Analyzing Leadership & Change Management in EPLUS Engineering

This report investigates leadership and change management challenges at EPLUS, a Singapore-based civil engineering firm facing issues such as poor performance management, failure to bid projects, ineffective training, and communication breakdowns. The analysis identifies problems like inadequate resource allocation, a chaotic organizational culture, and the impact of internal politics. It explores the links between leadership, culture, power, and politics within EPLUS, suggesting how change programs can be designed and implemented to solve these problems. The report also reflects on leadership and cultural issues, employee engagement, and organizational development, providing recommendations for improvement and highlighting the importance of aligning leadership strategies with organizational goals to foster a healthier and more productive work environment.

Leadership and
Change Management

Table of Contents
TASK 1......................................................................................................................................3
Introduction............................................................................................................................3
TASK 2......................................................................................................................................3
Investigation of case scenario to identify problems that are faced by the company which
change process will have to address.......................................................................................3
Discussion of the links between leadership, culture, power and politics...............................5
TASK 3......................................................................................................................................6
How change is designed and implemented to solve problems...............................................6
Multinational nature of organizational change and different types of change.......................8
Change management theory...................................................................................................9
Reflect on leadership and cultural issues, internal politics and employee engagement and
organizational development..................................................................................................10
TASK 4....................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion............................................................................................................................10
TASK 5....................................................................................................................................11
Recommendation..................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................13

TASK 1
Introduction
Performance management refers to an ongoing process of communication between the
employee and the supervisor so as to facilitate the attainment of strategic objectives of the
organization (Holten, Hancock and Bøllingtoft, 2019). The aim of the report is to investigate
a situation of organizational change, analyzing ample number of causes, organizational as
well as social consequences. The report is based on the case study of a civil engineering firm
EPLUS that is headquartered in Singapore and has involved in many public project works
such as long-term construction contracts i.e. Benjamin Shears Bridge and The Henederson
Wave that the company has worked for by bidding successfully. Currently, the company is
facing challenges that includes failure to bid certain projects, resource allocation to HR
Management are absurd, poor performance management among different project managers
and hence forth. Key issues that are identified in case scenario are poor performance
management, improper training, ineffective training budget, poor selection criteria,
ineffective allocation of resources, slow as well as sloppy flow of communication, chaos in
organizational culture and many more.
The report covers analysis of problems that are faced by the company which change
process needs to address, link among leadership, culture, power and politics with effects on
the company. It also covers how change programme might be designed along with
implemented to solve problems that are identified.
TASK 2
Investigation of case scenario to identify problems that are faced by the company which
change process will have to address
The main task of the performance management is to identify the issues in the organization
relating to the disrupted performance and taking corrective measures to mitigate those issues
so as to ensure smooth running of the organizational operations (Tian and Huber, 2019). In
this case study, according to the lead member of the Tendering team, Alan Yee, the firm is
focusing on the performance management but is placing little attention on the management of
human resources that is causing lack of motivation to work in the human resources.
Consequently, the company is facing dissatisfaction from the companies due to their
complaints regarding errors and inconsistencies of construction staff due to which its project

costs are increasing and returns are decreasing. Mentioned below are some problem faced by
EPLUS which change process needs to address:
 Poor performance management – The project managers in EPLUS are appointed
casually and their selection criteria is mainly based in who was free at that time. Due
to the poor selection criteria, the project managers have randomly chosen the staff
without judging their ability to handle the big construction project. This has resulted
in hindered staff development due to their inability to excel in the prominent projects
(Morin, 2018). The project managers are not able to decide the performance standards
for different projects such as the upcoming project that the company is likely to
bidding for i.e. to build a new highway connecting the city and the Changi Airport
Terminal 5.
 Failure to bid projects: It is analysed that EPLUS is facing issue of failure in biding
certain projects as every one in the company are struggling to support ideas and views
of each other. The company has come close to missing important tender deadlines. It
is due to pressurized time constraints among employees, poor coordination and
cooperation among different project managers, lack of strategic important and focus,
manual repetitive practices and varied workforce.
 No proper training – Initially the staff of the company was mainly comprised of
qualified and skilful civil engineers but now the staff of company is consisted of
casual employees who are not trained properly that could result in accidents that had
not happened ever before as the company has a ‘Zero Accident’ record. So, the
responsibility of the project manager is to ensure close supervision as the staff is hired
on project basis so as to cut the project costs to earn more returns. It is a time-
consuming process.
 Ineffective training budget – Training budget involves the allocation of direct and
indirect costs to be allocated for training and development to the casual employees to
design, develop and evaluate the employee training. In case of EPLUS, it has cut the
training budget so as to reduce the labor costs and is providing training only to fulfill
the minimum requirements to comply with law.
 Ineffective allocation of resources – In EPLUS, there is very small HR department
and resource allocation to human resource management is almost absurd. For big
projects, project managers are not allocated qualified resources that causes serious
issues for the company to perform operations promptly. The Human resource

