Burbs Public Library: Change Management and Supervision Report

This report analyzes a scenario where a supervisor, Anna, implements changes in a lending department, leading to various challenges. The report delves into issues like employee retention, work environment, and communication gaps. It explores the knowledge of planning, problem-solving, and de...Read More

Supervision and management

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Executive Summary
The main aim of this paper is to learn the concept of change management, supervisory,
planning, and directing and decision making skills. In this paper, a scenario has been discussed
which is related to the duties of management. It has been found that there are many changes face
by the employees while implementing the changes in it due to the different approaches
implemented by her. She has to learn the new skills such as communication, conflict resolution
and many others to resolve the issues and improve the working environment. At the end, action
plan is given that she has to follow for resolving the issues.

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Scenario.......................................................................................................................................................3
Issue............................................................................................................................................................4
Knowledge of planning, problem-solving and decision-making techniques that Anna needed to have
considered in planning.................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................7
References.................................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Change Management is a collective term for all approaches to prepare, support and helps
the individuals, teams, and companies in making changes in the operating structure. It is a
procedure, tools and techniques of managing the people by changing the structure to attain the
success in the business. It is a systematic management approach of employee engagement and
adoption during the organization changes and states the how work will be done. At the point of
time, the company has to change the management in order to update the operation activities
according to the new generations (Alvesson, 2015). It is required for the company to supervise
the employees appropriately as per the planning, and decision making techniques. In this paper,
the discussion is made on the topic of “change management, supervision, planning and decision
making and problem solving techniques”.
In the beginning of the paper, scenario of the paper will be discussed from which the
issues will be identified. After discuss the scenario, issues will be found in order to find the
solution as per the correct theories and approaches.
Scenario
Anna is promoted on the higher position of supervisor in the lending services in Burbs
Public Library. She knows that this lending department requires the changes for improvement
due to which she decided to implement some changes in the organization. Before implementing
the changes, she spent the weekend to analyze and examine the work environment in order to
make the working environment more effective. She implements some new changes in order to
improve the services of employees. The changes she implemented in the department for the

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improvement is the time. She changes the roaster of part time employees and also change the
working hours of permanent employees. Apart from it, she also decided to put some changes in
loan procedures manually. The main motive of changing the loan procedures is to make the
process effective so that the department will not face any challenge during the operating
activities.
Issue
As Anna joins her new duties due to which she had no experience and also have lack of
knowledge of the position of supervision. She follows the lot of changes in the department in
order to make it more effective but due to some changes, the employees faces the challenges and
those affects the approaches of Anna to supervise the team. There are lot of issues in which Anna
has to give some focus so that it can improve those area to gets the effective result. The issues
are discussed below:
Lack of employee’s retention- The main issues that Anna faces during her supervision position
is the resignation of employees. There are many employees’ thinks to leave the organization due
to new changes in working system. As per the reaction of employees, there are two part time
employees indicating to gives resign from their positions. The reason of leaving the organization
is the inflexibility to working time. Earlier, the employees perform their duties easily due to
appropriate time as they design their schedule according to the past time period. Apart from it,
one full time employee also wants to leave the organization just because of working period of
time. In earlier period of time, it is observed that the employees are highly encouraged to
perform their duties due to their flexible hours but Anna put some restriction on working hours.
Full time employees are not able to maintain their work life with their professional life especially

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women employees as they have children for their take care. Changing flexible hours affects the
performance of employees which is not beneficial for Anna.
Work Environment: Working environment is the major part for all types of employees as they
have to perform their duties by sitting in the company. Anna design some changes due to which
the working areas gives negative vibes to employees. Anna always believes that she will lose
control if she gives flexibility to employees. The employees of the company also have
complained to Anna about the working area as it is uncomfortable for them to perform their
duties. It shows the lack of supervisory and planning skills as she is not able to provide the good
working environment to employees because she does not know needs and wants of employees
(Shirey, 2017).
Communication Gap: There is also a communication gap between the supervisors and its team
members. Communication is important element for the supervisor while leading the whole team.
According to the scenario, it is observed that Anna change the loan procedure in order to make it
effective process. It is good to make the changes but is also essential for the workers to know
about the changes. It can be said that Anna prepare the plan but she is failed to implement it due
to lack of decision making skills. The person of loan desk does not have the information about
the loan changes due to lack of communication skills.
Knowledge of planning, problem-solving and decision-making techniques that Anna
needed to have considered in planning
Effective planning approach is that approach that includes the vision of the company.
During the planning stage, Anna should also include the thinking of other members regarding the
issues that they are facing. Without getting consent from the employees or any other member of

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the organization, she treated to making changes. However, a proper planning requires including
every measure and suggestions of the team members who are already working (Odumegwu,
2019).
Under the decision-making approach, she has used the autocratic approach that not
proves to be effective. As compare to this, Anna could sue the democratic or participative
approach so that effective involvement of every member can be made. Participative approach is
the best approach that should be used by supervisor because the consent of the employees is
necessary while bringing any change in the policies or working schedule of employees. It should
invite the suggestions of employees rather than bringing changes directly and telling those
changes to employees. The change management approach proves to be effective when
employees are included in bringing changes. In the given case, Anna has brought changes in the
roasters of part time staff by bringing the changes in their working hours. Therefore,
communication gap is also seen in Anna approach at the time of planning. She lacked
communication with the staff members when she appointed on the new supervisory position. It
could bring changes in its planning process by doing a meeting with the staff members for better
interaction (Warren, 2017).
Supervisory skills that Anna appears to lack
Communication: It is seen that communication is the major supervisory skills that should be in
the supervisor position. In the given case scenario, Anna lacked the communication with its staff
members. It is seen that two of the staff have the intention to resign as they were not able to
manage the timing that is being changed by the new supervisor. However, Anna should give

