Implementing Change Management in Waitrose

The assignment focuses on implementing change management in Waitrose, a UK-based supermarket chain. It analyzes various leadership styles, including bureaucratic, democratic, and laissez-faire, and recommends the most suitable approach for Waitrose. The document also discusses Kurt Lewin's change model, consisting of unfreeze, implement, and freeze stages, to assist in bringing about organizational change. It concludes that change is necessary for companies to gain competitive advantage and emphasizes the importance of leadership in the success of an organization.

Understanding And Leading
Change

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
P4: Different type of barriers for change and how it influences leadership decision making....3
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
P5: Different types of leadership styles which could be use by organisation to deal with
change ........................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Various types of barriers which company will brings and how it affects decision making
of leaders would be discussed by using force field model. After that different types of leadership
styles which company could opt to increase productivity will be elaborated.
P4: Different type of barriers for change and how it influences leadership decision making
In today's era, company are busy changing and modifying their business strategies so that
they can gain competitive advantage over other competitors and to remain at the top of market,
company have to bring and implement change in an organisation very frequently. But some
companies can not attain it due to resistance in change within employees, which means they does
not want to learn and acquire new skills and competencies to excel in new work assigned to
them because employees prefers to be in their comfort zone. Various types of barriers which
might face by the Waitrose and their employees and how leaders decision will influence from it
will be discuss with working model of force field analysis,
Resistance to change:
It is one of the problem every organisation is facing from as employees does not want to
change their attitude and comfort level in their current company because it requires lots and lots
of hard work (Doppelt, 2017). If employees are not happy with the change then their motivation
will also decrease and so does their potential level of working. So in this critical situation,
Waitrose leader plays an essential role as their work is to clear every doubts employees are
having related to change like objectives, goals, mission etc of Waitrose after change. Moreover
leader have to figure out what type of skills are required for future work in employees and what
type of training methods would be appropriate for them.
Maintaining motivation of employees:
Motivation plays an essential role in the success of organisation as it is directly
proportionate to the growth of company. For instance if Waitrose employees are highly
motivated while working then it will automatically increase overall productivity and efficiency
of company and vice versa. To maintain it while implementing change in Waitrose, leader should
opt both the strategies i.e., monetary and non monetary value. If employees are not happy with
the salary and wages, then leader should provide incentives, bonuses, hike in salary etc according
to the performance of employees. But on the other hand if employees motivation is low due to

other factors then proper communication should be between them is required to remove the
obstacle.
Obstacles in communication:
Main role of communication is to reduce conflict among employees and remove rumours
which have been spreading all over workplace as it hampers environment of workplace in a
negative way. So Waitrose leader work is to clear doubts of employees and disseminate all the
information which is important for them to know. Moreover, leader should use participative
leadership style as it would assist them to work with the employees and clarify their doubts
related to the working.
FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS
This model is used by company to find out different types of factors which are pushing
organisation to go for change or vice versa. There are two different types of factors which is
essential for this model i.e., driving force and resisting force (Hillson and Murray-Webster,
2017). Resisting force are those factors which are against the change which organisation is
doing. If there is equilibrium between both these factors, then company should avoid to bring
changes in their workplace. All the factors of Waitrose will be discussed by allotting points
accordingly,
So the change Waitrose has adopted is technological advertisement in which they are
going to make their own application through which their customer can shop while sitting at home
and according to their preferences. Application will be personalised to every person according to
their needs and demands which will leads to enhance in customer experience engagement.
Moreover, they will use latest and advanced technology through which offers will be prompt
according to the buying pattern of the customers. Main motto of company is to ease the process
of buying so that customer won't switch their brands due to any barriers which they might face
while shopping physically.
Driving factors Resisting factors
Waitrose can only compete with their
competitors on two different factors i.e., low
price and product differentiate. As now
company is providing online services to their
customers, it would make Waitrose on the
After launching application of their own
business it would increase cost for Waitrose as
now they have to distribute their goods for
door to door delivery which incurs cost for
company. Moreover managing the application

