and hire more employees for each area. Now, all employees conduct their
working from home so they do not required addition land for business operations. By
implementing disciplinary as well as grievance procedures they engaged more employees to
adopt new and advance technology in their working which make them more flexible to increase
their skills for future development (Tohidi and AlGeddawy, 2019). The various enablers are
change in management and leadership style, new culture, roles, policies, methods of working and
training to motivate employees. By transforming current culture and process new manager
encourage staff members to increase their productivity and skills which is beneficial for both
company and their development. By providing training and meeting the needs of staff member
they can determine the potential of them and further terminate those who are not capable to adopt
changes.
Suggestions
In order to remove the barrier and use opportunities of current changes it has been
suggested to new manager of EMTA that they use various change management models while
implementing changes in their organisation for systematic working. Such as they use McKinsey
7s model which provide proper guidance to them related to which structure, leadership style,
staff members, strategy, skills, system and share value is beneficial for them to motivate
employees and growth of company in future. Such as they must adopt effective communication
tools such as email and video calling to better interaction with employees and inform them about
new policies, by this they are enable to understand their view points and problems along with
develop trust among them which increase morale of employees. Also they can change their
culture and allow employees to participate in policy making which encourage them to adopt new
technology in their working (Shadnam, 2020). By providing training to staff member and tell
them about future objectives of company they encourage employees to support manager to
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implement changes without any disruptions. By provide training to new employees to increase
their skills in more than two areas and allow them to conduct multitasking in perfect manner they
can cut the staff members which are not required and save their cost.
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QUESTION 2
Leadership can be considered as the ability of an individual to simulate the behaviour of
people to work with motivation and enthusiasm for achieving common goals. Management can
be explained as the broader concept that includes the use of professional knowledge with skills
and abilities to plan, organise, direct, control and manage the activities and resources within the
organisation. Management and leadership styles can be categorised in various forms starting with
highly autocratic to extremely participating management styles (Terry, Hui and Buntoro, 2021).
In such a situation of Covid-19 lockdown it is very difficult for the managers to encourage the
participation of team members for achieving organisational goals.
The management and leadership style of Office Manager was very inappropriate in context
to the prevailing conditions within the organisation. The Office Manager can be considered as an
autocratic leader because he tends to micro-manage the activities of employees on a daily basis
within the organisation. Autocratic leadership is explained as the form of leadership which
centralises the decision making power in the hand of the leader so that quick decisions can be
made for the teams to achieve desired objectives on time. The Office Manager also holds the
responsibilities of managing the teams and creating result oriented efforts for the achieving the
objectives of EMTA. The commanding or autocratic management style can be explained as the
trait of a manager to focus on individual decisions and leadership. The office manager operates
the team of 10 members through the use of an autocratic management style that focuses on
individualistic decision making and controlling the activities of team members individually. Due
to the continuous controlling and management of teams on a daily basis may have reduced the
motivation and morale of the employees. Lower morale and decline in motivation of the
employees can be seen within the organisation due to the autocratic management practice
followed by the office manager (Bartsch, and et. al., 2020), The overall management and
leadership style of the Office Manager is unsuitable and inappropriate in the prevailing situation
within EMTA because the decisions are self-centred and do not involve collaboration of the
employees for decision making. Operational Manager can use participative leadership that
encourages the decisions of the team members which could enhance trust among the employees
and team members. In can be seen the incapability of Office manager that has lowered the
productivity and profits of the organisation and the performance of team members.
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The Executive Director follows a strategic leadership and management style which means
that she uses a combination of various management styles to stay competitive and adapt to the
market environment changes. Strategic leadership of the Executive Director can be identified by
her ability to take such initiative that can improve the leadership and management within the
organisation by actively engaging the participation of employees in the organisational growth
(Charoensukmongkol and Puyod, 2021). The main objectives of strategic leaders are to create a
positive work culture, encourage employee participation, create learning and development,
promote continuous innovation and so on, which encourages strategic productivity of the
organisation. Executive director faces very less problems with their teams because of her
capability to assign the group task as per the capabilities of the team members and encourage
them to achieve team goals. Executive Director understands various methods, practices,
strategies and styles of leadership to manage the employees effectively, which could lead to
increase in their performance. The author identifies various leadership styles that can be used in
various situations. Executive Director also shows authoritative leadership in his strategic
leadership & management because she takes the responsibility of the team and provides
directions to the team to achieve company goals. Executive Director also uses transitional
leadership to encourage innovation, rewarding culture and high team performance to increase
productivity and achieve early goals. Another leadership style shown by the Executive Director
is democratic leadership that can be used to create participation of team members and encourage
their collaboration to achieve common goals. Empathetic leadership is also recognised that can
be helpful to improve team performance by providing emotional, moral and ethical support to the
team members. The transformational leadership style of Executive Director can also be
discovered that improve innovation, talent improvement and social obligations to improve team
performance for achieving organisational goals.