management of EPLUS is not allocated with sufficient resources that is affecting the
ability of company to secure new contracts (Gryazeva-Dobshinskaya and Dmitrieva,
2018). Due to insufficient allocation of resources like materials such as metals,
cement, concrete etc.; and human resources like labor, equipment and other facilities
for the big projects, the company has also missed the deadlines of completion of the
projects.
 Slow as well as sloppy flow of communication – There should a smooth flow of
communication among the project managers, HR, tending team and the staff so as to
ensure successful completion of project. But EPLUS is facing the issue of slow
communication and information flow due to which the construction staff feels that
they are not getting the chance to provide feedback to the top management or project
managers.
 Chaos in organizational culture – Earlier, the organizational culture of the EPLUS
was very positive and healthy as everyone would support each other but now due to
the ineffective performance management and failure in certain bids, project managers
have undertaken the cost cutting measures due to which a culture of ‘them and us’ has
developed that is reducing the chance to bid for the new highway construction project.
Discussion of the links between leadership, culture, power and politics
Leadership is closely related with the power, culture and politics where a leader uses
the power in order to chaise the goals of the group. It helps in motivating the individuals to
achieve the goals of the business organization. With application of French and Raven bases
of power theory, leaders of EPLUS with information power can bring about changes with the
help of resource information. Information power is a potential influence as information is
form of influence that results in cognition as well as acceptance by target people (Kempster
and Jackson, 2021). Use of information power in EPLUS can impact positively on the
establishment as it builds credibility addition to rational persuasion. Thus, power is the ability
of the leader which is used to inspire the people to follow the instruction. In context to
EPLUS, the leadership of the company is not good as it has poor management which create
chaos to the individuals in performing their operations. In this aspect, use of transformational
leadership theory is effective for leaders of EPLUS as to encourage members of team for
realizing overall success. With this, leader with power raises morale of team and self-
confidence so that the team can align itself for overall vision of enterprise or common
purpose. Power and leadership in a company goes hand in hand as power is the potential of a

leader to influence others. A leader uses power for attaining team and business goals. With
knowledge about operation of a power, it results in enhancing capacity for effective leader to
ensure vitality of corporation.
The organization culture is a belief that asset the organization in guiding their staff in
performing the operation of business. Due to the lack of culture in EPLUS, an effective
decision making is not done by a leader. When Handy’s cultural model is applied by leaders
of EPLUS, the effective culture can be role culture as in this, each personnel of EPLUS is
delegated roles, responsibilities and duties in accordance to educational qualification, interest
and specialization for extracting best out of available resources. With the cultural model,
human resources make decision about what bets they can perform as well as willingly accept
challenges or situations (Abbas, Ekowati and Suhariadi, 2021). Culture and politics are linked
with each other in EPLUS as people with negative politics at EPLUS crosses line of creating
an uncomfortable as well as hostile work dynamic. It causes emotional distress along with
negative performance outcomes. the organization uses the power and politics to control the
employees of the organization in order to attain the business goals.
TASK 3
How change is designed and implemented to solve problems
The managers in an organization spend lot of time on solving the problems by
exploiting the opportunities for change management (Mattar, 2020). This help the
organization in gaining the competitive advantage. When an organization implement the
change so it bring new strategies, practices for the employees and bring new equipment and
software. In relation to EPLUS, by implementing the change the company is able to improve
the collaboration within the business and enhance the productivity of the employees. When
change is implemented so the company make itself capable to respond to changes more
effectively. There are some steps to implement the change which are described as under:
 Identification of change: As regard with EPLUS, an organization identify the change
that is required to be made for solving the problem and align with the overall
objective of the organization. When the goal is identified then the assessment is made
of the impact in order to evaluate how change will affect at all the levels of the
business organization. All the guidelines are provided through the assessment on

