Organisational Change Management Report: B.R Richardson Case Study

This report provides an in-depth analysis of organisational change management, focusing on a case study of the B.R Richardson Timber Products Corporation. The report identifies key organizational issues, including communication breakdowns, poor corporate social responsibility, lack of workforce diversity, and employee compensation problems. It proposes alternative solutions to these challenges, such as improving communication channels, enhancing CSR practices, promoting workforce diversity, and reviewing employee compensation and working hours. The study recommends the adoption of the Kurt Lewin change model for a successful implementation of the proposed reforms. The report emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues to enhance the company's performance and competitive advantage, and provides actionable recommendations for the management of B.R Richardson.

Running Head: ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT 1
Organisational Change Management
Name
Date

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Executive Summary
Organizational change is one of the critical aspects of the management of every business
organization. Businesses must adopt the change to cope with the ever-changing market
conditions. This paper focuses on a case study company, The B.R Richardson Timber Products
Corporation, one of the players in the timber product industry. The paper identifies the critical
organizational issues that are currently facing the company and suggests the best strategies that
the organization can embrace as a way to address these problems. The adoption of the new
reforms to curb the organization's issues entails an implementation of change within the business
organization. Further, the paper discusses the best change model that B.R Richardson Timber
Products Corporation can use for its successful implementation of reform, and gives
recommendations to the company on how the change should be implemented. Thus, the report is
critical in helping the companies manage their organizational change.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
The B.R Richardson Timber Product Corporation..........................................................................4
Organizations Issues and their alternative solutions........................................................................5
Communication............................................................................................................................5
Poor Corporate Social Responsibility..........................................................................................6
Diversity of the Workforce..........................................................................................................7
Employee Work and Compensation............................................................................................8
The process change action to implement the solution.....................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
One of the inevitable aspects for the success of every business organization is change.
Companies need to continuously identify the key areas and consistently look for the best
strategies that will help increase their effectiveness. The change means a transformation in
various aspects of the business that enhances the development and the implementation of
lucrative ideas. Change helps in the process of re-aligning the organization’s structure, the
behaviors and also its technological aspects. In the organizational change process, there is need
to identify the current organizational issues are necessary to be changed, its alternative solution
and have a clear approach on how to go about it. This case paper makes these aspects of
organizational change management to be clear.
The B.R Richardson Timber Product Corporation
The B.R Richardson Timber Products Corporation is one of the companies that has
experienced various organizational related issues. The company has been managed by B.R
Richardson and several other staffs on the junior level. Joe and Richard Bowman are also key
principals in the managing the operations of this company. The key problems that the company
has faced are mostly related to the human resource, the organizational structure, and the
processes. These problems have hampered the profitability, growth and the competitive
advantage of B.R Richardson Company.

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The current situation at the company shows that it lacks competent staff. A significant
proportion of the employees do not have the right qualification for their jobs, and thus, they lack
the prerequisite skills and the necessary experience needed to deliver for their jobs. The situation
has lowered the current performance of the company due to low productivity from the labour.
Besides, it has led to an increased cost of training the staff who are not qualified for their job
positions as a way to increase their performance.
The B.R Richardson has been conducting hiring for job positions from the internal staff.
This has been a cultural practice for a long time of its business operation. It has been using
promotion approaches whereby the staff that seems qualified are given an opportunity to serve at
a higher position. The company has realized that the approach has severally denied the company
an opportunity to access the best skill and qualification lying outside the organization. Giving an
opportunity to the outside world presents a chance for the organization to get fresh ideas and the
new knowledge to the company. Besides, the company has reformation in the employee
specialization. Initially, every employee could do any job within the company. This made it
difficult for workers to perfect in the job and also difficult for the company to measure or
evaluates their performance.
Organizations Issues and their alternative solutions
Communication
The communication is one of the critical aspects for the success of a business
organization. There should be a clear communication channel where employees of different
ranks can timely and comfortably pass their information. The system should allow the flow of

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information both vertically and horizontally. The communication discordance hampers the free
flow of the information which brings about information related issues. Richardson as the founder
of the organization did not do a lot in consideration to the employee communication. The B.R
Richardson has had issues that are related to communication lines within the organization. There
are many cases within the organization that makes it clear that the company needs to improve its
communication system. For example, not all workers are able to approach and talk to Joe in as
much he is liked by many in the company (Gerhart, 2007).
There should be a change within the organization to address the communication issues
that exist in the company. There is need to improve the level of interaction between the
management and the junior employees in the organization. Bad interaction level has made
hampered the free and comfortable flow of information that could otherwise help the company.
Also, as a way to improve communication, the company should embrace the information systems
which are important in enhancing the communication within the company (Rath & Conchie,
2008). Besides, B.R Richardson should embrace an alternative approach to training the
employees regarding communication. The training will help change the existing culture of bad
communication approaches and thus important in transforming the organization to facilitate
information sharing (Mitchell, 2012).
Poor Corporate Social Responsibility
One of the major aspects of business that helps the companies to improve their
sustainability is their extent of consideration of the CSR. It has an impact on the way the
organization relates with its stakeholders and thus, can attract or make them go away which
affects the longevity of the business. The B.R Richardson has had issues in their CSR. There are