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emphasis on the work life balance of employees also as any change in the working schedule
might distract their personal and professional life schedule (Kemer et al, 2019).
Conflict resolution: On the supervisor position, conflict resolution technique is essential.
However, Anna has solved the conflicts but not able to cater to the needs of the employees and
customers. For example: it has brought the changes in their working hours in order to make the
work more efficient. However, this has disturbed the working schedule of workers as no
discussion was carried by Anna. It has undertaken the conflict resolution technique with control
approach that do not prove to be effective in the organization as employees might not agree with
the changes made by the supervisor (Mathieu et al, 2016).
Time management: time management skills have been most significant part of the supervisor.
Anna has not effectively utilized the team. Rather than taking time for own decisions, she should
take out the time for discussing the changes with its staff members. This aspect brings more
efficiency in the organization as employees are also effectively included in the decision-
making
Conclusion
It is concluded that the change management, planning, decision making skills are
required while supervising the team. In the above scenario, it is observed that Anna fails to
implements the changes appropriately due to lack of skills. It is recommended that Anna has to
implement the leadership skills to manage the team effectively. At the end, action plan is also
given which states that how she can resolve the above issues.

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Recommendations
Change is essential in the management to make the organizational culture supportive for
better outcomes from the employees. Presently in the given challenging situation manager needs
to make effective change management plan for the organization and employees to meet the
expected outcomes (Change, 2019). Every change has a goal and here the goal or the objective of
change is to improve the employee’s satisfaction and productivity and reduce the higher rate of
employee turnover in the organization. Every change needs to follow a particular actions plan
that works and implements according to the desired challenges and situation. Here the change
management and action plan will focus on the following steps.
Identify the factors essential to change
Communicate the Change
Select leadership style
Training and Development
Monitoring the change
Compare the Outcomes

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(Source: By Author, 2020)
Identify the factors essential to change
The first step manager needs to identify the factors that require the changes, here the
factors are related to make changes in the behavior of the manager towards the employees, and to
manage the organizational culture to provide effective working environment. Here manager
needs to change employees’ behavior by motivation and resolve the issues they are facing at the
workplace.
Communicate the Change
After planning the changes and its methods to apply the change manager needs to
communicate the changes and its requirements. Communicating changes needs to adopt two-way
channel of communication because employee can give more suggestions to improve the action
plan and this will make them feel confident about being an essential part of the organization
(Hayes, 2018).
Select leadership style
After the communication of action plan and change requirements, a leader needs to
select appropriate leadership style in the action plan, here most effective leadership style for

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leader is the democratic and participative leadership style because employees are in demotivation
and they are needed to feel as an important part in the functions and operations of the
organization.
Training and Development
Training sessions are required for employees to adopt changes and apply the new developed
features in their behavior; leader can provide the employees effective communication and stress
handling techniques and many other techniques to develop the productivity of the employees. It
can held effective exit interview to identify the major issues with the organizational culture and
can make changes in those challenging sectors to manage the effective coordination between the
employees and leaders.
Monitoring the change
After the implementation of the changes a leader use the monitoring system to identify
the hidden challenges and issues employees are facing, he record the issues and make active
planning to resolve the issues that is making the action plan difficult. During the monitoring
leader also guides employees to apply active involvement in the operation and can motivate them
to take the change as personal responsibility.
Compare the Outcomes
After making the action plan fully implemented, manager can compare the outcomes and
present situation with the past, coordination among the employees, increased productivity, and
lower employee turnover in the organization will reflect the success of the change management
and action plan (Hornstein, 2015).

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References
Alvesson, M. a. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress.
Abingdon: Routledge.
Change, T. (2019). Our goal: transformational change at system level. Retrieved September 20,
2019, from www.unilever.com:
https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/transformational-change/
Hayes, J. (2018). The theory and practice of change management (5 ed.). London: Palgrave.
Hornstein, H. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. . International Journal of Project Management,, 33(2),
291-298.
Kemer, G., Moe, J., Johnson, K. F., Goodman-Scott, E., Sunal, Z., & Li, C. (2019). Further
Validation of the Consultation Skills Scale (CSS): Relationships Between Consultation
Skills, Supervisory Working Alliance, and Interprofessional Collaboration. Professional
Counselor, 9(3).
Mathieu, C., Fabi, B., Lacoursière, R., & Raymond, L. (2016). The role of supervisory behavior,
job satisfaction and organizational commitment on employee turnover. Journal of
Management & Organization, 22(1), 113-129.
Odumegwu, C. (2019). Democratic Leadership Style and Organizational Performance: An
Appraisal. Development, 9(3).

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Shirey, M. R. (2017). Leadership practices for healthy work environments. Nursing
management, 48(5), 42-50.
Warren, M. E. (2017). A problem-based approach to democratic theory. American Political
Science Review, 111(1), 39-53.

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