Analyzing Change Management Strategies: Heinz Australia Case Study

This case study examines the challenges and strategies employed by Heinz Australia in implementing change management initiatives, particularly focusing on the tenure of a newly appointed general manager. The report identifies issues such as business stagnation, employee mistrust following workforce reductions, and the need for improved communication and employee motivation. It analyzes these problems using change management theories and provides recommendations for better implementation, emphasizing leadership's role, employee engagement, and recognizing achievements. The study underscores the importance of change management for organizational survival in a competitive business environment.

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Executive Summary
The following report is based on the case study of Heinz in Australia in which it is mainly
noticed that because of the various reasons the company is failing to grow and increase its
revenue and income. The company is going backwards in its business. The newly appointed
general manager taking stock of the situation has initiated some changes among which some are
radical enough to get mixed reactions from the employees. The paper will be analyzing the
various problems of the changes initiated in light of the various theories of the change
management and then provide recommendations so that the change management program in the
company can be implemented in a better way and better results can be obtained. It is concluded
by stating how change management is extremely important for the organizations to survive in the
growing competition and changing business environment.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Identifying the problems..................................................................................................................3
Developing supported recommendations........................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference:......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Change can be characterized as a progress starting with one specific situation and moving
to the next. An association may require change with the key thought process of enhancing
performance. Change management henceforth is the ability of making this progress utilizing
legitimate assets, instruments, systems and arrangements that would convey huge advantage to
the association or worldwide organizations (Hayes 2018). Through change management, people
are guided and inspired to acknowledge and get ready to receive the change going to the
association. The primary accomplishment of any change procedure relies upon how well the
representatives of the organization acknowledge the change (Cameron and Green 2015). At the
point when representatives grasp the change, the association's prosperity will undoubtedly be,
generally change is of no use. Change management has ended up being dynamically critical in
association everything being equal, over all enterprises. As the business world reliably advances,
associations that doesn’t rapidly and proficiently adjusts to change hazard getting to be out of
date. Associations must make sense of how to move, actualize and administer transformation in
successful ways to deal with achieve persevering focal points (Goetsch and Davis 2014). In this
particular report the change within the company Heinz Australia will be discussed and how this
has affected the employees will be analyzed.
Identifying the problems
In the case study what was primarily seen was the stagnation of the business within the
organization. It was seen that the organization had become non productive and it was not
growing anymore. The new managing director who was appointed called Peter Widdows
acknowledged that the organization was not moving forward and that it was actually moving
backwards. The company which was found in the war period had the aim of supplying materials
to the soldiers and now in the new situation when the objectives of the company changed it
became difficult for them to proceed and implement change management within the
organization.
It has been seen in various contexts that many businesses fail because they cannot change
with the external environment changing. The main problem in this case was the changing outer
environment with which the company could not keep up and hence it was going backward in a
sense (Kuipers et al. 2014). The company’s new managing director had sensed the situation well
and desired to initiate the necessary changes as soon as possible within the organization.
The following are the problems that lead to change management and the problems that
may come after the change management process is initiated. In the present more unstable and
erratic business condition, change management needs to wind up some portion of the way of life
and marketable strategy. Not simply something that leaders choose they have to receive sooner
or later when their plan of action is debilitated or coming up short. One should Try not to do a
similar thing. Correspondence is a standout amongst other change administration issues as found
in the failure to give when a change occurs or will occur (Doppelt 2017). If methodology,
methodologies, administration, or even the updating of a workspace is never passed on to
delegates or staff, one will undoubtedly face shock and restriction. Despite how far reaching or
little a change may be. Talking about interchanges, this is the place numerous associations
emerge to stagger. Many organizations desire to speak to the employees and connect with them

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and communication with the employees is imperative in a big organisation (Lewis, Passmore and
Cantore 2016). Regularly, this implies excessively couple of interchanges, excessively few
channels, and a large number of partners speaking with workers.
This issue needs to be arranged and organized much before the final change is brought in. A
communication plan of an organization must be designed in a way that it is foolproof and that it
covers all the aspects of the stakeholders. The stakeholders of an association comprise the
customers, the workers, investors and all other people who are related to the business and are
impacted in any way by the business. All these people must be taken into account before the
final communication plan is drafted. The communication plan must take into account the
employees of the organization as the first priority when communicating new messages.
A few directors can get so baffled at representative endeavors that they devise a whole
new framework in light of client or customer objections. This can be something to be thankful
for whatever length of time that the representatives know it is coming. Experts of management
need to know why a change is being made, not just the points of interest the change will give.
Perceiving issues and elucidating how this change is intended to settle them can empower people
to grasp the reasoning for the change, and to make them agreed about the change that is brough
in.
In this particular case study it is seen that the company Heinz has become stagnant in its
business activities it is pursuing. The company is moving in a retrograde motion rather than
moving forward towards a positive future. Therefore the new general manager is keen to secure
the future of the company by various measures. The first measure that he took was reducing the
percentage of the employees by 25%. This is one of the very drastic steps that he took, because
he was sure that one of the problems that is persisting in the company was because the problem
of poor employee management. There are too many employees and the management of the
employees is not very well developed as many are without proper job role. However this drastic
25% decrease in the number of employees proved to be one of the very radical changes that took
place within the company because many employees lost their jobs and there was mistrust
prevailing among the rest of the employees of the company (Hechanova and Cementina-Olpoc,
2013). All the employees were under the fear of persecution in near future and they had the fear
that they will lose the job as well. This was for many employees who still retained the job, an
alarm bell, so they lost faith and trust in the company. It is a great difficulty to explain to the
employees the reasons behind reducing the number of employees in a particular company. 25%
is a great number to consider when it comes to attrition of the employees.
Developing supported recommendations
The new General Manager Peter Widdows has introduced a host of new changes which
include 25 percent reduction in the number of employees, introducing support staff or nurturing
staff for the rest of the employees to be motivated, encouragement for new ideas and reducing
the complexity of the organizational structure and implementing a structure that is much less
complex. The general manager believed that all these actions would automatically reduce the
negative aspects of the business which is harming the business and improve the productivity of
the business. The new mantra of the workplace was supposed to be “a great place to work”

