NZDB 605: Change Management Report for Countdown Supermarket

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of change management strategies for Countdown Supermarket, a New Zealand-based chain. It examines organizational development interventions, focusing on interpersonal, group, intergroup, human resource management (HRM), strategic, and techno-structural interventions. The report highlights the importance of stakeholder management, including employees, employers, community, insurance companies, and consumers, in implementing change. It also discusses employee engagement through various motivational techniques, including training, group discussions, and extra benefits, and explores the significance of organizational culture and ethics. The report addresses potential change management issues and challenges, proposing problem-solving techniques and a detailed change management plan, covering unfreezing, change implementation, and refreezing stages. The plan incorporates employee empowerment, effective communication, and monitoring of team conditions to facilitate a smooth transition. The report emphasizes the importance of ethical behavior, addressing issues such as potential conflicts and the need for performance evaluations.

Running head:
Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1Management
Executive summary
The purpose of the report is to analyse the change management strategies and organizational
development strategies for ensuring successful organizational change of Countdown
organization. Countdown refers to a New Zealand full service supermarket chain as well as a
subsidiary of Woolworths New Zealand. However, in order to deal with the organizational
change, some of the effective recommendation has been provided bellow. The management must
ensure effective communication with the stakeholders. IT is highly crucial for the organization to
provide the employees with both extrinsic as well as intrinsic motivation in order to enhance
their loyalty. The motivation and performance of the employees need to be tracked.

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Introduction
Countdown refers to a New Zealand full service supermarket chain as well as a
subsidiary of Woolworths New Zealand. The mentioned store is one of the most popular
supermarket outlets in New Zealand due to variety of the products available and the quality of
the products offered. It is considered to be the largest single supermarket chain in New
Zealand in terms of number of stores. The chief products offered to the consumers by the
mentioned organization include groceries, utensils, apparels and frozen food items. The mission
statement of Countdown supermarket chain New Zealand includes ensuring a fresh quality range
in an affordable price range to the consumer to ensure efficient consumer satisfaction. When it
comes to the vision statement of the mentioned organization, it includes, Understanding the
requirements of the consumers in an efficient way while focusing on taking the business
decisions on the basis of anticipation of the needs and expectations of the consumers.
The strategic objectives of the Countdown supermarket chain are as follows
1. Focusing on enhancing its market share along with retail leadership in areas like liquor
and food.
2. Focusing on enhancing its business portfolio its existing value of stokes as well as shares
to generate enhanced returns from the shareholders
3. Enhancing the consumer base as well as reputation in the market by demonstrating
effective corporate social responsibility and ensuring a sustainable business

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Strategic Intervention and Performance
The organizational Development interventions can be defined as carefully designed activities
that possess the potential to help an organization for achieving goal or solve a major issue.
Considering the fact that the management of Countdown store is planning to implement a major
change to convert their Home brand, that is Woolworths to essential and the Select and Signature
range to the Countdown brand, in the following paragraphs comparison between different types
of organisational development interventions that can be used to intervene within an organisation
to manage change through organisational members will be analyzed (Cameron, & Green, 2015).
Interpersonal intervention
The mention type of intervention aims to help the organizational members for assessing their
interactions along with devising more effective ways of working as a team. Interpersonal
interventions are chiefly designed for enhancing the knowledge, skills as well as efficiency of the
employees. Loosely structured meetings are organized where group members try to exert
structure on fellow members, group members gain a greater awareness of their own and other's
feelings, motivations, and behaviours Hornstein, 2015).
Group intervention
While the chief focus of the interpersonal intervention is to enhance the performance of
individual employees, the group intervention focuses on both personal as well as professional
wellbeing of a specific team. This intervention focuses on the communication between the team
members along with maintaining a healthy balance between both professional as well as personal
requirements of the group.