implementing the change because it helps in showing the impact of change and need
for support or training of the employees.
 Develop a plan: With reference to EPLUS, an organization is required to create plan
and set the directions accordingly and defines measure that make the change
successful. A company is required to make a plan that will support the employees in
implementing the change. They are provided training and also consider mentorship
programs, cross training plan and open door policies where an employee is able to get
assistance and resolve their quires.
 Communicate changes to employees: In order to convey the change to the
employees effectively EPLUS develops communication strategy so that it can be able
to convey its message by identifying the audience and determine the medium to
deliver the information. Therefore, EPLUS depending on the change is required to
consider the ways that the management adopts to respond the resistance and
feedbacks of the employees. Thus due to the impact assessment EPLUS already
knows the level that can be most affected by the change and also recommended to
communicate with the employees.
 Provides reasons for change: EPLUS is needed to demonstrate the need for the
change to the employees in order to gain their support to implement change. Thus, the
company present the data to support the decision of implementing change. The data
includes the information related to the customers, employee’s surveys, strategic
business goals or budget plans (Dalmau and Tideman, 2018). Thus, the employees of
EPLUS feel motivated when they understand the reason to implement the change and
actively participate in it.
 Seek feedback from employees: When the change is communicated to the
employees EPLUS provides them opportunity to present their views and opinion to
implement the change. It also makes schedule time to conduct the in person feedback
session and also send out surveys. The change makes some people nervous therefore
EPLUS provides opportunity to share their opinion and make them feel to be a part of
the decision making process. The company also gaining the insight to improve the
implementation insight and encourage employees to share their concern in order to
clear misunderstanding.
 Launch the change: In relation to EPLUS, when the change is implemented by the
company so it create the time line to achieve the intended goals and make
arrangement for employees training, equipment acquisition and software installation.

EPLUS considers the pilot program depending on the time to implement the change.
It also test the change with the help of small group of employees to make it
successful.
 Monitor the change: After implementing the change, an organization is required to
monitor the progress throughout the organization in order to ensure that the
employees is following the implementation procedure appropriately. EPLUS directly
observes the employees and delegate the task to the other supervisors. This help the
organization fix up the mistake while implementing the change and also gauge any
unexpected outcomes from the change.
 Evaluate the change: The company work with the employees in order to determine
how the success will be measured of implementing change (Wollmann, Kühn and
Kempf, 2020). EPLUS can measure the results when it has the quantifiable data but
also have brainstorm when it does not have. An organization have to consider some
points such as what is the goals of the change or what should success look like and so
on. Thus, an organization evaluate the result by establishing the guidelines to measure
the success.
Multinational nature of organizational change and different types of change
Organizational change is the alteration of the structural relationship, work
environment and roles of the people in a business concern (Gelaidan, Al-Swid and Mabkhot,
2018). It suggests a new equilibrium of the situation and provides the new environment,
technology, structure, arrangement, job design, and people. Organization grows, survive or
decays that depends upon the changing behavior of the employees. In context to EPLUS, an
organization can adopt any change in an organization for which different types are mentioned
as below:
 Organization wide change: This is change which affect the business of the
organization at all levels. It is considered as the large scale transformation where change
is implemented by the staff by taking careful planning. The change is executed without
causing massive disruption to the operation of the business. Thus, when this type of
change is made by EPLUS so it must have to keep clear goals and to be flexible to adapt
with the changes. An organization find problems with implementing this change for
which it has to adopt changes based on the different situations. With organizational wide
change, managers and leaders of EPLUS requires large scale transformation which might

impact on whole company adversely. The organizational wide change in EPLUS can be
adding new policy, restructuring leadership or launching new enterprise technology.
 Transformational change: EPLUS can adopt this type of change to run their day to day
affairs and also mentioned the software that is used for the particular task. This
transformational change includes those type of change which emphasize only specific
department and the process. This change comes from the outside factors such as
technological, political, social, economical and so on. An organization which adopt
changes quickly can be able to explore the various market opportunities and new factors
to get success but involves risk to some extent. With transformational change, leaders
and managers of EPLUS might completely reshape strategies, processes or systems of
the company that can lead to shift in work culture. It may be a response to unexpected or
extreme changes in external business environment (Iveroth and Hallencreutz, 2020). It
has huge chances to produce fear, doubt or insecurity among staff of EPLUS which
needs to be managed effectively.
 Personnel change: This is change that is occurred in the personnel of the business
organization in various forms such as promotions, demotions, new hires, layoffs and
more. This change can be made on smaller scale where the employees feel secure at their
positions but the confidence level of the new hires and layoffs can shake and reduce their
performance.
In EPLUS, transformational change is effective as with this, leaders of the company can
create significant change in work processes along with culture. Managers of EPLUS with
transformational change can also achieve success in improvement in personnel
performances. It can help EPLUS to speed up required transformation to attain success and
make it potential to hallmark for future.
Change management theory
EPLUS can use Lewins change management model which is a comprehensive and
helps the organization in understanding the requirement for the change that is to be delivered
in the best possible manner. This model demonstrate the reaction of the people when the face
changes in the organization. In relation to EPLUS, the model has been explained below:
 Unfreeze: This is a first stage where people of the organization shows willingness for
improvement or to adopt change by developing an understanding for moving from the
comfort zone to transformed. With reference to EPLUS, an organization can adopt the