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which in itself reflected that the company is looking forward to make the employees more
comfortable at their workplace. The employees must feel to be at home in their workplace and
that would help the company in employee retention and reduce attrition of the employees.
The various stakeholders of the company are the customers, the employees, the investors, the
dealers and the vendors (Kuipers et al. 2014). The problems that were being faced by the
business before the said changes were initiated in the company were also affecting the
stakeholders to a large extent. The employees were laidback which was taking the business step
by step backwards as it was pointed out by the general manager already. The investors were
losing their confidence, therefore they were losing some of their existing investors and also more
investments were also not coming from new investors. This was harming the growth and
progress of the investment to a great deal. For a business to survive it is extremely necessary for
the businesses to get new investments and to grow (Ashkenas 2013). The number of customers
and vendors were also getting affected because of the lack of service attitude from the existing
employees and because of lack of proper marketing. The possible recommendations to improve
the business are as follows. The basic objective of a change initiative is to improve the process of
the organization, to improve the way work is done and people are managed. This also
consolidates perceiving the advantages and people that will enable the strategy and guide the
venture. Many of the change systems recognize that acknowledgement of what to improve which
makes a solid groundwork for clearness, effortlessness, and fruitful usage (Carnall 2018). The
leadership of the organization is the most effective means by whom the final change can be
brought in. The leadership of the organization must be well aware about the change management
procedures so that the people within the organization get well accustomed with the change
process. It is difficult for most of the employees within an organization to suddenly accept great
changes and therefore it is natural that there are resistances within the organization in such cases.
(Matos Marques Simoes and Esposito 2014). The management needs to improve the motivating
factors for the employees and the employees out of motivation may accept the initiated changes..
Cut down on the number of employees is a great cause of mistrust for most of the employees
who are retained, they may be incentivized or promoted (Frankland et al. 2013). Seeing
perspective achievements is a key bit of any endeavor. While managing a change through its
lifecycle, it's basic to see the accomplishment of gatherings and individuals included (Pugh
2016). This will help in the selection of both the change management process and also reception
of the change itself.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that change management is one of the most important aspects of an
organization in order to survive with the changing business environment. When the organization
cannot survive with the changing business environment where the competitors are changing at a
fast rate, the organizations fails to maintain its success. Straightforwardness of Market,
versatility of work, global streams of capital, and quick interchanges have blown that acceptable
situation to bits. There are many ventures, and in every firm, starting from the top and down, rise
in global rivalry has highlighted the administrations total personality on something that
maintained a strategy based distance from the change. There exist several senior executives who
know this and stresses over the same. In case they are asked what motivates them, CEOs linked
with change says frequently that they are anxious in regards the way the power of function will
respond, how they can get their group to cooperate, and how they will have the capability to

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guide their family. They moreover emphasize over holding their firms extraordinary behavior
and sentiment of character and about creating an execution duty and culture. Administration
groups that abandon to get prepared for the human side of change regularly ends up asking for
the reason their plans that are best-laid have gone off track.
In the event that change is not effectively executed, the results can be harsh, for
example, , copied endeavors, wasteful aspects and loss of business openings. The firms can that
can administer the change that can increase the unmistakable interest points over their opposition
that can represent achievement that is considerably more remarkable. At the point when done
right, management of change can reduce the vulnerability among the several representatives
about how the change may impact them, reduce the prospective for a negative impact on
efficiency, and connect with or reconnect the firms workforce. The firms who effectively need to
lead representatives with the help of hierarchical change appropriation should take after a
specific, proactive methodology that fuses four vital advances: defeating opposition, connecting
with employess, executing the stages change and conveying the transformation. Employees who
are occupied with the change will probably invest the exertion important to help actualize the
change and guarantee a positive result for the organization. For organizations arranging a
noteworthy change activity, adopting a staged strategy can help guarantee that the progress to
another framework or process is as smooth and consistent as possible. Failing to inform
representatives ahead of time regarding authoritative changes can build worker unfortunate
behavior by 42 percent. A fundamental piece of each phase of the change management process,
correspondence must be a two-route road with a specific end goal to guarantee the achievement
of the authoritative change.

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