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Inter group Interventions
Intergroup intervention has been designed to facilitate corporation as well as efficiency between
different teams within an organization. In several cases, deterioration between professional
relationships between different teams can be noticed in larger organizations. As this result in
deterioration in the performance of the organization, the inter group intervention involves
melding members of different groups to work together toward a common goal.
The Human Resource Management Intervention
The mentioned intervention can be further categorised into three parts namely the Employee
performance management, employee development and employee wellness programs. The HRM
intervention possesses a good number of similarities with the interpersonal intervention. Like the
former, HRM intervention is associated with the idea of enhancing the overall performance as
well as efficiency of the employees. According to researchers, this technique is generally opted
by organization while they face high completion from the existing competitors in the industry.
Strategic Interventions
When it comes to strategic interventions, it chiefly includes extracting the most effective as well
as practical forms of strategic actions and communication (Hornstein, 2015). It can be defined as
an intervention that are aimed at effecting a suitable fit amongst the strategies, structure, culture
as well as external environment of a company. Unlike the above mentioned interventions,
strategic intervention focus on creativity and innovation of the organization.
Techno-structural Intervention
When it comes to the techno structural intervention, it can be defined as the technique where
employees collect information on existing formal organization structure as well as analyze the

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same for the purpose of redesigning as well as implementing new organizational structure
technology and procedures. Some of the steps involving major design change include making
substantial changes in the unit as well as the structure of the organization.
In order to enhance the performance as well as productivity of the employees of Countdown
New Zealand in this scenario, the management of the mentioned organization should implement
the Human Resource management interventions.
Stakeholder Management
Stakeholder management can be defined as the process of engaging with the stakeholders and
maintaining an effective relationship with the same. The chief stakeholders of the mentioned
organizations when it comes to the implement of Human Resource Management intervention are
as follows:
1. The employees: When it comes to the HRM intervention, the chief stakeholder of the
management will be the current employees of the Countdown NZ since the changing
stage of the organization will affect the most. Thus in order to enhance their
understanding of way the mentioned change is important along with involving them in
the change, the cooperation from the end of the employees are highly required (Smither,
Houston, & McIntire, 2016). .
2. The employers: The chief role of a employer or the owners include set the goal of the
organization and provide guidance the employees so that the same can be achieve. During
organizational change, it is the role of of thee owner to ensure that the change is being
designed for the benefit of the organization. Thus employers are another major
stakeholders of the HRM intervention.

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3. Community: considering the fact that active support from the community is highly
required in order to successfully implement the change that has been planned by the
Countdown organization, community can be considered as one of the major stakeholders
for the HRM intervention. Considering the fact that Countdown is planning to expand its
business in future, new efficient employees will be required in order to enhance e their
workforce (Smither, Houston, & McIntire, 2016).
4. Insurance Companies: Considering the fact that one of the major reasons behind selecting
the HRM intervention for the Countdown organization, over any other intervention, is
that with the help of the intervention, the loyalty of the employee towards the
organization can be enhanced. For instance, Insurance companies and retirement fund
administrators are the stakeholders in such HR projects as revamping employee benefits
or negotiating group health insurance coverage.
5. Consumers: the consumers are the chief stakeholders of the Countdown organizations
since they are responsible for the enhancement of revenue of the company after
implementation of the change management.
The chief reason behind implementing the HRM intervention for managing the changes that the
Countdown Supermarket chain is planning is that the mentioned intervention, if implanted in an
effective way possesses the potential to enhance the adaptabilities of the employees towards the
new change by reducing their resistance.
Engagement of Employees in Organisational Change Management
Organizations Development interventions that address performance management involves
training programs, extra benefit program , group talk weekly or semi weekly, informal meetings ,

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hygiene condition, orientation, and game competition (Anderson, 2016). Typically, these
programs are adjusted to the company and on a trial period for one year. If they are positively
effective, they will be part of the company policy.
Name of the intervention advantages disadvantages
Strategic intervention Enhances the understanding of
the employees’ efficiency
May end up pressuring
employees thus causing
employee attrition
HRM intervention Enhances the motivation of the
employees along with their
loyalty towards the organization
HRM intervention , if operated in
an inappropriate way may
include introducing inappropriate
or inefficient policies that will
enhance the resistance of the
employees towards a particular
change.
Group intervention Enhances the bond between the
employees and thus results in
better performance and enhanced
loyalty of the employees.
May give rise to informal
communication, conflicts from
the same and grape vine
communication that in turn will
obstruct the organizational
change
ODIs that targets motivating employees includes training program, weekly group talks, informal
meetings, orientations, extra benefit programs, hygiene condition and game competitions. It is
been found that to a good number of the employees working in large organization, monitory or