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cases where the company has failed to a safe and comfortable working environment for its
workers. For example one of the workers of the B.R Richardson, Fuller, was involved in an
accident where he was hit with a beam and went for a seven-week off before recovering.
The incident shows that the organization has failed to provide a safe working
environment for its workers. Looking at the glue section in the plant was so crowded making the
environment uncomfortable for the workers (Kotter, 2008). Also, the band saws were not
guarded which was risky and could cause accidents to the workers. The company should be on
toes to ensure that it carries out its business while putting in the welfare of the stakeholders and
the environment. All the activities in the operation process should be considerate of people
(Danish, Ramzan & Ahmad, 2013). The B.R Richardson should provide a safe working
environment for its workers, and also avail all the protective gear required to ensure the safety
and good health of its workers (Beverungen, Dunne & Hoedemaekers, 2013).
Diversity of the Workforce
The diversity of the workforce is important for every business organization. It gives the
company an opportunity to receive different ideas and experiences of different characteristics of
people in the workplace. Usually, companies make efforts to ensure that they at least have a
workforce that is made up of people with diversified characteristics. The B.R Richardson is faced
with challenges of acquiring and maintaining a diversified work force. For example, The B.R
Richardson has a workforce that is largely made up of young people. This brings about a
challenge since none of them can advise an old person. Besides, the company finds it difficult to
maintain a workforce of diversified skills due to problems in employee retention.

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The B.R Richardson should make efforts to ensure that they raise a diversified workforce.
They should incorporate people of different characteristics such as recruiting older people into
the workforce (Griffin, Neal & Parker, 2007). Besides, the organization should consider the
welfare of people and thus increase their retention ability of the employees. These among other
strategies will help the company to increase its workforce diversity (Ford, 2009).
Employee Work and Compensation
The B.R Richardson has had issues in compensating the employees. The employees in
the company work for long hours yet compensated little. This has made some of them to exit the
organization. Such a condition discourages and demotivates the workers, and thus, their
productivity is lowered. It is important for The B.R Richardson to review the working hours of
people, the type of job they do and the amount of remuneration they receive. A fair pay and
together with other benefits will help the company to motivate the employees and thus increase
their productivity (Wood & Menezes, 2011).
The process change action to implement the solution
Reforms in the operations of B.R Richardson Timber Products Company to solve its
current problems depend on the change implementation strategy that has been adopted. It is
important for the organization to adopt a change model that will help to successfully incorporate
the solutions to curb the current organizational problems to the company (Berger, 2009). The
model helps to increase the chances of success in the process of change implementation. The
model will help to balance the actions who advocate for the course and those who are against it.

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The best approach to use in this case is the Kurt Lewin model of change (Cullinan, Bline, Farrar
& Lowe, 2008).
Kurt advocates for three aspects of the change model. It starts with unfreezing stage
whereby the company, makes efforts to minimize the specific forces that are responsible for a
given behavior. The step is essential and forms the base of change. The second level is the
change step where the company does the actual modification of the existing behavior. The actual
step of change entails switching from the accustomed behavior to a new one. The last stage in the
process is freezing (Patrick, 2010). In this stage, the organization enforces the new reforms that
have been implemented. The employees are made to understand the new company expectations
from them. Thus, the model is important and will help the company to get success in its change
implementation process (Angelo & Ricky, 2009).
Recommendations
As a recommendation, there are various areas in the organization that needs to be
considered for the betterment of the B.R Richardson. The company needs to understand all the
organizational problems that it is undergoing through to establish the best strategy to curb them.
Regarding communication, the organization needs to incorporate a corporate culture that
advocates for free communication within the company without creating borders. This will
improve on the communicational issues that are currently facing the company (DeHart-Davis,
2009). Also, B.R Richardson should adopt the best approach to handle the welfare of its workers.
It entails ensuring that the welfare of the employees is better, their health and safety are taken

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care, and they earn remunerated in the better way. Also, it ensures that the employees work with
the agreed hours and not overworked (Engelen, 2011).
Also, it will be prudent for B.R Richardson to consider hiring employees that are
qualified for the available job positions. The approach of promoting employees who are not
qualified for the job positions has a negative impact on the labor performance (Ghorbanhosseini,
2012). Besides, the organization should consider hiring people with diversified characteristics.
This has an impact on the performance of the company. Also, it is important for B.R Richardson
to consider employee training and development. This helps them to be equipped to deliver the
best and also as a way to motivate them since they will feel their growth in career.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is critical for the management of the B.R Richardson to make reforms to
address the existing organizational issues in the company. The best approach is through
identification of the all the problems affecting the business, then, devising a solution that is likely
to curb these vices. Such moves are expected to impact positively through the increased
employee motivation that in turn improves the productivity of the companies. The best approach
to change is through the application of a suitable change model. It plays a critical role in
identifying and handling challenges that may be experienced during the change implementation
process. Thus, proper management of change in every organization is crucial for its
effectiveness.

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References
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Cullinan, C., Bline, D., Farrar, R. & Lowe, D. (2008). ‘Organization-Harm vs.Organization-Gain
Ethical Issues: An Exploratory Examination of the Effects of Organizational
Commitment’, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 80, no. 2, p225-235

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Danish, R., Ramzan, S. & Ahmad, F. (2013). Effect of the perceived organizational support and
work environment on the organizational commitment. Mediating role of self-monitoring
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