It can be recommended that, the Office Manager must recognise their strengths and
weaknesses and improve them to be more effective. Office Manager and Executive Director
must also consider evaluating the team dynamics for optimising the performance of the team for
achieving organisational goals. The participation of leaders and managers can also improve the
active participation of the employees within the organisation. Also, the team dynamics must be
constantly evaluated, problems, conflicts and disruptions must be intervened by the team leaders
and mangers. The use of autocratic leadership style by Office Manager may reduce the morale of
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employees in normal situations but motivate them during the time of crisis or disasters. The
productivity and decision making can be improved by the leaders and managers by recognising
the needs of employees and team members. The leaders and managers within an organisation are
important to encourage team format to achieve long term growth and productivity (Perkowitz,
and et. al., 2020). There are certain qualities and traits exhibited by bad leaders such as poor
communication, inflexibility, unbalance, incompetence and poor role model. These qualities and
traits must be improved to achieve trust of the team and team members which help to achieve
organisational goals. It can be finally recommended that using a single leadership style may not
be suitable for all team situations therefore different leadership styles must be adopted by the
leaders and managers. It can be explained that these considerations and recommendations should
be adopted by the leaders to improve the performance of teams for achieving organisational
goals effectively and efficiently.
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QUESTION 3
8
Covid-19 crisis has caused unprecedented problems across various businesses like travel and
tourism, manufacturing, retail, etc. throughout the world. The EMCA have also witnessed the
steps taken due to the prevalence of this pandemic and affected the job engagement and
turnover intention of the organisation. The perception of employees regarding job insecurity
definitely has a negative impact on their performance, motivation, morale and willingness to
work towards the achievement of organisational goals. The motivation of staff and employee
engagement are affected by many reasons among which the job in security is one of the major
reasons during the Covid-19 pandemic that has highly influenced the efficacy and
deliberation of employees to work with the organisation. The employees within the
organisation are already psychologically stressed due to the impacts of changing conditions
during the Covid-19 pandemic. On this the chances of reducing the potential staff within the
organisation can lead to demotivation of the employees (Nguyen and et. al., 2022). There are
various theories of motivation that can be used for improving and enhancing the employee
performance and productivity within the organisation. The rewards, employee trust,
recognition, career advancement opportunities, constructive feedback, effective
communication and improvement in corporate culture can help the organisation to enhance
employee motivation. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is among the most commonly used
motivational theories at the workplace. EMTA can fulfil the physiological needs, safety
needs, social needs, esteem and self-actualization needs to enhance and motivate the
employees within the organisation. They can identify the level at which the employee stands
and try to satisfy their needs to initiate desire and motivation to work effectively and
efficiently within the organisation. This could help the employees to overcome the fear of job
insecurity and contribute with higher productivity towards organisational growth.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alehosseini, E. and Jafari, S.M., 2020. Nanoencapsulation of phase change materials (PCMs)
and their applications in various fields for energy storage and management. Advances in
Colloid and Interface Science. 283. p.102226.
Bartsch, S., and et. al., 2020. Leadership matters in crisis-induced digital transformation: how to
lead service employees effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Service
Management.
Charoensukmongkol, P. and Puyod, J.V., 2021. Influence of transformational leadership on role
ambiguity and work–life balance of Filipino University employees during COVID-19:
does employee involvement matter?. International Journal of Leadership in Education,
pp.1-20.
Galli, B.J., 2019. Comparison of change management models: similarities, differences, and
which is most effective?. In R&D Management in the Knowledge Era (pp. 605-624).
Springer, Cham.
Kotarba, M., 2018. Digital transformation of business models. Foundations of
management. 10(1). pp.123-142.
Lamba, K. and Singh, S.P., 2018. Modeling big data enablers for operations and supply chain
management. The International Journal of Logistics Management.
Nguyen, L.A. and et. al., 2022. Crisis leadership during COVID-19: the response of ASEAN and
EU regional leaders. Human Resource Development International, pp.1-19.
Perkowitz, R.M., and et. al., 2020. Environmental health leadership on climate solutions amidst
COVID-19. Journal of Environmental Health, 83(1), pp.38-40.
Shadnam, M., 2020. New theories and organization research: from the eyes of change. Journal of
Organizational Change Management.
Shelygov, A.V., Filonova, A.S. and Gorlova, O.E., 2019. Basic models of managing
organizational changes in modern companies. Экономика и предпринимательство. (5).
pp.1297-1302.
Terry, D.L., Hui, P. and Buntoro, S., 2021. The Initial Positive and Negative Impacts of the
COVID-19 Pandemic on Rural Healthcare Providers: Associations With Team Culture
and Leadership. Journal of Healthcare Management, 66(5), pp.396-406.
Tohidi, H. and AlGeddawy, T., 2019. Change management in modular assembly systems to
correspond to product geometry change. International Journal of Production
Research, 57(19). pp.6048-6060.
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