personnel change in order to improve their productivity and skills. For this, it is
required to make the people aware about the changes and improve their motivation
level to accept the new ways of working for better result.
 Change: This is a second stage where change is implemented by the organization that
involves the acceptance of the new ways of doing work (Barnett and Woods, 2021).
In context to EPLUS, an organization can implement personnel change in actual with
great planning, effective communication by encouraging the involvement of the
individuals for the change. However, individuals may have fear of the consequences
of adopting the change process.
 Refreeze: This is a last stage where the individuals move from the change state to the
more stable state which is considered as the state of equilibrium. In relation to
EPLUS, all the employees of the company accept the new ways of working or adopt
changes by establishing new relationship. They learned new skills and knowledge and
provide their supporting implementing changes.
Reflect on leadership and cultural issues, internal politics and employee engagement and
organizational development
In relation to EPLUS, when an origination sshas good leadership so it can be able to
implement the vision and values of the organization and ensure effective communication with
the team members. A leader of EPLUS can be able to motivate the employees toward the
goals of the business for better results. This help the organization in resolving the issues and
assist in maintaining the healthy culture of the business concern. The organization strive to
reduce the internal politics as it reduces the productivity of the employees and affect their
concentration on the work (Azizi, 2022)). Politics lead to the negative environment and spoil
the ambience at the workplace and change the attitude of the employees. Thus, EPLUS has
delegate the responsibilities to the individual according to their specialization and educational
qual.
TASK 4
Conclusion
As per the presented information, it is concluded that key problems faced by the
organization that the change process needs to address are poor performance management,
failure to bid projects, ineffective training budget, ineffective allocation of resources, slow as
well as sloppy flow of communication, chaos in organizational culture and hence forth. The

impact of leadership using power together with politics with the enterprise is essential for
attaining competitive benefit. Change is designed as well as implemented in order to solve
problems through sequential steps of identification of change requirement, development of a
plan, communication of details of change to personnel, providing reasons for change, seeking
feedback for change, launching, monitoring and evaluating the change. Multinational nature
of organizational change includes organization wide change, transformational change and
personnel change. Lewin’s change management theory allows managers and leaders to plan
as well as implement required changes with stages that are unfreeze, change and refreeze.
TASK 5
Recommendation
After the deep analysis of the underlying problems that the tendering team and its
leader are facing, it is recommended to the company’s COO Samuel Teo to develop an
organizational change development plan so as to mitigate the problems associated with
Project management and Human resource management. As the tending team of EPLUS is
going to bid for the new highway project proposed by the government, this new construction
project cannot be made successful with the current performance management of the company
as the company is facing many challenges like lack of training to the casual employees,
ineffective training budget and poor selection criteria etc.
So, to overcome the identified problems, it is recommended to the company to
improve the selection criteria of the staff so as to undertake big projects and by appointing
only the qualified staff and not to cherry pick from among the casual staff. It must create an
efficient application process containing the eligibility to be hired as a project manager with
the skill assessments to narrow down the list of candidates. Apart from this, the project
managers must prepare a proper training budget by allocating the cists to the implementation
of effective safety management system, identification of hazards and risks involved in
construction industries etc. It will facilitate in evaluating and developing the courses and
materials.
As part of the change management plan, the COO must task the project managers and
HR managers to allocate the required material and resources to the construction team such as
concrete, cement etc. as and when required. It will help the company in completing the
projects with deadline. The effective training budget will help the company in reducing the
labor costs and increasing the project returns that will yields the overall project profitability.

Due to the cost cutting measures of the project managers, ‘them and us’ culture is developed
that must be improved by improving communication flow in the organization and by
choosing the qualified engineers and electricians for the project. It will develop the
opportunity for the staff to excel in big areas and the positive in the development of positive
organizational culture as well due to which the company will be able to bid for the bog
projects and will be able to complete them successfully.
In a nutshell, the Leadership of the company on part of project managers must be
improved by deciding the performance standards according to the different projects
undertaken and nit the same standards for all projects. The employee engagement must be
enhanced by following the above recommended selection criteria. A proper reward system
must be initiated to promote the employees according to their ability. The CEO of EPLUS
can introduce the above changes by following the Lewins Change management theory by
unfreezing the current situation of ineffective performance management, implementing the
required and above recommended changes and finally refreezing with the introduced changes
and improvement in the performance management, leadership, culture, employee engagement
and organizational development.

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