upper side of market due to increase in
customer engagement experiences with
customers. (4)
brings cost to the company. So it can be said
that it will increase overall price of the product
to a certain level. (3)
Main advantage of using latest technology is
that Waitrose can cover more customer and
market share as compare to their physical
store. This would assist them to gain position
of market leader(4)
To maintaining the price of product on online
platform and on online is a difficult task as if
there is any difference between these two then
customer will attract to those who has lesser
price. So company have to hire more
employees or train existing one to work on
these project. (3) For this, leader have to
analyse other competitors pricing, cost price to
company and other factors and then decide
final pricing of products so that it would fit in
customer ability to pay.
If Waitrose has more sales due to increase in
customer base then it will persuade to increase
in profitability of company which is a positive
sign for future growth.(3). So leaders have to
modify their existing plans so that they can
fully utilise their resources to its fullest.
Waitrose will require to train their employees
and hire more workforce so that work will be
managed accordingly. It will consumes lots of
time and money which is not good for balance
sheet of company. (2)
After examine all the factors which are discussed above, it can be said that driving forces
has more weightage as compare to other factors. So Waitrose management should bring changes
in their organisation to attain their pre set goals and objectives. To take out the benefit of it,
leader of Waitrose have to modify their style of leadership so that company can survive in every
critical situations.
TASK 3
P5: Different types of leadership styles which could be use by organisation to deal with change
Main role of leader is to show the right direction to their employees so that their actions
and activities would be align to the mission and vision of Waitrose because influences of leader

are judge on the basis of overall productivity of employees (Anderson, 2016). Different type of
approaches which could be use by leader to implement change in organisation is given below
with functional example,
Autocratic leadership:
In this style, leaders prefers to take decision according to the judgements and past
experience rather than asking opinions of employees who are following them (Wagner, 2016).
Advantage of using this approach is quick decision making in critical situations as other
approaches take some time to discuss with other individuals. But on the other side it demotivates
their followers as people does not prefer to work in those company who are not taking their
opinions which is related to Waitrose success. For instance, Waitrose leader can opt for bundle
pricing of products instead of asking marketing department employees while setting the price.
Decision taken by them will be final and can not be changed later.
Democratic leadership:
It is one of the oldest style in which every decision taken within company is implemented
after taking advise of employees (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015). This process is time
consuming as every individual has different perception of seeing things and it is hard for leader
to satisfy every employees demands. Apart from that, it motivates employees to work harder
which leads to increase in efficiency of people. For instance, while starting their application for
customer, leader will consult to all the authorize person and if all are supporting this change, then
only Waitrose will implement change in their working.
Bureaucratic leadership:
This leadership style focus on rules and regulations set in the starting. Decision is taken
after maintaining equilibrium of above mentioned approaches which makes every employees
motivated. For instance, advice of every authorize employees will be taken while deciding the
the user interface of customers and how they are going to present their product in front of them
and final decision would be taken by the leader so that every individual demands will be
considered while implementing it.
So after analysis all the different types of approaches it can be said that bureaucratic style will be
appropriate for Waitrose for implementing change.
Change model by Kurt lewin

This model is based on three steps which will assist Waitrose to successfully bring
changes in their companies (Kurt Lewin’s Change Management Model: The Planned Approach
to Organizational Change, 2018). Different phase of this model is discussed below with
functional examples,
Unfreeze:
Waitrose can only successfully implement change in their organisation if they will
communicate with their employees regarding change, its objectives, skills and capabilities
required, status quo etc. Role of leader is to change the perception of employees so that their
resistance to change factor would be reduced.
Implement:
At this time, employees of Waitrose have now understood their specific roles and
responsibility. Now work of leader is to align employees activities with the goals of company so
that excess work would be removed. Leader can opt participative style to motivate them by
helping employees to complete their work with full potential.
Freeze:
This is the last stage of change model and employees are happy with the change
management has bring in the organisation. Change has become real now, leaders have to monitor
the performance and how it could be enhanced so that company can increase their overall
performance in this critical situation.
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned report it can be concluded that change is necessary for
company to gain competitive advantage over others. Besides this, leaders plays an essential part
in the success of organisation as they have to align activities done by employees with the mission
and vision of company.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015. Changing organizational culture: Cultural change
work in progress. Routledge.
Anderson, D.L., 2016. Organization development: The process of leading organizational
change. Sage Publications.
Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Hillson, D. and Murray-Webster, R., 2017. Understanding and managing risk attitude.
Routledge.
Wagner, W.E., 2016. Leadership for a better world: Understanding the social change model of
leadership development. John Wiley & Sons.
Online
Kurt Lewin’s Change Management Model: The Planned Approach to Organizational Change.
2018. [Online]. Available Through: <https://www.managementstudyguide.com/kurt-
lewins-change-management-model.htm>.