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extrinsic motivations are secondary. Majority of the skilled employees prioritize intrinsic
motivation like recognition and work life balance over monitory motivations.
Culture and Ethics
Organizational culture can be defined as the beliefs as well as values that have existed in an
company for a prolonged time. Organizational effectiveness on the other hand can be defined the
concept of how effective an organization is in achieving the outcomes the organization intends to
produce. Effective organisational culture ensure work friendly environment within the
organization which in turn ensure lower rate of conflicts, abusive behaviours and harassment and
thus enhances the loyalty of the employees towards the organization (Smither, Houston, &
McIntire, 2016).
The chief positive impacts that will be enjoyed by the Countdown NZ in case the organizational
change would incorporate culturally diverse employees are as follows:
 Increased productivity.
 Improved creativity.
 Increased profits.
 Improved employee engagement.
 Reduced employee turnover.
 Improved company reputation.
 Wider range of skills.

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 Improves cultural insights
While implementing an organizational change, it is highly crucial for the organizations to ensure
an efficient ethical behaviour towards the employees as well as the consumers (Aarons et al.,
2015). For instance, Severn eleven they face issues were, one of the employees who is superior
may take the credit of his subordinates work. This may result in conflict as well as retention of
skilled employees. In order to deal with this, issue, it is highly crucial for the HR management of
the organization to ensure effective evaluation of the performance strategies and periodic face to
face meetings. Another instance may include offering low quality product to the organization in
order to enhance the profit. For this, effective trailing to the employees needs to be implement.
Problem Solving
Change management issues Problem solving techniques
Change management issues Employees may develop
resistance to the changes
 Provision of
effective training
 Periodic meeting in
order to enhance the
knowledge of the
employees
(Hornstein, 2015)
 Employee
empowerment
strategies

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implementations
Challenges Change posses the potential to
evoke emotions that includes
uncertainty as well as fear.
This in turn may result in lack
of loyalty of the staffs towards
the organization.
 Conducting face to
face meeting with
the employees on a
periodic meeting
 Monitoring the team
condition
periodically
 Training the leaders
to develop effective
patience and
leadership skills
Change Management Plan
Unfreezing 1. The management should conduct a
meeting with the employees where they
will be told about the purpose of the
change and how the management is
planning to implement the same
(Doppelt, 2017)
2. Asking from feedback from the

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employees in order to ensure employee
empowerment
Change 1. Sending emails to the employees that
state about the newly implanted
policies and procedures
2. Providing effective training to the
employees in order to ensure lower
resistance to change
3. Periodic face to face meeting with the
employees in order to understand the
point of views of the employees
refreezing 1. Monitoring the effectiveness of the
implantation of the changed stratagems,
policies and procedures
2. Getting periodic updates about the
employee and consumer satisfaction
rate

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Conclusions & Recommendations
From the above discussion, it can be clearly understood that countdown with the help of the
HRM intervention that possess the potential to implement the change in an effective way.
However, in order to deal with the organizational change, some of the effective recommendation
has been provided bellow
1. The management must ensure effective communication with the stakeholders
2. IT is highly crucial for the organization to provide the employees with both extrinsic as
well as intrinsic motivation in order to enhance their loyalty (Hayes, 2018)
3. The motivation and performance of the employees need to be tracked.

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Reference list
Aarons, G. A., Ehrhart, M. G., Farahnak, L. R., & Hurlburt, M. S. (2015). Leadership and
organizational change for implementation (LOCI): a randomized mixed method pilot
study of a leadership and organization development intervention for evidence-based
practice implementation. Implementation Science, 10(1), 11.
Anderson, D. L. (2016). Organization development: The process of leading organizational
change. Sage Publications.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Doppelt, B. (2017). Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Hayes, J. (2018). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
291-298.
Smither, R., Houston, J., & McIntire, S. (2016). Organization development: Strategies for
changing environments. Routledge.